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

the exchanges between Moore & Cromwell as things ratchet up in the show are starting to get v close to the electricity conveyed in the book

there are times when it feels like a look from Cromwell could set Moore alight

u+k:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/30/wolf-hall-codpieces-too-small-says-literature-researcher

I borrowed Niccolo Rising from the library, saw it recommended upthread

Love her writing style, can see some distant Mantel/Wolf Hall similarities even early on

interesting, historically-critical take of the series/book (and summary of others)

http://unireadinghistory.com/2015/02/12/a-historical-perspective-on-wolf-hall-thomas-cromwell-and-thomas-more-revisited/

though i do feel like a lot of these pro-more type of crits really overestimate how "good" cromwell is in this thing. i mean, you like him. but so what?

the series does place more at a scene of torture, which i don't think the book did, explicitly?

i'm pretty sure the book did also

more has enough cheerleaders, the catholics made him a saint ffs. he's FINE

i mean, I get why historians might get their panties wadded over Wolf Hall but imo it's fiction & dont be such predictable buzzkills and you have to admit it's fun to see Ole Saint Utopia portrayed in a less flattering light

think the writer of that piece is solely going off the tv show which HELLO... even if it does link to critiques of the book, it still annoys me when ppl go off halfcocked like that

Well found a €1 copy of the 1st book today, just after reserving it through a library.
So got that to look forward to.

eh i wasn't into the last ep. this whole thing was just too brief; the sense of many long disparate threads being tied off and cut with anne's execution was indicated but not really felt. the horror-movie ending shot was ok but the execution itself wasn't nearly guignol enough imo.

missed thomas wyatt too

just noticed wolf hall now on netflix uk -- i imagine i will binge-rewatch, starting in a few minutes

read both the books in no time flat as relaxation for organising my rock-write conference last year, having watched the series in real time on TV

(lol i watched A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS a few days ago: it is dreadful old rubbish by comparison)

wolsey is orson welles in make-up that looks like brown wax thrown at his face, he's p much the best thing in it

thomas more's bunny

thomas more's hipster glasses

Hoping there is a 2nd series coming at some point, but it might rely on Mantel finishing writing up to More's death.

dude more's long dead, you mean cromwell maybe

Yeah, typed that wrong.

there's a line i always misremember, about more's marriage: it's better to marry than to burn, but to be on the safe side, he had a wife he hated, or something like that

Wound up getting both of the books and enjoying the prose greatly. But got sidetracked into several other books before finishing them.
Also got the thing she did on the French Revolution

<3<3 the bunny <3<3

there are many things wrong with A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS but no bunny is the worst

anne boleyn (meaning claire foy) startlingly resembles my mum's best friend of many years, in look and mannerism and expression -- so much so i wonder if they're actually cousins or something (not sure how to find out, where my mum's friend now lives or even if she still lives)

trying (in retrospect) to think of a better* henry than damian lewis:

charles laughton (1933, the private life of…) : love love love CL but this is old school panto "bluff king hal was full of beans" stuff
robert shaw (1966, man for all seasons): good-ish in a bad film
richard burton 1969, (anne of the thousand days): burton is good in "the spy who came in from the cold", but in nearly everything else, so hopes not high
keith michell (1970, six wives of …) : famous prestige BBC series full of actors better known for other things (eg dr who), KM mainly underwhelming (sad to see RIP last november, at 89)
sid james (1971, carry on …) : actually the best ever obv yes
charlton heston (1977, the prince and the pauper): haven't seen this since i was a kid, heston is heston
ray winstone (2003, henry viii): lol
eric bana (2008, "the other boleyn girl"): LOL
jonathan rhys myers (2010, the tudors): LOOOOOOL

*= a vain, greedy, handsome brony full of self-pity and petulant self-justification, not a fool exactly -- he surrounded himself with smart** people and (as tudors always must) fended off the barons effectively enough -- but not in any sense wise: if his latent intelligence could be appealed to (which is why he was drawn to more and wolsey and cromwell and boleyn in the first place), you had always to travel via his self-admiration and appetites… i think robert shaw does get some of this, but can't get to enough of it in context

**who mostly hated one another other

(did ppl mainly hate the idea of lewis bcz of homeland? i have literally never watch a single ep of homeland so i guess i am immune to its effects)

He is pretty decent in WH and is generally a decent actor, but I feel like he draws a lot of hate in general for being part of the currently omnipresent posh actor cru and does seem a bit of a dick irl.

