In this case, the perspective is not that of a newcomer but of a girl born in New South Wales. Together with the best-selling The Secret River and The Lieutenant, Grenville’s latest novel forms a trilogy that grapples with the inevitable conflict between the English settlers of Australia and the Aborigines.
A brilliant study of character, this sequel expands Mantel’s rich portrait of 16th-century society, deftly revealing the ramifications of birth, alliance, and personality at a time when being on the wrong side in a political argument meant death. Mantel writes in the third person, although the point of view is entirely Cromwell’s-a device that is initially disconcerting, but effectively so, since it allows the reader at once to see through Cromwell’s eyes and to observe him. His honesty with himself regarding his motives makes him more admirable than Henry, whom Mantel presents as straining to justify his self-interest with religion and duty. As Mantel describes him in Wolf Hall: he “can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury.” His grief over the deaths of his wife and daughters and his mentor, Cardinal Wolsey, serves both to soften and to steel him, for as he says, “You must thrive in spite of yourself and so that you may do it, God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone.” He labors to improve England by codifying law and assisting the poor, but as he pleases the king, he tirelessly machinates to take his own revenge and further his own ambition. Self-made and well educated, though low-born and roughly raised sensitive and self-aware, though almost unhesitatingly brutal quintessentially English but familiar with France, Italy, and the Netherlands, this Cromwell is omnicompetent.
Here, as in the previous volume, Mantel’s unflagging Cromwell is wonderfully attractive despite his ruthlessness. Mantel originally intended to present Thomas Cromwell’s role in the reign of Henry VIII over the course of two books, but then discovered that she and readers both would need more than the turn of a page to recover from the swift downfall and beheading of sharp-witted and sharp-boned Anne Boleyn, so this segment, more closely focused and intense than Wolf Hall, constitutes its own volume, the second of what will now be a trilogy. Its prose is at once lyrical and tightly clever its large cast of characters is acutely observed and its well-known story is vivified and humanized. Bring Up the Bodies Hilary Mantel Henry HoltĪ worthy sequel to the Man Booker Prize–winning WolfHall, this book sparkles on every level.
0 kommentar(er)
