The Wise Woman

by Philippa Gregory

spoiler warning – character outlines

I’ve really enjoyed all of Philippa Gregory’s Tudor novels: The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover and The Boleyn Inheritance. This novel, however, does not even seem like it was written by the same author. Perhaps it depends on what the reader looks for in a novel. I like to have at least one admirable protagonist — someone with a constant personality that can be relied upon throughout the book. All of the characters in this book are inconsistent. None have a set of morals, values, goals or even bad qualities that do not fluctuate. In other words, the characters do not seem real. Alys has no loyalty. She never knows what she wants and is constantly changing her tact with no real thought put into it. One minute she wants to be noble and do what is right and the next she goes exactly the opposite direction with no good reasoning or remorse. She was born a peasant and abhors the treatment and way of life that is their lot, but once she rises a little higher she becomes the ill-treater. Hugo is made out to be plain evil, but does show a tiny bit of promise here and there, however it always ends up meaningless as if he has forgotten his sincerity altogether. Morach is the most unwavering of all the characters, but her witchcraft is sketchy. It is hard to tell what is real and what is false. The old lord is very intelligent and seems to read people well, but he lets Alys off way too many times and seems blind to what is directly in front of him. Catherine is strange, but could be acting out of character due to the witchcraft — as I said before, it is hard to tell who is acting of their own accord. As I didn’t like any of the characters and felt no sympathy or admiration for them, I didn’t enjoy this book as I have Philippa Gregory’s other novels. I can stomach a bit of witchcraft and sexuality in a novel, but this one was over the top in both departments. Other than theme and characterization, I feel it is a was fairly well written (period details and such). The ending was surprising — Alys, once again, acts out of character but finds a sort of redemption for all of her sins.