Mantel – Biblioklept

Portrait of Thomas Cromwell, Hans Holbein the Younger

(Parts one and two for those who care).

I suppose one sign of a great book is that it leaves you wanting more, and as Bring Up the Bodies arrived smoothly and precisely to its end, I found myself wanting more—more of those impeccable period details, more shots of London crowds gathering to ogle corpses, more of Henry VIII’s pretzel logic—but most of all, more time in Thomas Cromwell’s mind, which is the supreme pleasure of the book. Mantel’s restraint pays off, although a glance at Bring Up the Bodies hardly seems restrained: it’s 432 pages in hardback, or 24 hours in the audiobook version I listened to. I usually shudder when a review copy of 400 pages shows up at Biblioklept World Headquarters. It seems to me that most books of 400 pages could be improved dramatically if the author cut 200 pages—or added 600 more. And surely Mantel could have added 600 or 700 pages to the story of Henry’s offing the Boleyn siblings. The material is just that rich. But Mantel knows what she’s doing here, and the book she delivers is balanced and thorough and engaging and, as I said, leaves the reader wanting more, leaves us anticipating the trilogy’s conclusion, The Mirror and the Light.

Mantel’s ability to express Cromwell’s keen intelligence reanimates the Tudor saga, which I frankly could give a rat’s ass about on its own. Okay, the plot is fascinating, but much of history fascinates. What’s remarkable is the manner by which Mantel channel’s Cromwell’s mind. His brain is always at work, and Mantel shows us that brain at work. It would be a mistake to suggest that Bring Up the Bodies has no prose style, but it’s difficult to describe the style—Mantel elides authorial intrusion; her free indirect style stays close to Cromwell’s perceptions, but she knows when to move her camera out, knows when to show her audience a shot of his face or a gesture of his hand when he receives some piece of information or imparts some command. She rarely tells us what Cromwell is thinking, instead allowing us to go through the cognitive process with him.

And that cognitive process never rests. There’s a remarkable passage near the end of the book that ties together so many of the book’s themes and images. I would quote in full but I listened to the audio, so I’ll have to paraphrase (forgiveness, please). Cromwell is busy making arrangements for the executions of Boleyn and the men accused of sleeping with her, and his mind turns somehow to imagery of gristle and bone and fat—and he wonders what the ancient Greek pagans and Hebrews of the bible did with the meat from their sacrifices—Surely they didn’t waste the meat, surely they gave it to the poor, he thinks. Cromwell figures Boleyn as a sacrifice and then converts that sacrifice into a concern for the common people of the commonwealth.

Of course, it’s a mistake to see Cromwell’s motivations as absolutely pure. The revenge plot of Bring Up the Bodies unfolds so smoothly that the reader (okay, this reader) is slow to catch on, to see how delicately and expertly Cromwell snares those who brought down his beloved mentor Cardinal Wolsey. His control is so precise (Mantel’s control is so precise) that he refuses to tip his hand to himself, let alone the schemers around him, let alone the reader.

Still, Bring Up the Bodies concludes with an uneasy Cromwell, a man already looking for solace in grandchildren, in some kind of futurity, in a life (in a rare metatextual gesture on Mantel’s part) on paper, a figure marked in ink and words. He’s too perceptive—too sharp a reader—not to see the writing on the wall, even if that wall is some years out, even if that writing is still malleable and undefined. Cromwell has controlled the myriad political, familial, and personal circumstances that surround the wishes of his prince, King Henry, but he knows that it’s only a matter of time before his favor falls.

Bring Up the Bodies is a fantastic sequel to Wolf Hall, picking up the reins in media res, yet never resting on that first book’s tropes (“Choose your prince”; “Arrange your face”), but rather absorbing them and then adding to them. Mantel has given those of us not particularly interested in historical fiction a great reason to read some, although dithering about genre seems silly here. Ultimately, she gives us a powerful, character-driven story, a story that we think we already know, but understand anew in her retelling. Recommended.

1. For context/overview/summary/brief review, read part one.

2. I’m about three-quarters of the way through Bring Up the Bodies, and have thoroughly enjoyed it so far. Rich and detailed, full of ideas and keen perceptions. Mantel posits protagonist Thomas Cromwell as one of the first English Renaissance figures—pre-Elizabeth, pre-Shakespeare. The big payoff of this reading is to see the machinations of a character whose grand task is to make the rest of the world’s ideals (and illusions of those ideals) fit with his own emerging plans for a more egalitarian and democratic world. This isn’t to say that Cromwell is always a nice guy—he can’t be, he has to keep spoiled King Henry happy—but he’s generally sympathetic.

