Wolf Hall

[poliphilo]

As I was leaving Waterstones yesterday I caught sight of a copy of The Mirror and the Light displayed on a table with a bunch of other "modern classics". Dear God, but it's enormous! I doubt I'll ever read it

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Wolf Hall is fabulous in every way. I developed quite the crush on Markk Rylance's Cromwell.

I don't think the TV series is better than the novels. Both are excellent. Mantel's style throughout Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies is an interior stream of consciousness that I've never seen before-& I read a lot. Quite the remarkable take on interior dialogue.

I found The Mirror & the Light very difficult to read. Part of that was its publication date: It was published here in the States on March 19,2020, and the following day, the world shut down because COVID. My attention span shrank during COVID & Mantel's Cromwell trilogy requires full attention. I was never up to the task and still haven't finished the task.

[poliphilo]

Maybe I'll have another go at reading the trilogy somewhere down the line. I do admire Mantell. Beyond Black is one of my favourite modern novels.

[mallorys_camera]

The trilogy requires one's full concentration. I found it very difficult to read, and I am a prodigious reader. However, once you figure out the codex, the books are truly fabulous.

They're the only things I've read by Mantel, though a friend just sent me her memoir for Christmas, and I will be reading that soon.

[poliphilo]

I believe I've read the Memoir. In fact I believe I've read most of her things....

[akalablossom]

I liked Claire in the 👑

[lblanchard]

Maybe I'll give the Mantel trilogy a go one of these days, although I'm no great fan of the Tudors.

But I have an appetite for well-researched historical fiction

I can offer a couple of suggestions, then. Sharon Kay Penman's novels are all extraordinarily well-researched and not exactly bodice-rippers. Her first, The Sunne in Splendour, is about Richard III. The rest of them take place earlier, with Simon de Montfort, Prince/King John, King Richard et al. making appearances. They're not bodice rippers by any means but there's more than a little romance in them.

For something completely different, the Deborah Harkness vampire/witch/time travel books are also well-researched. The first begins in the Duke Humphrey library (the protagonist is a historian of early modern science, and alchemy) and settings and so forth are uncannily accurate. The second is set in 1590 and the fourth wanders around from the later eighteenth century to the present. The third and fifth are more or less in the present.

[poliphilo]

I don't care that much for the Tudors either, but Mantell's slant on Henry and his court differs from what we're used to.

Thank you for the recommendations.

[akalablossom]

I've read a bit of Harkness. She is quite good :)

[rhodielady_47b]

By the time it was all over with, I'm sure Anne Boleyn must have wished she'd never met Henry!
:^\

[poliphilo]

A lot of people got to feel that way about him....

[rhodielady_47b]

From what I've read Henry was educated and meant to go into the holy orders rather than be a ruler but then his older brother died and he got bumped up into the role....and that upset a lot of people's plans for the future: NOBODY knew what to do with a king who'd been educated and taught how to THINK for himself.

[poliphilo]

He'd been taught to think, but wasn't very good at it. At least, that's my view of the case.

It occurs to me that Stalin was also educated for the Church.