The story of the world is littered with the corpses of clever, charismatic women. To make your mark pretty consistently over the past 3,500 years, as a female of the species you have had to be extra special; and being special in historical times usually led to the cold embrace of an early grave.
Having conjured Henry’s brainy bovver-boy Thomas Cromwell from his own tomb in her Man Booker winner Wolf Hall (2009), Hilary Mantel now does the same service for Anne Boleyn. And just as Wolf Hall tracked Henry VIII’s waning interest in Katherine of Aragon, we now realise that spiky Anne “all elbows” is running out of time. Henry has spotted pale Jane Seymour and wears the moronic expression of a stunned veal-calf, “knocked on the head by the butcher” as Mantel’s Cromwell puts it. Anne has become another staging post in Henry’s ramble through the carnal, political and sacral corruptions of absolute power.
In Bring Up the Bodies, all Henry’s skulduggery, the desperation of his framed traitors and his women’s privations are experienced through the prism of Cromwell’s consciousness. This is a compelling plot device but also an interesting historical one. Historians have been described as frustrated novelists – we select key characters, become mildly obsessed by them and follow their story through the evidence they leave behind. Mantel tells us up front – by seeing with Cromwell’s eyes, hearing with his ears – that this is what she will be doing.
In A Few Words: Complex, courtly intrigue; Detailed and Dark; Power, lust and greed; Power and corruption; Tedious
Star Rating:
No comments:
Post a Comment