Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Title:  Wolf Hall

Author: Hilary Mantel

ISBN: 987 0 00 729241 7

Published: Fourth Estate, HarperCollins

Date: 2009

And

Title: Bring Up The Bodies

Author: Hilary Mantel

ISBN 978 0 8050 9003 1 52800

Originally Published by: Fourth Estate, 2012

Book quote (from Bring Up The Bodies):

‘If you intend to kill me in public, and mount a show, be quick. Or I may die of grief alone in this room.’

He shakes his head. ‘You’ll live.’ He once thought it himself, that he might die of grief: for his wife, his daughters, his sisters, his father and master the cardinal. But the pulse, obdurate, keeps its rhythm. You think you cannot keep breathing, but your ribcage has other ideas, rising and falling, emitting sighs. 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.

I had read Wolf Hall a number of years previously, and on reading the second in the series, Bring Up The Bodies, wished to refresh my memory. So I looked in my book blog. Where was Wolf Hall? Not there. Hmm. Odd.

I checked the back-up files. Ah, there’s a file, not in the ‘posted reviews’ folder but out in the cold. Five pages of increasingly incoherent notes, exclamations and jotted observations. And then I remembered. Wolf Hall was so complex, so daunting, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to utter an opinion or post a review.

So here’s the start of that review, on Wolf Hall. A few years later.

This novel flouts – no, openly beats and throws out of doors with curses – so many of the rules that as writers we’re told to stick by it almost makes me seasick with the turmoil. In the scheme of things, the reader is at the very bottom of order of importance. There is absolutely no pandering to the needs of anyone so inconsequential.

Follow the current trend of segmenting reading chunks into small portions, so the book can be put down conveniently? You must be joking, you’ll have hold onto the tome for all you’re worth and be grateful if it’s not bucking you off physically. Shorten sentences? (What?) Clarify your pronouns? Indeed, specify your pronouns? (That’s for wimps.) Quite often, there’s simply no indication at all of who ‘he’ is – you’ll just have to read on, guess (or give up), and perhaps at the next reading you’ll know. (Work for it, dammit.) Any concessions to a lack of intimate knowledge of Tudor life? (Get off my book if you don’t know what’s going on, it’s not for you.) Well, how about timeline and tense, is it clear who we’re talking about and what period of their life it is? Of course not. Well, not immediately, you have to read on, in faith, and then think about the bits that went last, piece it together to realise that although you had just been reading a piece of writing in the past tense on 1527 events, you’re now reading a body of narrative in the present tense about earlier events, which itself contains another chunk in the past tense that probably refers to about 1492 or so, even though the chapter heading states it’s 1521-1529. I even found a few typos. It’s absolutely merciless. The reader is tossed into the brine with not the slightest regard as to whether they will sink or swim. If they sink - well, tough. They should have learned to swim ere they were tossed.

Carrying this mountain of novel-writing faux-pas, it won the 2009 Booker Prize.

Deserved? You bet. In fact, for me, it’s one of the most encouraging prize-awards I’ve seen in a long time. Why? Several reasons.

The trend is, long novels don’t win the booker. (Why that is so one scarcely dares to speculate… it couldn’t possibly be that the judges can’t be bothered, could it?) This is certainly in keeping with the influence that the internet has had on literature: tearing prose into smaller and smaller chunks, leaning towards sound-bites, word-bites and all sorts of informational snacking.  Flash fiction didn’t even exist when I last looked – now it’s everywhere. Wolf Hall weighs in at 650 pages and every word is a gem – that in itself is an achievement but the fact that it’s been acknowledged as such is truly surprising. And heartening. (I for one appreciate a decent meal, not a snack).

In general, you have to take your reader by the hand, and cosset them. Consider who you’re writing for. Usually one would try to make whatever section of society this is as broad as decently possible. Who is the target audience for Wolf Hall? Specialists in Tudor history with a background in politics, psychology and social development, it seems, and ones who have plenty of time on their hands at that. And yet it’s a bestseller.