this was my favourite "posh actor cru" moment in WH: hapless harry percy IS
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/976x549_b/p020hgrw.jpg

charles laughton (1933, the private life of…) : love love love CL but this is old school panto "bluff king hal was full of beans" stuff
robert shaw (1966, man for all seasons): good-ish in a bad film

33 years with no onscreen Henry 8?

oops i meant also to append the imdb complete list: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0459965/

ans = 1935-60 was a p thin time for hals! and half of the ones that actually happened during that time were played by laughton

Lauderdale Maitland > Charles Laughton

Some strange ones in there, somehow I cannot see T.P. McKenna as Henry VIII.

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BNTgwMTE2NzQ1M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDM0NDYwMTE@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,708,1000_AL_.jpg

square face tick, sandy hair tick, big voice tick

lauderdale maitland, centre, THE KILL (1921, a stageplay):
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/B4WCAH/the-kill-starring-actor-russell-thorndike-lauderdale-maitland-and-B4WCAH.jpg

amazing beard TICK, kingly stance TICK

withdrawal symptoms: started re-watching "the tudors" on netflix

Is the rest of her stuff as good as the 2 Cromwell books?
Found a few in charity shops but not read more than about 2/3rds of Wolf Hall which I need to get back to and finish.
Prose really is pretty tasty.

I made it 1.5 episodes into the Tudors and had to stop, it made me miss Wolf Hall too much

it takes a somewhat different approach it is true

i like jonathan rhys myers tho

There's a good Elizabeth I with Vanessa Redgrave that I watched a couple of years back.
I think it had a related Henry VIII series at the time it came out but I haven't seen that.
But it's 30 or 40 years old.

I found Rossellini's french tv movie The Taking Of Power by Louis XIV very good stuff, no real stand out performances but brilliantly staged. it might be useful to those that liked WH.

the henry viii series was "the six wives of henry viii" with keith michell as henry (and tons of v famous brit tv actors) -- big deal at the time (we watched it as a family) but probably looks a bit creaky now

(michell died last year aged 89, which made me sad even tho i don't think i ever thought abt him or saw him in any other context)

Is the rest of her stuff as good as the 2 Cromwell books?

A Slice of Greater Pastry doesn't quite spark off the page like WH but is just as dramatic and convincing.

special foodie version yeah?

omg the tudors is taking its time removing more's head

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/05/hilary-mantel-says-final-wolf-hall-book-unlikely-to-come-out-in-2018-as-planned

booooooo

the mirror and the light vs winds of winter betting pool?

give me the mirror and the light and give it me now

reread this thread and realised when i said i skim-read the first two to destress while prepping for my conference BOY was i skim-reading -- just like huge amounts only grapsed at second reading, of story as well as approach

someone above (goole?) sez "ppl are over-estimating how good crom is in the books" and i think this is right -- you are enormously artfully drawn into his version of the story, his justifications, his perspective, his innovations and reworkings of the kingdom into somewhere everyone (inc.the poor!) cd be peaceful and prosperous in… but the ruthlessness of what he's doing is right there in front of you, inc. (in particular) all the beheaded, and the v long game leading to the beheadings. basically anne b is framed so he can revenge himself on mark smeaton for saying he looks like a murderer! i mean yes, almost all the beheaded are terrible ppl -- and almost all his transformations of the structure were good not bad. in the sense that capitalism is arguably better for more ppl than feudalism, and the cromwell-2-cromwell management of the Arrival of the Book was in fact less bloody and awful (a bit less) than the 30 yrs war.

anyway the moral is that cromwell is capitalism and he is able (in two books deliberately fashioned to lens us into his perspective) to give an excellent account of himself for this and other reasons, but all around is shadows and grim horror all the same. he loathes lots of it but he also creates lots of it.

and the conclusion is that these books are THE BEST and the tv show is also but in a different (much more melancholic) way

my mum, a reader but not heavily literary, finished this and then immediately read it from cover to cover again (this before Bring Up the Bodies). not sure what that means but i know she would concur, mark! (she also made the point to me about Cromwell not being good as such, but how effectively you are drawn into his world). I still haven’t read Bring up the Bodies or i think properly finished Wolf Hall.

i wd definitely say you haven't properly finished it until you've reread it at least once, there's a LOT of anticipation and callback going on

(caveat: i am generally still a very skippy reader first time out, and certainly was here but i had other things on my mind)