Hilary Mantel named Booker Prize Winner--Wolf Hall

[4ever Queen]

For those fans of Hilary Mantel, you might be interested to know that she has just won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, her novel about Thomas Cromwell. Mantel beat five other shorlisted authors, including Sarah Water and JM Coetzee. You can find more at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8292488.stm

[Divia]

Thats cool. But I still dont want to read her book. Sounds as dull as tombs.

[Ash]

After reading Stones Fall, thinking it would also be as dull as a tomb, to find it landed on the top of my list of best reads for this year, I am more willing to try something that I might not normally like. This one has gotten enough thumbs up from readers who I trust, so we'll see, Think we are discussing it later on here.

[Leo62]

Yay! Well done HM - it's about time :)

I'm twenty-somethingth on the list for this at the library...looks like I'm just going to have to fork out and buy it. :D

[Margaret]

Of all the Booker Prize nominees, this is the one I most wanted to read. I've read almost 2/3 of my advance copy now and enjoying it a lot. I'll be posting a review at HistoricalNovels.info when I finish, but for now I'll just say, yes, a great read for anyone who relishes detailed novels about power politics in the Tudor (or likely any) era - but also, not a brisk read and not for everyone (but the latter is true of any book, isn't it?).

[EC2]

I'm delighted to see that it won. I read it on the Amazon Vine programme earlier this year and enjoyed it a lot, but as Margaret says it won't be for everyone. I thought the ending was a bit odd. It was as if I'd been riding on a carriage with the characters, enjoying the journey and then suddenly I was dumped in the middle of nowhere, thinking 'eh?' I read somewhere that a sequel was in the offing, which would make sense. I would certainly read it.

[Madeleine]

All the reports today say that she will be writing a sequel, hopefully it won't take 20 years like she said WH did!

[Ash]

Her acceptance speech:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8292488.stm

What a lovely, gracious speech. Other authors and entertaines could learn much from those few minutes.

[Chatterbox]

Some very thoughtful words on competition and the nature of writing, from her Q&A on the Booker website:

I have always seen myself as locked in competition with myself, my own doubts and hesitations, my own limitations, and like any working writer I live with a daily process of selecting and judging and discarding which is fiercer than anything that can happen in the outside world.

[SonjaMarie]

I was a little suprised that IMDB News would mention the win in it's movie/TV/celebrity news section. Maybe it'll be made into a movie!

SM

[4ever Queen]

I was a little suprised that IMDB News would mention the win in it's movie/TV/celebrity news section. Maybe it'll be made into a movie!

SM

I'm always hoping for a good HF novel to be made into a movie, it can always help either "restore the genre to the 'respectable' category" or make HF more popular! And as Margaret George said in FB about Merlin's winning--what a victory for historical novels! :) (my quoted line by Margaret G.)

[Chatterbox]

That would be great news. It would be an intriguing contrast to A Man For All Seasons -- which, after all, won an Oscar.... I could see a very good, solid film from this, that would capitalize on the success of the Tudors, but be much better.

[Madeleine]

I was a little suprised that IMDB News would mention the win in it's movie/TV/celebrity news section. Maybe it'll be made into a movie!

SM

I must admit that sometimes I'm surprised at what IMDB considers entertainment - I've seen articles about the British Royals on there, and even politicians occasionally!:confused:

[Margaret]

It would be an intriguing contrast to A Man For All Seasons -- which, after all, won an Oscar.... I could see a very good, solid film from this, that would capitalize on the success of the Tudors, but be much better.

It should become a movie! I just finished reading Wolf Hall (and posting my review (http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/Wolf-Hall.html)), and I had to follow up by watching A Man for All Seasons - I'm amazed now that the film was so critically acclaimed. It made its point with a sledgehammer, and with some very stagy, caricatured portrayals of Cromwell, More and Henry VIII. Other films from the 1960s have held up much better (I'm thinking especially of Becket and The Lion in Winter).

[SonjaMarie]

I found "A Man For All Seasons" very boring.

SM

[Madeleine]

We got shown A Man for All Seasons at school once - as a treat! Admittedly I was young at the time (12ish?) but was bored stiff, didn't help that the projector kept breaking down as well which only prolonged the tedium!

[Ash]

I've seen it several times, and loved it - but I can't see showing it to kids who have no background in what is happening. The more I read about More however, the more I realize that the movie made him a saint, when reality is a much grayer area. So it would be nice to see a movie showing all shades of the man.

[Ash]

Question: how do historians currently view More and Cromwell? Fiction is one thing, but I wonder how those who are in the field view their characters and their actions, and their influence on events of the day.

[4ever Queen]

Question: how do historians currently view More and Cromwell? Fiction is one thing, but I wonder how those who are in the field view their characters and their actions, and their influence on events of the day.

Ash, this is a very good question which i would like to know coming from the authors. I believe this might start a good New Thread, or either bring it to EC2 attention to hear what she thinks... anyway, just a thought =)

[Margaret]

Question: how do historians currently view More and Cromwell?

For a quick online take on this, see the Wikipedia entries on Thomas More (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More) (especially the "Campaign Against Protestantism" section) and Thomas Cromwell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell,_1st_Earl_of_Essex). Mantel's portrayal of Cromwell's youth is especially compelling, but she was working mostly from an educated imagination, as very little is known about his youth. But he did come from a common background, which may be the reason for his practical, not particularly religious outlook on life. He seems very modern, compared to More, whose religious orthodoxy is decidedly not (at least not from a Western standpoint).