Now I have to admit, I can’t quite understand this. I really don’t see how such a proportion of people can read and understand this book. There are numerous passages where there’s simply no way of knowing what is going on or who is doing what unless you know very intimate details of the period. Like, which Bishop was in residence at what house during which years. Who worked for whom. Most of it is Goggle-able (and I had to resort to this frequently during the course of reading) but I wonder whether the average reader would bother to do this. Now, if I were the author, I would be perfectly pleased that people are at least buying the book, but I would have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps it’s being left unread on the shelf, or skimmed through, in quite a few instances.

This very same ‘drawback’ to the book is of course also its greatest forte and innovation. It utilises the technique of creating imaginative room within the text in the sphere of historical knowledge. The best pieces of writing are where the reader is left to fill in the blanks, to join in the creative process, participate in determining the story and its implications. Hamlet’s mysterious lure, for example, is largely down to the ambiguities within it: it could be called a play about gaps in silences in many ways. Many writers give the reader ‘breathing space’ in this way, to draw various possible implications from ambiguous writing. I’ve never before seen assumed historical knowledge used like this before. It gives the novel an almost four-dimensional quality. The narrative (1^st dimension) dialogue between reader and novelist (2^nd), pre-emptive knowledge the reader possesses historically (3^rd) and implications of how history is created questions into the nature or perceived reality (4^th).

Which leads to the often-discussed issue of the makeover Mantel has given to Thomas Cromwell in this book. I’m nearly a thousand words into the review and haven’t given a synopsis yet, and should leave it that way to be in keeping with the style of the book. But here we are. Synopsis: Following the life of Thomas Cromwell (Henry VIII’th eventual Chancellor of the Exchequer) up till the execution of his contemporary, Thomas More, in 1535. Well that was easy, wasn’t it?

That’s as far as I wrote… coherently. There followed here various excepts from the book, illustrating portrayal of the rise of meritocracy, the validity of the dissolution of the monasteries, the role of food as a binding agent to relationships and its visceral nature in becoming part of the body, the differences between reality and concealment, and concealment of reality even if there is nothing to conceal, the giddying uncertainties of an age of unthinkable change of thought, mercantilism, and other topics. I was evidently overwhelmed.

Bring Up The Bodies is not quite so abstruse. The same concerns pervade the novel. The time is a little later on, up to the execution of Anne Boleyn. I didn’t realize until nearly the end (where it crops up) that the title refers to habeas corpus, the legal term. Suddenly it is a most fitting title.

The obsession with bodies is everywhere. It sticks to you like a sludge as you go through the book. Bodies that are active, ingesting, failing, dissolving, pervading everywhere. The body of the King, that metonym for the country, is literally the central theme of the work, along with the other bodies that central one interacts with. Henry isn’t described so much in terms of a character, but a force. He is a central verb, verbing away at all the other greater and lesser embodied verbs that surround him and form the body politic, and the body of the land. Within this central dynamic fit all the other concerns. Loyalty, treachery, truth, innocence, skill, fear, sex, appetite, will and power.

The tenses and the POV have calmed down. You don’t feel as if you’re about to be thrown off at any moment. The narrative is condensed, the timeline is short, the focus intense. Without doubt, an easier read. The language continues an embarrassment of riches.

And now I hear that the third in the trilogy (I didn’t know it was going to be a trilogy) is due out in March 2020. Guess where I’ll be heading!

Five out of five moose hoofs up for both, but don’t blame me if you need to take a Travelcalm along the way. All worthwhile.

The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

Title: The Titan’s Curse

Author: Rick Riordan

Publisher: Hyperion Books New York     

Publish date: 2007

ISBN: 978-142310148-2

You can tell I like this series, as it’s the third one I’ve read in a row. They go down like sherbet fizz: very quickly.

Another fun tale. Percy learns the importance of deference and self-sacrifice through the medium of a rescue-mission for a goddess and uncertainty of whom trust – including his own impulses.

