BRING UP THE BODIES
By Hilary Mantel
Fourth Estate. 410 pages. £20.00
ISBN 978 0 007 315 093
I was not surprised at all that this won the Booker prize. It is a fascinating and utterly convincing story, retelling the nine months leading up to the execution of Anne Boleyn. I’ve started rereading and find it even better a second time. If you can, try to read Wolf Hall first to understand better the rise of Thomas Cromwell, whose story this is.
Bring up the Bodies needs careful reading, though, once you have become familiar with Hilary Mantel’s style, you will no doubt appreciate its intensity. Locations and characters change swiftly, without the markers most writers provide. This leads to a sense of the dizzying and disorientating state of court life and places Cromwell’s own character at the centre. It is his story: we see and hear from his perspective as he strides through court, overhearing and dictating, manipulating and plotting. Court is a world in which allegiance and advancement are all and only the blacksmith’s son, Cromwell, has the king’s confidence.
Misogyny, rights & Rowling
It might have seemed as if the isolation of lockdown was making people mad last month when the stars of …