Wolf Hall: Hilary Mantel

[poliphilo]

When I've not been running round after relatives I've been hanging out in Hilary Mantel's version of Tudor England. It's very lovely in there. Deep and plush and full of birdsong and changing light-  cinematic as so many modern novels are. Our hero is renaissance strong-man and polymath Thomas Cromwell ( who I always had down as one of the great villains of English history) and the villain (insofar as there is a villain)  the sainted Thomas More-  here portrayed as a 16th century Hoover or Beria-  with a taste for getting up close and personal in the torture chamber. I like books that overturn orthodoxies. 

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

And this book is called Wolf Hall, yes?

We Ricardians have always known More was a bit of a creep. And his role in the cover-up of the Richard Hunne affair is utterly appalling.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm not entirely sure why it's called that. Wolf Hall is the home of the Seymours and we've not even been there yet. Jane Seymour hovers at the edge of the story- a pale, mousy girl, shrewder than she seems.

[sovay]

I like books that overturn orthodoxies.

It's the first book of hers I've read: I think it must have been written very deliberately against A Man for All Seasons. I really liked it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Now I want to go back and read some of her earlier books. There's one about a spirit medium that particularly tempts me.

[sovay]

There's one about a spirit medium that particularly tempts me.

I've been told to read A Place of Greater Safety, about the French Revolution.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

A Place of Greater Safety is quite brilliant. The thing I love about Mantel's writing is how history is just a bunch of stuff that happens, somehow. So many times, historical fiction unfolds like a costume drama where the characters are marionettes marching along to a pre-determined plot line. Mantel's historical fiction (like APOGS and Wolf Hall) has a bunch of folk trying to do what's best for themselves and the world around them, and viola! suddenly history is made. It's a refreshing change, and I wish I could write like that:-(

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I certainly can't find the same loathing for TC that I had formerly now I've read Wolf Hall. But when's she going to be publishing the sequel? And will we have to wait another aeon for the paperback version to be released???