This author is extremely good at judging how to mix-and-match characters that offset each other. Also at the rate at which to introduce those characters. You never have someone turn up on Page 10 and are never seen again, while someone whom you haven’t heard hide nor hair of pops up mid-book and takes over the narrative. There is of course the character of Nico, who appears at first and then only comes back as a book-end, but that’s his function in this novel: to backstoried, without being a part of it directly.

The author has a forte in characterisation, and in balancing differing moods throughout the narrative. This is a large portion of the reason that the narrative runs along at such a brisk pace. The reader is never bogged down in the same slurry of mood for long, nor do they have to wallow in endless examination of one mood of one character. Light, deft brushstrokes with a very generous amount of good-natured humour. Never goes amiss. Not to say that the narratives lack emotional input. It’s simply not laboured.

By this third in the series, the ease with which the backstory so fat is acknowledged is accomplished with greater ease. It feels a bit more self-confident. Not apologetic, just light.

In sum, another great romp, with admirable skill. What’s to detract? Five out of five moose-hoofs up.

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

Title: Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters

Author: Rick Riordan

Publisher: Hyperion Books New York     

Publish date: 2006

ISBN: 13: 978 142310334-9

The follow-up to the first in the series, Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. Another rip-roarer but somehow it feels like an ‘inbetweener’… which I suspect it is. Nice portrayal of self-acceptance leading to acceptance of other in the relationship between the MC and the new character of Tyson. In fact the character of Tyson is altogether a good move, as it is sufficiently different to all the others to create a multi-faceted foil quite effectively. I won’t bother with a synopsis: something will inevitably be a spoiler and anyway it only takes a few hours to read through this book, you might as well find out fresh for yourself.

As is, perhaps, inevitable in a series, there is some back-explaining and story that gets a little annoying, but it’s not too intrusive overall. Good thick, solid brushstrokes and blistering pace, as per the previous book. It might be an inbetweener, but hey, it does its job and guess what, I’ve already reserved the next in the series at the library, so that must say something. Got it out for the daughter but she’s ignored it – going to get the next one out for myself. Stuff the kids.

4 out of 5 moose hoofs up, with the one deduction only because it has that awkward feel to it.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Title: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Author: Rick Riordan

Publisher: Puffin

Publish date: 2013

ISBN: 9780141346809

This is a good fun book, and I look forward to reading more in the series. Kids’ modern-day Greek hero stories, with the main protagonists being demi-god Halfling issues of the endlessly lustful pantheon of Greek gods – all masquerading as human teenagers, of course.

Quite unnecessary to give a synopsis. It’s one adventure-and-getting-out-of-impossible-scrapes after another. Don’t get me wrong, they all hold together nicely, and every 20 paces you see a nice firm link to a future idea dropped along the way. (Hence the interest in reading more. Well, that and the pretty decent writing.) The only peeve I can think of is that it’s heavy-handed with the pointing-out of links and references, but hey, one can well see why that would have arisen, with the current level of understanding of Greek mythology. It’s still fun and nod-wink for those who know, and seems to be a successful come-on and entertainment for those who don’t. Lovely fun characterisation, nice focus and no redundant back-story, elaboration or side-tracks… apart from for pure amusement. Each character has its own comfortable amount of attention. Plus (and here’s a rare thing these days) they’re LIKEABLE. Even the villains are fun. The author’s tongue is never out of their cheek.

I’m sitting here wondering why I wouldn’t give this a five out of five. Because it’s not Kafka or Milton? That’s not what it’s aiming for. It’s a bona-fide YA romp with good rewards and a desire to inspire more education, it’s not condescending, and attains all its goals with flying colours. Love it. Five moose-hoofs up out of five.

The Odyssey by Emily Wilson

Title: The Odyssey

Author: Homer/Emily Wilson

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co Inc.

Publish date: 2018

ISBN: 978-0-393-08905-9

This is by far and away the best rendition I have read. It matches the original line for line, and flattens bullshit archaisms like a cyclone. It’s fast, it’s immediate, it’s frankly stunning.

