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Liked It “Ackroyd obviously did an insane amount of research to so fully flesh out the life of Thomas More. Not only do we meet More and come to understand why he held so strongly to his beliefs in the face of death, but we understand More's adherence to an old way of life in the face of great change in...” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“Ackroyd obviously did an insane amount of research to so fully flesh out the life of Thomas More. Not only do we meet More and come to understand why he held so strongly to his beliefs in the face of death, but we understand More's adherence to an old way of life in the face of great change in England. Important to read for its parallel's to history now, particularly the way in which More was given his trial and the arbitrary and baseless "reasoning" used by Henry VIII, his parliament and his cronies to suppress More and those who believed as he did.
Vanessa S wrote this review Saturday, May 9 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I won't lie - this was dry and took me probably 6-7 months to read as I read in between, but is an excellent history. I had trouble with Ackroyd quoting medieval English directly, not understanding what More had written, but I understand that it would have been an annoying device for Ackroyd to "translate" what More had written, and Ackroyd probably left it up to the reader to interpret. (Unfortunately not all of us are versed in medieval English.) Also in the middle of the book I recall there was much description of paintings and More seemed to take a lot of art history liberty with what those paintings implied -
I understand that Ackroyd wanted to leave the end note of the book with More's execution but I would have appreciated knowing more about how he was martyred instead of, for example, the pages of art history analysis.
More was much more important than I even thought he was - he symbolized an important point in history and held to his beliefs in a way that I can imagine only few people doing so today. I understand why his the patron saint of lawyers - his belief in the rule of law was intense. If demonstrating this was Ackroyd's desire, he has succeeded. Recommended if you can handle the dry side of historical writing....and medieval English.”
“This book makes St. Thomas More come alive. It's nice to watch "A Man for All Seasons" after reading this book, because you'll get to understand better the larger context of the events depicted in the movie and the characters' lines. My favorite part of this book is the transcript of St. Thomas More's trial. ”
Crissy wrote this review Thursday, September 13 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Akroyd writes with an irresistible scholarly starchiness. It's hard for me to like More, though I love reading about his times. He was a medieval, hierarchically inclined stick-in-the-mud at the time that this world view was about to be shattered. It's hard for us in modern times to even imagine a world that had the kind of (oppressive) cohesion of his youthful years. He stuck with the mothership of the 1000-year-old franchise. Unfortunately, his boss had left the building. He was obviously killer-intelligent, but smug. Though nobody should die as he did, he was blind to the end to his own hypocrisy. He apparently enjoyed whipping heretics.”
idyll wrote this review Tuesday, August 21 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
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