itt WOLF HALL the book by hilary mantel and the upcoming hbo/bbc miniseries based on the same

i dont want to read history anymore i just want to read hilary mantels historical novels. i want hilary mantel on the 30 yrs war

hilary mantel on the unification of italy

hilary mantels lenin

Gotta read these books

If someone wants to convince me what makes them so great in two sentences I might be inspired.

i can't imagine that anyone who is interested at all by the premise would fail to enjoy the wolf hall books

Too many years reading academic history books has made this kind of thing hard to get into, but I love the period.

its a better written version of a massive fantasy epic except the people are all real and the only magic is mastery of political intrigues

Well done!

lamp hardcore otm. i was hoping no one else had noticed. i have a developing idea for kind of ripping off the style of these books but applied to a different historical era and disguised in a more fantastical setting.

tom crom, space pirate

not really but that might actually be better

"better written" is of course u+k

lamp super otm

Wolf Hall rly rly reminded me of Dorothy Dunnet's Niccolo series (which is just historical fiction, no dragons or w/e), like i knew WH was more ~literary~ and shit and the Niccolo books happen like a century earlier, but the scenes in my mind all had a really similar feel to them.

to which end i prefer A Place Of Greater Safety because Camille Desmoulins

so dreamy

um i mean because it feels more distinct, more its own book and its own world.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

i read this earlier this week and was really blown away, its maybe a little ott here and there but altogether a really wonderful essay/lecture whatever

anyway i was... interested to see this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280780/Kate-Middleton-plastic-princess-designed-breed-Author-Hilary-Mantel-attacks-Duchess-Cambridge.html

this morning. linked to by matt drudge of all people

You'll want the daily mail thread

i'll say this here rather than on the daily mail thread but this is an amazing piece of writing

Man, I can't believe I waited so long to read these. I just started Bring up the Bodies. I'm trying to pinpoint exactly what makes them so amazing and I can't, really. I just never want to stop reading them.

are you from England?

Nope

I'm just early in Wolf Hall, but really enjoying it. Supposedly I will read the whole thing in time for a book club discussion next weekend, we'll see. I had missed the Mantel-Duchess contretemps linked above, but it's pretty funny -- not surprising that the tabloids and Cameron entirely missed the point of the lecture, or that in "defending" Kate they pretty much illustrated what she was saying. Hillary Mantel seems like an interesting person.

cause i'm not, and i thought that was the main reason i didn't care.

I didn't know there was a thread for this! I love the shit out of these books.

Finally reading A Place of Greater Safety now and I love the shit out of it, too. Max OTM up thread about wanting her to write books about all areas of historical interest to me.

Also, totally reading APoGS while constantly consulting Wikipedia. I didn't have to do that with WH/Bring up the Bodies thanks to 15 + years of obsessive reading about Tudor England, but I don't know jack about the French Revolution, aside from what I've learned from a few tepid History Channel documentaries. Completely agree with lagO_on that this is a great way to learn history.

And I did not know about Dorothy Dunnett, so Niccolo Rising is on my list now, too.

old news now, nice

http://variety.com/2013/tv/international/mark-rylance-set-to-star-in-wolf-hall-bodies-adaptation-1200005566/

i bought BUTB but i'm tearing through WH again first. still so good.

stall about 200 pages into WH; picked up BUTB now it's in pb - need to restart WH and blitz through both

decent docu about Henry VII on BBC2 tonight, still yet to read Wolf Hall but this Tudor season is giving me the yen

There was a decent one on BBC2 last week Henry VIIIs Enforcer: The Rise And Fall Of Thomas Cromwell, not sure exactly what day it was aired, got it off the t0rrents. Got Wolf Hall on the shelf and definitely starting it in the next week.

can somebody explain what this guy means by "the fucking Bullens"?

link

oh duh i just got it

haha n/m

i'm about 35 pages into BUTB and i'm getting a sinking feeling. i hope it gets over the throat-clearing recappy stuff and just keeps going full force.

it also has, i'm guessing, the marks of an editor trying to smooth things out. instead of the characteristic lone "he" which always meant Cromwell, the first several pages are littered with "he, Cromwell" which is really rubbing me the wrong way. she used pronouns so precisely before, idgi

Am I off the mark for thinking that Wolf Hall/BUTB is something that someone who likes ASOIAF's realpolitik machinations over the magical mumbo jumbo would dig?

you would be very on the mark

they're also books about a man who is above all trying to be modern and humane, despite whatever barbarism still exists around him, which also contrasts pretty strongly with martin (in the best way imo)

yeah, read these and then read c v wedgwoods 30 years war

This is probably an inaccurate and lazy thing to observe, but I've always had trouble with Mantel's writing style - specifically her over use of alliteration. I just find it difficult to make it through more than 3-4 pages without pedantic noticing some sentence-writing flaw.

On the other hand I've read evey Steig Larsson book so I guess mmmv.

that seems nuts to me! i think she's got a great eye and a great ear. i can't even think of an alliterative line tbh.

also, that profile of her really opened some things up. her lifelong illness really makes the bodily nature of (political) life really resonate: how people get sick, what they eat, their aging, all that. also her experiences with ghosts; the constant mentions of the england's restless dead, its ghosts and myths lying in wait.

agree

i was wrong to worry about the 2nd book, it's really good.

is this in here? ny'er profiled her before in 2005, haven't read it

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/25/050725crbo_books1

i don't have the books nearby so i'll have to trust my memory here but i think mantel has just about the best possible contemporary literary style -- deeply and carefully observant, casually intimate, an almost-inexhaustible sympathy for self-made individuals who easily overflow with pity for those around them. i'm not prepared to argue about alliterative details, but when writers lean too hard on that scheme it lingers for me like a kind of display, whereas Wolf Hall & BUTB feel more like time spent with an especially erudite acquaintance retelling some bit of history i learned by rote.

having said that, BUTB is the lesser of the two for me, by far, partly because the fall of anne boleyn is kind of terrible for all involved, and wolf hall has those early scenes where he watches his wife and daughters die of the sweating sickness, one by one.

...which are just... oy

Wolf Hall -- first ebook I've ever bought.

Good choice. I read that before I had an ereader and I nearly threw out my back carrying around.

...which are just... oy

Yes. I can still remember the jolt I got reading "Grace died in his arms". The suddenness of that sentence was brutal.

What breed of doggy does Cromwell own?