3. Mantel’s Cromwell recalls to me Tyrion Lannister, my favorite character of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire epic (I enjoyed the first three books very much). In his role as Hand of the King (chronicled this season on the HBO adaptation Game of Thrones), Tyrion faces the thankless task of protecting the people (common and royal) of King’s Landing through a difficult time. Like Cromwell, Tyrion is seriously misunderstood and even hated; he does great good for the “small folk,” yet they will never understand or credit him with these efforts.

Tyrion is also extremely shrewd and cynical, yet also honorable—just like Cromwell. Both characters must play the game of thrones (a game, Martin’s characters remind us and Cromwell equally understands, that you either win or die), but they do not play solely for their own gain. Sure, Cromwell is making boatloads of money from his gig as Henry’s chief minister, but he ultimately has the good of his family and the good of the English people at heart. He and Tyrion want the best for average, common people, and these characters’ humble origins have ensured that they actually understand the needs and wants of average, common people.

4. Why am I belaboring a Game of Thrones comparison? I don’t know. It’s just what’s running through my head as I audit the Bring Up the Bodies audiobook. I guess I think a lot of Martin fans would dig Bring Up the Bodies (and vice versa). Mantel and Martin both do an excellent job at showing the plotting and the scheming, the crafty intrigue that underwrites politics. Both writers have a keen ear for sharp, ironic dialogue, and both writers know not to tip their hands too much to the reader, instead letting the reader puzzle out the shady circumstances for himself.

5. Perhaps off track: Here’s a sketch by Vincent van Gogh of Austin Friars, where Cromwell lived:

6. The thread of language that links Mantel and Martin in my reading is undoubtedly their sources: I am sure that when my ears perk to certain shared phrases (terms of heraldry, descriptions of a plague, “bedwarmer”), what’s really happening is that I’m reading through them, reading their origin texts.

7. Martin handles female perspectives in a patriarchal world with savage aplomb. His women transcend their limited circumstances (as well as the stock conventions that can beleaguer genre fiction). Mantel provides her own subtle critique of patriarchy in Bring Up the Bodies without tripping on historical reality. There’s a remarkable moment when one character—I don’t recall exactly who, but probably a member of Henry’s Privy Council—questions why God didn’t make women’s bellies transparent so that the important matters of succession, inheritance, and paternity might be made, well, clear to all. And while Anne Boleyn is hardly a sympathetic character in Bodies, keep in mind that we’re limited to Cromwell’s perspective. In Wolf Hall, Cromwell showed great concern for Thomas More’s wife and daughters, who were punished for (perceived) crimes that they had no possible agency in abetting. In Bodies, Cromwell shares similar concern for Jane Parker (among other women), wife of George Boleyn (Anne’s brother). Of course, Jane is going to help seal the case against Anne Boleyn for—

8. —brother/sister incest.

9. And yes, bro-sis incest may be lurid (lurid enough, I’ll admit, to get its own tidy spot on this list)—but it’s to Mantel’s credit that she never exploits the lurid attraction of historical reality (see: Showtime’s The Tudors); she doesn’t have to. That’s not Cromwell’s bag and it’s not necessary anyway. (Here is an obligatory sentence pointing out that one of the major plot points of Game of Thrones rests on brother-sister incest: One of the major plot points of Game of Thrones rests on brother-sister incest ).

10. I’ll end by sticking to Bring Up the Bodies but obliquely suggesting that everything I say about Mantel’s book could apply to Martin’s books, but I’m not going to belabor this post through example (we can chat in the comments section, should you care to, gentle reader). Here’s that ending:

11. Some of my favorite passages in Bring Up the Bodies have to do with Thomas Cromwell’s imaginative capacity,which Mantel channels with fierce brilliance. Cromwell taps into his past in order to shape the present into the future he envisions (an episode with an aging Portuguese knight is especially entertaining). In a few wonderful scenes (perhaps coming to fruition at game’s end?) he imagines a dinner he’ll host with all the courtiers he’s pushing around like pawns; the way he imagines their interactions at table helps him to determine his course of action (or inaction). But the most chilly episodes of imaginative capacity involve Cromwell’s own understanding that his unnatural death is probably a foregone conclusion. He’s too perspicacious to not see that eventually his favor with Henry can only eventually fail. But that’s for the future—for Mantel’s last book in this trilogy, I’m sure, The Mirror and the Light.