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Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

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Catherine Delors
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Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

Post by Catherine Delors » Fri October 30th, 2009, 9:06 pm

Have you seen this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books ... updateema3

Sounds good, though I am a bit outtudored these days.

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Julianne Douglas
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Post by Julianne Douglas » Sat October 31st, 2009, 3:23 am

Thanks for the link!
Julianne Douglas

Writing the Renaissance

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Catherine Delors
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Post by Catherine Delors » Sat October 31st, 2009, 9:44 am

Are you interested, Julianne?
This sounds better than the usual heavy breathing in Henry VIII's bedchamber.

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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Sat October 31st, 2009, 6:12 pm

A good review - I would say it very accurately reflects the appeal of the novel. Cromwell is an intellectual, but not a book-trained intellectual like More whose abstract notions of right and wrong allow him to order people tortured and still get a reputation for saintliness. Cromwell has a practical turn of mind that foreshadows a more modern world, and it works very well for him - until it doesn't, but that part is being saved for the sequel.

I highly recommend Wolf Hall, perhaps especially for those who feel all Tudored-out. It has a refreshing complexity that is worlds away from the usual romantically exaggerated Tudor glitz, passion and beheading. And it's going to be our Book of the Month here, starting tomorrow!
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info

SGM
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Starkey & Mantel

Post by SGM » Sat July 31st, 2010, 11:11 pm

I don't know whether this has been mentioned elsewhere but here is a link to Youtube showing a dialogue between David Starkey and Hilary Mantel. I have found three parts. There may be more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRQbyjvpYwU
Last edited by SGM on Sat July 31st, 2010, 11:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Currently reading - Emergence of a Nation State by Alan Smith

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Margaret
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Posts: 2440
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Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
Location: Catskill, New York, USA
Contact:

Post by Margaret » Sun August 1st, 2010, 2:05 am

Fascinating interview - thanks for the link, SGM.
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info

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Post by SusannaG » Tue November 16th, 2010, 7:44 pm

I found this one quite good and very interesting.

I shall certainly read a sequel if Mantel writes one.
South Carolina is too large for a mental asylum, and too small for a republic. - James Pettigru, 1856

annis
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Post by annis » Wed November 17th, 2010, 6:47 am

Hilary mantel is apparently already working on the sequel, which at this stage she plans to call The Mirror and the Light. It will start at Wolf Hall, the seat of the Seymour famly.

Ash
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Post by Ash » Wed November 17th, 2010, 3:03 pm

Happened to do a search for the title and found this new article from the Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/book ... rview.html

BTW, for those who don't know, there is a Book of the Month discussion of Wolf Hall here, as well as a review and subsequent comments.

http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/ ... php?t=2564

http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/ ... php?t=1622

annis
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Post by annis » Thu November 18th, 2010, 3:50 am

Fascinating interview, Ash

I found this piece about the sequel's title interesting - I hadn't realised that it was a quote from Cromwell himself.

Yet for the moment her life is all about The Mirror and the Light, the sequel to Wolf Hall, which will depict the years of Cromwell’s greatest power, before his execution by Henry VIII. 'The title is a phrase that Cromwell used, and it just seems endlessly fertile, the distortions a mirror can throw up and yet the truth it tells. The way you can move the light towards the mirror… I am not sure I am ever going to get to the end of that.’

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