This was selected for my book club, and I do like historical fiction.
Here’s the blurb …
She is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. But in the lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur.
He is a reluctant ruler with no hunger for power, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his older brothers. But it isn’t long before whispers begin to fly around the court. And with the growing belief that the King is not fit for the throne comes the idea that another might rule in his stead.
May We Feed the King dances between the lives of a historical subject who risks the future of his kingdom and a woman who turns to the past to hide from her present. Laced with desire and longing, it is a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King ‘Great’, and a life meaningful.
This is an interesting novel, particularly for a first novel. The structure is intriguing. The chapters are short and disjoint. No one has a name, just a role – the curator, the King, the cousin’s wife. We start and end with the Curator, and spend the rest with the King. A very reluctant medieval king. Rumours swirl and we as readers must wonder about the reliability of history. The action takes place in an unnamed palace (and an unnamed country), I kept thinking of Stirling Castle in Scotland.
The writing is beautiful…
When my circumstances changed, and it became plain to those around me that I was floundering, my work served as a kind of conversational solace. Tell me what you’re working on, people would say when it dawned on them that the questions had run out, and there was no other comfort to offer. In this way, my work has sustained me when people could not.
I believe you can tell a lot about a person who doesn’t believe the rules apply to them, but that is another thing entirely.
He has often wondered whether his entire person has been shaped by what he was – and wasn’t – in relation to his brothers. He was not the wood or the worm, but the hole that spoke of its presence. Not the person or the chair, but the indent left behind on the seat.
A review