Strange history

I’m currently reading a book about king Henry VIII, and the British reformation. If you don’t know what that is, here’s a brief explanation: Henry wanted to get rid of his wife Kathrine, and make some babies with Anne. The pope said no because he’d burn in Hell, if he did. Henry didn’t want to burn, because he was very fat and afraid the demons would put him on a spit and have a bar-b-cue.

Therefore, he named himself the leader of his own religion, and told the pope to put his rules where the sun don’t shine. The pope retaliated by telling Henry he couldn’t go into any of his churches anymore. So, there! It was kind of like the stuff you see on the playground of every elementary school around the world. But I digress.

Next, he gave everyone in the kingdom a very democratic choice. They could either join his new religion, get locked in the tower, or have their head chopped off. It’s truly amazing how many folks took the third choice. But again, I digress.

Wedded Bliss

Anyway, he dumped Kathrine, married Anne and lived happily ever after… For two years that is. You heard right, he dated the girl for six years and only married her for two. Talk about fickle. Being tired of Anne he started fooling around with Jane on the side. Kind of like an American soap opera, but with fewer commercials, and lots more deaths.

Then he remembered the “Till Death Do We Part” clause in the wedding contract. So, he killed Anne. And most of her family for that matter. Apparently, Henry’s religion allowed for this sort of thing. Who knew? Admittedly it was far easier than sending missives, back and forth, to the pope for several years, and eventually starting your own private religion. Truly amazing, isn’t it.

Book him Danno

Because of all the intrigue, that period of history has always fascinated me, and this book is very detailed. It’s also very long and boring. I mean this puppy’s a real snoozer. It should be sold at pharmacies as a cure for insomnia. But maybe I shouldn’t say things like that, as many of you are writers and might want to publish such a book, someday.

If this is the case, I’m truly sorry if I offended you. Also, if the author of this tome happens to be reading this, I will deny emphatically that I’m reading his book. Not only will I say I’m speaking about some other author, but I’ll make reference to his book and say how great it is in comparison. That’s called being a suck up, and isn’t proper at all. But I have my reasons.

You see I respect the process. He likely researched for years in order to create this terrible monstrosity. I know he traveled to museums around the world to read five-hundred-year-old documents, because his book says he did. I certainly don’t have any reason to doubt him. Especially when he has copies of them spaced throughout. Then again, the copies are illegible. Mostly, because of their age and the fact they’re written in a different language, called English. Yes, English was a separate language five-hundred-years ago. So there!!

On and on and on

All this got me to thinking; Why do I care about events which happens five-hundred-years ago? It’s not like I can change any of them. I can’t learn anything from them either. If I lopped off my wife’s head today, they’d toss me in jail and throw away the key. On the other hand, Henry executed something like twenty-five-thousand folks and stole all their property. This is not what I call a nice person. Yet, I’m willing to read a long boring book about him. Who can tell?

The reason I bring all this up is, I rarely read non-fiction. Frankly this book isn’t all that good of an introduction to it. Unlike all the stories I’ve read, this thing is very nonlinear. Instead of telling us the story of the main character, he jumps all over the place cramming in as many useless facts as he can. For an example: Bob found himself having to take a leak, and sauntered toward the men’s water-closet. About halfway across the room, he ran into Bill. Now Bob had never met Bill so just nodded in acknowledgment. Sadly, Bill stopped Bob trying desperately to tell the story of Sue.

Then the author goes into a fifty-paragraph tale outlining Sue’s life, including all relevant dates. Next, he mentions Sue’s enemy Mike. At this point the author takes back forty years explaining every evil thing Mike has done. When Bill finishes all that, the author feels it necessary to explain what Bill and Bob’s relationship will be in the coming years. Afterward he gives us all the important dates of Bill’s story.

All this takes about forty pages in the tiniest of fonts, and Bob hasn’t made it to the bathroom yet. Let’s all hope he’s wearing his Depends, or else the dance floor’s going to have a huge puddle. I just hope nobody blames it on the dog. If they did the author would be compelled to use twenty pages to tell us the dog’s life story including his lineage and pedigree.

I believe you

You might be wondering how the author knows this stuff. He derived the knowledge from letters written back and forth from all those folks and as many other people he can think of. This brings up several questions. First: Why did everybody save every scrap of paper they received? I don’t even save silly birthday cards after a week or so. But this guy references five-hundred-year-old letters Henry wrote to his wife. Including all drafts, edits, and blood stains. It was a violent time.

Why does he feel he needs to do this? Does he honestly think his readers won’t believe him? Dude I’m reading the book. I trust you. I don’t need you to interrupt my reading every five words with ten pages of reference. Just tell the story and put an index at the end, for crying out loud.

Also, what is it with all these asterixis? Every other page has one at the end of some sentence or other. These are supposed to tell you there’s more information at the bottom of the page. If the guy has more information, why doesn’t he just put it there? It’s not like he’s giving me a ton of exercise moving my eyes to the bottom of the page.

It’s just not for me

Frankly, I rarely look at the bottom. When I do, the new information is usually something like, “Thanks to Sir Framulot, who’s letters to his great grand nephew gained me an insight on this issue.” First of all, how do you write to someone who hasn’t been born yet? Next, I asked several of my writing cronies, and they all said they don’t look at footnotes either.

I’m going to write a book someday and all the footnotes will be something like; This crap is boring. or Ignore those last few sentences, I made it all up. or perhaps I just finished my seventh beer, and…

Drunken wriring is great!!