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

idk it'd just be very tiring for the lead actor, who's in every scene.

other than that, i felt mantel's style here was very conducive (even borrowing from) the to-the-pointness of contemporary TV. her dialogues even felt very HBO to me in some way.

you couldn't do any of her reveries though, which is a lot of the charm of the books. but that's true with any book with some lyricism i guess.

i spent a *lot* of time while reading place of greater safety thinking about how id treat it for tv

these books are basically the sofia coppola marie antoinette of historical lit but done really well, they should just roll with it, chuck taylor hi tops in every scene, thomas more forced to choose between his bodily safety and his factory 12"s

Amused so far how Henry is this capricious, quasi Old Testament deity that hovers concretely yet remains on the periphery and whom everyone wants to please, and that the only figure whom we've seen in the narrativeand who has actually interacted with Him is a religious authority.

Oops, spoke too soon, here's our king now.

Thank the heavens for Putney boatmen.

So I'm about 72% of the way through this (goddamn Kindles, this disgusts me) and wow! Most I've enjoyed a book for a good long while.

One of the things I'm enjoying most is how much Mantel leaves unsaid - both in terms of plot, where Cromwell's progression from vague sympathiser with the reformist cabal transitions pretty briskly into him and Cranmer as CHIEF reformers, as well as in Cromwell's own emotional perspective and understanding of events.

For instance, the process by which he draws inexorably further away from Wolsey during the Cardinal's fall, always reiterating in his own mind his (clearly unfeigned) affection and respect for his mentor, his certainty that he is only staying at court to be Wolsey's eyes and ears etc. Yet as Wolsey falls off the radar Cromwell continues to rise, and gains respect on all sides for how loyal he's been. No wonder he breaks down crying.

I'm a sucker for the way that ur hero, omnicompetent yet sympathetic progressive thinker, is also a kind of wonderful murderous street-fighting alpha male fantasy. Again, so much left unsaid - the occasion that More threatens TC in his own home, swiftly followed by More's demise as a major player. Or the time that Cromwell thinks to himself that if More, terrifying sadistic zealot Thomas More, goes near any of Cromwell's household, HE will drag More out into the street and smash his head in on the pavement - and you believe him. Total badman.

Have to say I'm quite glad that you can't get 'Hilary Mantel does....' for every different period, as I'm not sure I'd ever want to read anything else again.

idk if the main character is a "total fantasy"

oh come on. he's like if james bond had a sensitive side. he's dirk pitt. he is AWESOME at EVERYTHING and is STRONG and SILENT. women want to be with him, men want to be him, etc

finally reading bring up the bodies--the extended bit w/ the joust where crumb reminisces about the portuguese knight he met in venice before rafe sadler breaks in and they rush to the king's side is AMAZING, what a sequence

Yeah I can't decide whether to go straight into BUTB when I finish Wolf Hall or to leave off for a month and treat myself to it in my time off next week. How does it compare to Wolf Hall in length?

*next month, not next week

shorter, maybe 2/3ds as long, the first bit is a lot of summarization of WH so if you go right from one to the next you might get impatient

yeah otm

on 2nd read my fave bit in WH was the long fever reverie when cromwell falls ill, and the big 'reward' after of henry coming to his house.

i'm dreading the 3rd one because, you know

i read somewhere that its just through jane seymour so we might not get all the way up to *draws finger across throat*

you can see glimmers of that in BUTB. how national policy turns on the king's mood, and therefore manipulating it; how easily people can be tossed aside

there's also the funny through line in both that the course of the english reformation hinged on anne giving blowjobs

fave bits in BUTB: his double explanation to 'risley' and to himself why (that one courtier whose name escapes me) is to be spared: for the amoral risley it's a machiavellian answer, for himself it's a long passage about what a soulful and true young man he is, who shouldn't be ground up in all this bullshit.

oh, and the execution, which was p stunning

Ah shit, I've gotta drop out this thread until I'm done with Bodies I think. As has been noted earlier itt, I know the history in broad terms, who gets killed and when, but there's still definitely spoilers to be had. the loyalties of call-me-risley are still up in the air where I am in the book, for example.

