Radical Love

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Focussing on John Church as the narrator meant for a really engaging character driven story - the epitome of an unreliable narrative and a character that even by the end you’re not really sure you know. He was funny, passionate, manipulative, unreliable and wholly engaging. I absolutely devoured this story and know I will be thinking about it for a long time after. I thought the way that the author created the dynamic between John and Ned was excellent and I particularly liked the way that the abolitionist history was also woven into this as well creating a complex and layered individual out of an otherwise unknown name in the documentation. Sally was an absolute force in this narrative, I loved the scenes in which she played a part. And the great plan? To replace Carr with a creature of their own choosing in the king's bed. Bacon uses his network of spies to find a suitable candidate but stumbles across George Villiers, a twenty year old lad from Leicestershire who is perfect - in every way. Bacon himself prefers a more rugged man to pleasure himself with, so when he realises he is attracted to the pretty strawberry blond boy, it can only lead to trouble. church is an emotional, manipulative yet inspiring and conflicting man. he is such a complex and well written character that whenever I think about unreliable narrators, he will inevitably come to mind. I started off loving him, and as the book developed those positive feelings became eerie and uncomfortable. TW: homophobia, racism, rape, child abusers, violence, transphobia, death penalty, slavery and more. So this is very much historical fiction with a postmodern outlook: deliberate anachronisms in diction, and social commentary combine with a slanted retelling of history (in reality, the puritanical James was never this shameless and there are still scholarly debates on whether he actually slept with any of his male favourites). I especially like that this reclaims the Stuart courtly romp from all the ultra-feminised tellings that make it a place where women's subjectivity rules with stories of female friendship, forced marriages, lush love affairs and lots and lots of glossy clothing descriptions. This is entertaining, fun and necessarily bawdy, but also politically astute and has a more heartfelt element that emerges, particularly near the end.

tensions. By day, John Church preaches on the radical possibilities of love to a multicultural, working-class congregation in Southwark. But by night, he crosses the river to the secret and glamorous By day, John Church preaches on the radical possibilities of love to a multicultural, working-class congregation in Southwark. But by night, he crosses the river to the secret and glamorous world of a gay molly house on Vere Street, where ordinary men reinvent themselves as funny, flirtatious drag queens and rent boys cavort with labourers and princes alike. There, Church becomes the first minister to offer marriages between men, at enormous risk.

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By day, Church preaches the transformative effect of radical love to all those who attend his service, but at night he crosses over the river to attend mollie houses on Vere street where drag queens sit alongside serving boys and aristocracy in a unique club where everyone is equalled. It is here that Church begins performing 'marriages' between men. First as a bit of a frivolous attraction requested by Mrs Cook who runs the mollie house and then for a more serious reason... for why shouldn't men be allowed to marry other men. Is this not the perfect example of the radical love he preaches in his sermons? Although the ending, for me at least, is the weakest point of the book (I felt it slightly rushed) it certainly doesn't distract from the punchy nature of the book as a whole. But now, at the moment of my greatest success, a deadly alliance of my enemies has begun closing in on me. Led by the King's beautiful and poisonous lover Carr, this new alliance threatens to turn our foolish King against me, so that I may rot in the Tower.

their relationship though? not the sweet gay romance I expected it to be. church is a very manipulative and controlling individual, who constantly pushes neds boundaries and fails to consider the dangers of not only being gay but also a person of colour. Ned specifically states he does not wish to have sex, so church puts him in a situation where he knows he will give in. Ned states he does not wish to go to the molly house, so church leads him there under false pretences and pressure him into going inside. Ned breaks up with church, so church begins to stalk him, waiting on his street for days just to get a glimpse of him, sending him countless amount of letters that change from romantic declarations of love to violent rages centred around betrayal.Based on real people and real events we’re guided through the story by a completely unreliable narrator. John is a liar, he omits things, forgets to tell you stuff then ‘remembers’ later in the story. But I liked him. I felt sad for him, he falls in love and it consumes him. He makes bad decisions but when we learn about his childhood we can see why he is so flawed.

In a city that is tired and exhausted by many hard years of war and beset by soaring prices which are giving no indication of coming down any time soon, and tension between political parties, minister John Church preaches on the radical possibilities of love to a congregation growing in number who want to believe that perhaps the true salvation of love could be what is needed in this broken world.While reading this book I kept finding myself reminded of the diaries of Derek Jarman, losing friends and loved ones to the AIDS crisis in a world concerned with morals, where tolerance and love where reserved for the people already receiving it. It was no surprise then, when I reached the dedication at the end of the book, in remembrance of “gay men and trans people of my youth, who died in such huge numbers during the Aids crisis”. I won't go into too much plot detail other than what I've already outlined, because, frankly, I don't think it matters that much (spicy as it is). Sure, there's a bunch of scheming and murder and betrayal and all kinds of fun things - I've seen people compare this novel to The Great (which I've sadly not seen), and it reminded me a lot of Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite. But either way, what truly makes this book stand out isn't what's going on, but how it's told. For one thing (as the comparison to The Favourite indicates), TDKOL is really modern in its approach. It's sort of...deliberately ahistorical, not with regard to what it's depicting (I genuinely don't know or care how many of these things actually transpired), but with its sensibility. There's the hillarious Dramatis Personae in the beginning, there's the modernized and foul language, Bacon's asides to the readers...but more than anything else, for me, it is the way TDKOL handles identity and power.

Narrated by the (profoundly unreliable) Francis Bacon, apparently the cleverest (and, in some regards, the stupidest man) in England, TDKOL was, to me, an absolute delight. Of course, knowing the historical context, gives it an edge of dark inevitability too: we know already that Francis Bacon suffers a catastrophic fall from grace and that George Villiers—for all he commanded the love of two kings—will die at the age of 35 in a random stabbing. Francis Bacon sees himself as modern man and this is very much a modern book: it uses the historical setting to tell a story of power, love, corruption, and self-deceit. It is not, for all its wit and energy, a happy or straightforward story, and Bacon is a narrator it is both impossible to like and impossible to dislike, but my God. Much as I imagine George Villiers would be himself, TDKOL a wild, fascinating, and bittersweet ride.Bold, irreverent and utterly original, The Dangerous Kingdom of Love is a darkly witty satire about power, and a moving queer love story that resonates through time. I’m conflicted on how I feel towards the