But you don’t just get the poem. Oh no. The Intro and the notes are all as thought-provoking and precise as the other work. I wish I could photocopy the entirety of that knowledge straight onto my brain, but as it was I had to settle for taking copious notes and resigning myself to the fact that I’ll have to keep going back, and back, and back.

Frankly, I don’t want to talk about it with my flat-footed prose. Just read it yourself. Cover to cover. At the risk of sounding like an idolatrous stalker, Wilson’s every word appears to be a gem: can she not open her mouth without complete and concise mastery? I flicked through an interview she gave on the book, and this passage pretty much gives you an idea:

‘There is a lot of agonizing among humanities faculty, maybe especially classicists, about “outreach.” That term in itself strikes me as patronizing and misguided, as if academics were always donating priceless gifts to the intellectually impoverished masses. I don’t see it that way. We (i.e., human beings who have the privileged position of spending our lives on teaching/scholarship/writing) should be engaged in multi-way conversations with other people who do other things, trying to listen as well as talk without talking down, and we should make the boundaries between different peoples as porous as possible. “The public” includes me; it’s not some separate sphere out there somewhere.’

About five thousand moose hoofs up out of five for this one. Scale just broke.

Away by Michael Gow

Title:  Away

Author: Michael Gow

Publisher:  Currency Press

Publish date: 1986

ISBN: 0 86819 2112

Another work I checked out because it’s on the school curriculum. Year 9 in this case. And I’m finding it hard to control intense irritation.

Not necessarily at the play itself, but at its treatment by the critics.

Outline: set in 1960s Australia, four families as representatives from varying classes, two of them currently with teenage children. One family has lost a son to the Vietnam War, and the mum’s gone not coping. One family is soon to lose a son to leukaemia. The background is set with heavy reference to several Shakespeare plays: MSND, The Tempest, R&J, and (most inappropriately) Lear. Oh how literary. Supposedly, the characters all find some kind of reconciliation and forgiveness at the end. There are plenty of more detailed synopses kicking about it you want to know more.

Fine, so the use of the Shakespeare is valid – just as any textual or other reference would be. It’s OK to use valuable shorthand like that to pack a bunch of implications into a relatively short space. I’m all for metatextuality.

But what, in the name of all that is wonderful, is the point of cramming it down the gullets of kids, unless they know the plays it’s referencing, backwards? Which I doubt they do, as the very critics themselves miss most of the references and points. So far I haven’t seen a single acknowledgement of the storm in the play (duh) being from The Tempest, and not MSND. Not even with the Ferdinand and Miranda scenarios, the very name of the character ‘Coral’, the firewood…. The list is too depressingly long to continue. But this is not the worst impact of the critics.

The ‘reconciliations’ at the end are utterly unconvincing. The kids are told that it’s ‘a play about forgiveness’. Sure, just as The Tempest is a play about forgiveness – kinda. Prospero doesn’t forgive, it’s just the easiest and most practical way out, rather than massacring the offenders. Pity, exactly as per Ariel’s ‘Mine would, sir. Were I human’, sure. Pity of the audience for the characters. Not so much the characters for each other.

The play is about love, the kids are told. Sure, just as much as MSND and R&J and The Tempest are about love. Love that means nothing and is an illusion given and taken by arbitrary spirits and plant extracts. Love that is inevitable simply from the circumstances the characters find themselves in. Love that is grudging and possessive and exclusive and domineering. Having schmaltzed out Shakespeare, I guess it’s not surprising that critics blindly glaze Gow’s work in vanilla icing.

So what is the play really ‘about’?

It’s about selfishness. It is a good, solid, insistent portrayal of selfishness.