Gotta say that I'm most definitely looking forward to the demise of Anna Regina, the bitch

the loyalties of call-me-risley are still up in the air where I am in the book, for example.

don't worry, they stay that way! maybe that's already a spoiler tho

how happy were you all to see rafe land the hot widow

The section meditating on More's and Barton's coming punishments and his dream of his daughter is killing me with its mix of death and pathos. That list of Barton's belongings is so increasingly sad.

No BUTB thread, but I'm enjoying the second book a lot more because Mantel's making the politics a lot more obvious, whereas in WH, I got the sense that it was shrouded in stylistic hijinks.

Also, someone should gift WH to Scalia, think he'd enjoy it.

keep losing my thread but nearly through this now

skipped to the end to check the pagecount and discovered there's an interesting interview w/mantel and an essay on writing historical lit. both prob interesting & worth reading before finishing the book

what happened to the tv show is that gonna me on

also normal sized hardcovers (ie BUtB) give you tiny balls but smaller size hardcovers rule the school

October story in the Guardian

The actor Mark Rylance is to be reunited with the director of the television drama about the death of the weapons inspector Dr David Kelly for an "intensely political" £7m BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall novels.

Peter Kosminsky, the award-winning director of a string of docu-dramas based on contemporary events – including Channel 4's The Government Inspector, which starred Rylance as Kelly – may at first glance appear an unlikely choice for a historical costume piece.

However, Kosminsky shares with Mantel a reputation for indepth research – the Wolf Hall author spent five years investigating the 16th-century historical background to her narrative on the grim political machinations of Henry VIII's court.

Rylance will play the main protagonist, the Tudor king's adviser Thomas Cromwell, in the six-part adaptation of Wolf Hall for BBC2, which is expected to be broadcast in 2015. The BBC will also broadcast the sequel Bring Up the Bodies and producer Company Pictures has an option on the as-yet-unpublished final book of Mantel's Tudor trilogy, The Mirror and the Light.

Wolf Hall follows Cromwell's career as he ascends from a lowly start as a blacksmith's son to becoming an indispensable ally of Cardinal Wolsey, succeeding him as Henry's VIII's chief adviser after Wolsey's downfall.

Kosminsky said: "This is a first for me. But it is an intensely political piece. It is about the politics of despotism, and how you function around an absolute ruler. I have a sense that Hilary Mantel wanted that immediacy."

love chapuys

catherine is incredible too

My most dear lord, King and husband,

The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I owe thou forceth me, my case being such, to commend myselv to thou, and to put thou in remembrance with a few words of the healthe and safeguard of thine soul which thou ougte to preferce before all worldley matters, and before the care and pampering of thy body, for the which thoust have cast me into many calamities and thineselv into many troubles. For my part, I pardon thou everything, and I desire to devoutly pray God that He will pardon thou also.

going to be sweet when anne... *finger across throat*

pampering of thy body

o_O

feel like there could def be more than one more book come on

bring us right up to present day, hil

i havent felt this way since the bourne movies that the artist shd be compelled by law to make a new one every year before theyre allowed to do anything else

i want her to finish this up and then we can get some books on other historical subjects

would like to see mantel on italian unification e.g. or one of the russian revolutions.

This fucking book

Spent all day glued to the couch ripping through this, LOVE it

Did you rip through because there wasn't any Project Runway this week? :D

lol no

I even ripped through it all day Sunday without turning on the TV once despite FOOTBALL
which is like O_O

FINISHED

need the sequel. goddamn that was a great book

2/3 of the way through Bring Up The Bodies

shit totally just shifted up a gear am literally planning my evening around reading this now
omg I can't even stand it
srsly how great is this

this is a cool way to learn abt history

― lag∞n, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 14:40 (1 year ago) Permalink

seriously considered calling in sick to read wolf hall last week

i read a place of greater safety and it's great

present continuous

im goin to this

http://www.wolfhall.co.uk/imgs/generic/Wolf-Hall-Bring-Up-The-Bodies.png

I have only read the first novel but it's very good, you could even say brilliant.

The stage version would be a good thing to go to.

i'm reading the first one now, it is brilliant, i'm very happy there's a sequel.

just finished second one

why can't all books be this good srsly

i guess i am the only one in the world who got bored by Wolf Hall