Sean

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

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I feel that exact way about Anne Boleyn. Her relationship with Henry and her relationship with Cromwell were some of the most enjoyable parts of the book for me. Mantel is a genius at writing female characters.

Yeah, that's what I meant by Henry not necessarily being the BEST character—Anne Bolyn is handled totally masterfully. I just meant Henry is fascinating as he is a KIND of character who is almost never represented like this.

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Yeah, that's what I meant by Henry not necessarily being the BEST character—Anne Bolyn is handled totally masterfully. I just meant Henry is fascinating as he is a KIND of character who is almost never represented like this.

 

Point taken. It'll be amazing to see how Mantel writes Henry in the third book as he slowly makes his way towards having Cromwell beheaded.

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It'll be amazing to see how Mantel writes Henry in the third book as he slowly makes his way towards having Cromwell beheaded.

 

But it's not that slow, right? It's just under eight months between Anne of Cleves' arrival and Cromwell's execution, which Henry openly regretted not a year later. It's going to be an interesting take on the whole matter, even more so than the downfall of Anne Boleyn.

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Demonstrating that I lack any real knowledge of this history. To make up for my inexcusable ignorance, here's a sneak peak at Mantel's third novel in the Cromwell trilogy: spoilers.

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So why exactly must the story have to be a tragedy? In no way did I feel Mantel was going for a tragedy with Wolf Hall. Quite the opposite, it's a comedy. Clearly supposed to be an optimistic take on this turning point for England & in a broader sense the West itself. By comedy I do not mean she's going some source of laughter, I mean it in the strict classical sense of the word. For me this is one of the strong points of the novel, not a lot of people are doing comedies like this today.

 

edit: this post is going to look weird, I was responding to the people on page 3. I thought I was at the end of the thread.

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This may be preemptive but, wasn't this supposed to be the September discussion? What happened there? The main page even says, 'we promise!'

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The newest episode of In Our Time is on the Book of Common Prayer brought in by Crammer. Elaborates on the fact that back then during the service as a lay person you would have no idea what is being said which is why they ran the bell at communion cause otherwise people wouldn't know what part of the mass they are in.

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My god this book is so good. I finally got around to checking it out from the library a bit ago and I'm about half way through. I wish I could drop all my homework and just read this for a while. Alas, alas.

 

 

I absolutely love how Thomas More is drawn (along with basically everyone else).

 

 

I wonder if you could get Shawn Elliott to do the cast. He tried to do a book cast with Jeff Green and N'Gai Croal, which foundered after a few episodes. And he's a cool/smart dude.

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Do you have a link to that Shawn, Jeff and N'Gai podcast?

http://ooccommunity.com/media/out-of-the-game-archive/

Calling it a book-cast is a bit of a stretch, but it's true that they did talk about some books sometimes.

Those dudes are used to recording in-person and the skype format did them no favors, but it was still good enough that I miss it.

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I may be late to the party on this, but started reading Bring up the Bodies and have to say it's extremely underwhelming. The first third or so is explaining what happened in Wolf Hall and there seems to be a some deliberate character reversals just to keep the story going.

 

It feels like a typical sequel of fan pandering, "Here are all your favorite characters in the same place, again!" It just seems to lack subtlety and the writing seems to be kind of dumbed down. I'll try to stick with it, but I think I'm good just ending it with Wolf Hall.

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It's been over a year since I read Bring Up the Bodies, but I did not have the same experience reading that book as what you're describing. Specifically the character reversals; there is a fairly sizable gap between the first and second book so the characters are certainly different, but not to an extreme that felt dishonest to what the first book establishes. Do you have any specific examples for what you're referring to?

 

Also, I'm not entirely sure that these books are the type to delve into fan pandering, but maybe that's just how I approach the material and see Mantel's ultimate goal with the trilogy. 

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I think I definitely preferred 'Wolf Hall' to 'Bring up the Bodies'. I think Mantel has perhaps turned Cromwell into too much of a superman in terms of his innumerable abilities and many fingers in many pies and in doing so undoes a lot of the core belief in the character. Still looking forward to the conclusion mind.  

 

Was unaware of the BBC adaptation. Shall keep an eye out for that.  

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Thanks for your collective insights, I think I have a better handle on framing my thinking on the subject.

 

 

 

 

Argh, that writing. She takes you firmly by the elbow and walks you through her thoughts.

 

That article in the London Review of Books actually put me off ever reading anything she ever wrote given that the first 3 paragrpahs were good but the remainder is sensationalist crap, awfully, melodramatically written. 

 

I finished Wolf Hall 2 weeks ago, I hated it at first because I had the bitter taste of that LRB piece in my mouth with every sentence ringing with the same sense of bull shit.

 

I calmed to it later and it ended up being fine. I still found the constant crying and emotional outbreaks a bit much, like I was reading The Tudors: Bold and the Beautiful edition. However, once you got past that there was a fair amount of entertainment there and Mantel weaves a good yarn.

 

Just don't read that article first, it is terrible.

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Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but does anyone have a link to a plot summary before I go into Bring Up the Bodies? It's been several years since I read Wolf Hall. :S

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