The obvious characters scarcely need explaining: Gwen, proud of her efforts to up-me-one on the Joneses; Roy, fully prepared to lock his wife up and subject her to EST because she’s not upholding his image as a schoolmaster; Meg, who’s perfectly happy to continue the selfish curve her mother’s set. The critics rave about Tom’s family being salt of the earth bona-fide lovvies. But all the parents (Vic and Harry) are interesting in for the much-lauded anticipated holidays is for their dying son Tom to pretend he’s enjoying himself – for the sake of the other parent. Why? They literally don’t care if he has a good time. They know they’ll be left behind and need to deal with their lives and consciences afterwards, and they need their other half to think that their son’s last summer was spent enjoyably. Whether it was or not, is irrelevant. They’re sacrificing their offspring just as much as Coral and Roy have to the Vietnam War – so they, the parents, can have a better future.

So what about Tom? He’s talented and dying. Some sympathy there? Nope. He uses Meg as nothing more than a self-aggrandising instrument. Firstly when he gives her a present and makes it all about himself. Secondly, and unbelievably, he tries to pull a Keats-and-Fanny-Brawne on her to get a leg over. Seriously? And we’re meant to think he’s OK? Just because you’re young and dying of leukaemia doesn’t mean you can’t be an arsehole.

The theme of selfish social climbing and exclusion is by far the strongest throughout the play. The campers, the presents, the segregation of the characters carefully into their social strata. Insistent echoes of sacrificing the offspring for power and wealth dominate the entire work.  Tom, who is told to go on holiday and show just how great his short life was, Rick who has willingly submitted to being a mindless cog in the machine, Coral’s son who has been offered up to the Draft, and the Shakespearean echoes of Ferdinand who is taken away for his father’s transgressions, the Midsummer lovers who flee the parent’s ire (‘on pain of death’)… nothing is left out. If we hadn’t got it by the end, the ridiculous little Flying Dutchman/Little Mermaid playlet at the end insists we notice that even the ghost of the young man has to sacrifice his own well-being in the afterlife so that the woman who loves him can have a good life (i.e. walk on land again – even though it was her choice to throw herself into the briny). Sacrifice the younger generation, step up on others and overcome, survive, don’t look back. If you do, pretend it’s something else.

How much of this is actually acknowledged by Gow is debatable. But that’s the point of a work of art. It might show things the artist wasn’t necessarily aware of, or wanted to display. And this central message certainly says something about a perception of Australian society that isn’t the most pleasant. Perhaps that’s why the theme tends to be ignored in favour of ‘reconciliation’, ‘love’, and ‘forgiveness’. Not once is there any reference to anything Aboriginal, but their ghosts haunt the play’s characters’ bitterness and insecurity. I would posit that the play itself is a perfect example of the ‘play-acting’ and shying away from reality so insistently portrayed within the work itself.

All over, for itself, three and a half hoofs up out of five. A poor man’s Beckett with a bit of kitchen sink thrown in. Not too bad.

Amazon Adventure by Willard Price

Title:  Amazon Adventure

Author: Willard Price     

Publisher: Jonathan Cape

Publish date: (First) 1951

ISBN: 0 340 16303 8

This is Steve Irwin in text form, for colonialists.

What, more detail?

The hero of the piece (‘Hal Hunt’, would you believe) goes on an animal-collecting expedition to the Amazon with experienced, reliable Dad, and his rapscallion younger brother. Guess who always comes out shiny-conscienced and knowledgeable in the various scrapes they get into? Dad gets called away on an emergency, the two boys carry on the collecting expedition on their own, succeeding exultantly against impossible odds, hostile tribes and even more hostile Gringos. Cue triumphant music as they board the ship home.

It’s easy to look down the snoot at something like this. With its now-distasteful ideas about… so many things, its less-than-literary style, and excessive use of character foils and diversions, Tolstoy it ain’t. But the genuine enthusiasm for the animals described is endearing, and there’s some lively anthropomorphic imagery going on there in the individual scenes. The near-messianic zeal to get its audience on side while they’re still a tender age has to be admirable. Hey, if it gets my son reading (which is seems to be doing), I’ll vote it as a top novel. Mr Price done good.

Three moose hoofs up out of five. Which is not a bad score at all, for a 1950s boys-own adventure.