What are you reading tonight?

[bobo the clown]

You make Cromwell sound like Blair, Will.

[William the White]

You make Cromwell sound like Blair, Will.

Naaahhh... To be a Cromwell you need to have an Henry VIII.

Blair was an outstanding, and slippery, political operator, but he was no Cromwell...

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I've tried (three times) to read Wolf Hall. It doesn't do it for me. It bores me rigid. Sorry, but to me a waste of Booker space.

[William the White]

I've tried (three times) to read Wolf Hall. It doesn't do it for me. It bores me rigid. Sorry, but to me a waste of Booker space.

Doesn't make you a bad person...

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I've tried (three times) to read Wolf Hall. It doesn't do it for me. It bores me rigid. Sorry, but to me a waste of Booker space.

Doesn't make you a bad person...

But I feel so guilty having put the judges through all that and then turn my nose up at their offering.

[William the White]

I've tried (three times) to read Wolf Hall. It doesn't do it for me. It bores me rigid. Sorry, but to me a waste of Booker space.

Doesn't make you a bad person...

But I feel so guilty having put the judges through all that and then turn my nose up at their offering.

They don't mind - they like eccentricity...

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

Bring up the bodies is superior to Wolf Hall in every way
i'd go so far as to put it in my top 5 ever.
but i didn't see Goebbles in her depiction of Cromwell- she writes him very sympathetically in my view.

That's the fantastic trick - in the last hundred pages she shows him weaving a web of lies, half truths, digging into the gold himself, sending the innocent or half or quarter guilty to execution - working cynically and ruthlessly, organising his own fortune, working out how to profit by the fall of the Boleyns, manipulatively transgressing every code of political 'honesty'... And yet, brilliantly, shows him as a human being, with his own sense of 'mercy' (like not hanged drawn and quartered but a good French swordsman)... That is her 'sympathy'...

I feel she wants you to see both sides... her strength as a writer lies exactly in the ambivalence of her protagonist... The truth is Beria or Goebbels... The mirage is the decent man, who, while behaving decently, and missing, truthfully, the dead wife and children, can, somehow, accustom himself to serving power with absolute clear, intelligent, cynical ruthlessness, with its inevitable bloodshed and lots of opportunities for making gold. And, almost, convince himself it's for 'higher' goals...

I wouldn't like to choose between the two novels myself. But you can bet I'm looking forward to the third.

My hope is I'm wrong, but there could be two more disappointing Booker winners in between...

agree there is ambivalence in her portrayal of Cromwell but by limiting the references to the land grab that was the dissolutions,by insinuating that there were elements of truth regarding AB's adultery, and by portraying practically every other character as unsympathetically as possible Henry = a sentimental fool, Jane= an empty headed munter for example i would still say her fiction is also a piece of historical revisionism. For me there is more of the working-class (anti?) -hero who is doing his utmost to survive and benefit his family in Mantel's Cromwell than "master of the black arts"
No less brilliant for all that mind.
Hope i'm not disappointed by the final part of the trilogy . It will be difficult to depict howthe Howard's victory over Cromwell is achieved after building him up as the master of intrigue

[William the White]

agree there is ambivalence in her portrayal of Cromwell but by limiting the references to the land grab that was the dissolutions,by insinuating that there were elements of truth regarding AB's adultery, and by portraying practically every other character as unsympathetically as possible Henry = a sentimental fool, Jane= an empty headed munter for example i would still say her fiction is also a piece of historical revisionism. For me there is more of the working-class (anti?) -hero who is doing his utmost to survive and benefit his family in Mantel's Cromwell than "master of the black arts"
No less brilliant for all that mind.
Hope i'm not disappointed by the final part of the trilogy . It will be difficult to depict howthe Howard's victory over Cromwell is achieved after building him up as the master of intrigue

Yeah - that's a really interesting take on it.

i'm not sure she feels a great debt to historical accuracy, though - so, of course, it is an act of revisionism. But you have a point about the working class 'anti-hero' interpretation that i hadn't seen. The 'black arts' view of Cromwell is, of course, the common view of many of the other characters - some who hate it, some who fear it, some who admire it, and some who hope to get rich from it. But you are right there's room for the reader to interpret it differently, and that has to be purposefully done by Mantel.

You're right that it's brilliant. she's making herself into a really major novelist with this trilogy with a very distinctive voice.

[clapton is god]

My wife has been banging on about Wolf Hall for two years now. Its there on the shelf together with Bring up the Bodies. Spose I'd best give them a read then.

[Harry Genshaw]

Just near the end of a great footy book. Calcio - history of Italian football. It explains all the little idiosyncracies peculiar to the Italian game. As one who only has a passing interest in the game over there I've loved it. If you follow Serie A I'd say it's a must read.

[bwfcdan94]

Just near the end of a great footy book. Calcio - history of Italian football. It explains all the little idiosyncracies peculiar to the Italian game. As one who only has a passing interest in the game over there I've loved it. If you follow Serie A I'd say it's a must read.

something has always driven me to the ultra defensive side of the italian side of the game i think they way sides used to play in the 90s and 2000s was something nothing short of amazing

[Harry Genshaw]

Just near the end of a great footy book. Calcio - history of Italian football. It explains all the little idiosyncracies peculiar to the Italian game. As one who only has a passing interest in the game over there I've loved it. If you follow Serie A I'd say it's a must read.

something has always driven me to the ultra defensive side of the italian side of the game i think they way sides used to play in the 90s and 2000s was something nothing short of amazing

The discussion around the whole catenaccio system is one of the highlights of the book. Bizarre that over here goalless draws are usually instantly forgettable, whereas over there it was often seen as 2 outstanding & beautiful defensive performances. Games were far tighter in the 70s & 80s, but the great attacking Milan side of the 90s opened things up a bit

[Lost Leopard Spot]

started to read Iain Banks's Stonemouth and just ordered Iain M Banks's Hydrogen Sonata

[clapton is god]

^ I think I'm right in saying that when he writes as plain Iain Banks its main stream fiction but when he puts the 'M' in the middle its science fiction? Only ever read The Wasp Factory of his.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

^ I think I'm right in saying that when he writes as plain Iain Banks its main stream fiction but when he puts the 'M' in the middle its science fiction? Only ever read The Wasp Factory of his.

Aye, that's correct. Stonemouth is set in northeast Scotland (keep the heid) and, just from the opening chapters mind, seems to be a tale of unrequited love and gangsters. Hydrogen Sonata is the new 'Culture' novel.

[General Mannerheim]

"Dont tell my mum i work on the oil rigs; shes thinks im a piano player in a whore house"

life and times of an off shore rigger, pretty funny thus far.

[TANGODANCER]

Just read a couple of chapters of James Skivington's The Miracle Man. Loving it already. Hilarious.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Nothing. I aint got a book. Bast**ds.

[bobo the clown]

Nothing. I aint got a book. Bast**ds.

I'm sure you have. It's just one specific book for which you are waiting a day longer than you expected.

There are options .... I'm sure.

.... & I've wasted my 9,999th post on you. The last one as a legend. I'll be immortal soon. So why should I care ?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Nothing. I aint got a book. Bast**ds.

I'm sure you have. It's just one specific book for which you are waiting a day longer than you expected.

There are options .... I'm sure.

.... & I've wasted my 9,999th post on you. The last one as a legend. I'll be immortal soon. So why should I care ?

I don't care neither.