Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 30

[cahn]

In which, despite the title, I would like to be told about the English Revolution, which is yet another casualty of my extremely poor history education :P :)

Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:

The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.

Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.

The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P

Comments

Books

[mildred_of_midgard]

what about the Goldstone Winter Queen & Daughters book?

So having (just about) finished it, I have to say, if Massie's Peter the Great is the book I always knew I always wanted (readable bio of Peter *and* summary of the Great Northern War), Winter Queen is the book I never knew I always wanted! It fills in the gaps and connects the dots between 17th century Stuarts I know and 18th century Hannovers (there I go again :P), Hohenzollerns, and Orleans I know by covering the Stuarts and Palatinates I don't know!

I *did* feel talked down to by the author at a couple of points, which is a personal hot button, but given that it was only twice and that the rest of the book was so readable and informative, I will forgive her. I'm having trouble bringing myself to buy a book whose Kindle sample I liked aside from the non-stop talking down, grrr.

Also, the fact that I had as much context for Winter Queen as I do is thanks to you, Selena! So thank you for that as well as the book rec.

(Massie is still very long and still unfinished, but I've skipped ahead to the Great Northern War, which is a good 250 pages by itself, and I'm already becoming enlightened and looking forward to being more enlightened. I'll let you guys know when I get to the point where I feel comfortable talking about this war.)

Re: Books

[selenak]

Winter Queen is the book I never knew I always wanted! It fills in the gaps and connects the dots between 17th century Stuarts I know and 18th century Hannovers (there I go again :P), Hohenzollerns, and Orleans I know by covering the Stuarts and Palatinates I don't know!

Oh, same here! Down to the tiniest dots. I mean, there were mentions of these people in books I've read before, but, for example, I hadn't known that the aunt Liselotte mentions visiting in a nunnery now and then was a daughter of the Winter Queen, and how she got there in the first place, let alone that the same woman had been fancied by Fritz Gread-Grandfather the Great Elector in his youth. Or that the Prince Rupert who kept coming up in the English Civil War connection was Sophie's older brother. (And I definitely hadn't known about Boye the poodle!)

You're ahead of me with Massie's Peter the Great - rewatching the 80s tv series based on it has reminded me I still haven't read it yet, nor another proper Peter biography, and I've been meaning to. So many books, so little time!

Anyway, I'm glad you liked the book as much as I did. (And that we both rolled our eyes about the Mary-Queen-of-Scots tie in.)

Re: Books

[mildred_of_midgard]

Or that the Prince Rupert who kept coming up in the English Civil War connection was Sophie's older brother. (And I definitely hadn't known about Boye the poodle!)

Same! And there were things you had told us that I had read and vaguely stored in my memory, but now I had more context. Like Sophie's account of the cat-fight between somebody's wife and mistress and jewelry and throwing things and living in the same household--I got to that in WQ and was like, "Oh, that was Karl Ludwig!" You had told us that, but I had no idea who he was, so he was just a name instead of a person.

You're ahead of me with Massie's Peter the Great - rewatching the 80s tv series based on it has reminded me I still haven't read it yet, nor another proper Peter biography, and I've been meaning to.

Not that there are no points where I'm rolling my eyes or going, "I don't think that's true," but for sheer readability, I'm actually enjoying this one even more than the Catherine the Great bio. I can see why this was the award-winning one. I recommend both, but the Peter one even more, especially since you know more about Catherine already.

(And that we both rolled our eyes about the Mary-Queen-of-Scots tie in.)

I did, but the two points where I outright felt insulted were:

Goldstone: Americans don't know who Montrose is, but...
Me, an American scholar: Excuse you, Goldstone.

It would have been so easy to phrase that in a more accurate and less condescending way as, "Montrose isn't well known in the US, but..."

Goldstone: Don't worry if you don't understand this excerpt of a letter between Elizabeth and Descartes. I read their correspondence and I don't understand a thing!
Me: Look, the Emilie biographers I've read haven't felt the need to pat us on the head and tell us it's okay if we don't understand Newton. And since I've read more works by Descartes than I have works by you, Goldstone, and I've studied way more philosophy of mind than Elizabeth Stuart or her daughters...this passage was actually perfectly clear to me.

But those were minor compared to the sheer amount of information and the very accessible writing style.