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What Members Thought
The sequel to Wolf Hall & every bit as good, though totally different in scope & pacing. Where WH was leisurely, BUTB is brisk, covering just 9 months at the end of Anne Boleyn's life. Perfect sentence-level writing, great plotting (how do you make historical facts suspenseful? Ask Hilary Mantel!), and the continuation of one of my favorite psychological portraits in a long time. Can't wait (but will have to) for The Mirror & The Light.
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I remember struggling a bit to get into Wolf Hall; the writing was initially so baffling. It's amazing how 3 years later, I had no trouble at all getting into the flow of Bring Up the Bodies. This book is sheer brilliance.
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If you liked Wolf Hall... Another intricate, finely-wrought telling of the intrigues of the Tudor court. Cromwell is still a fascinating and sympathetic character, even when he is being calculating and vengeful. Even Henry is made very human, rather than the two-dimensional monster we've all come to "know." I love historical fiction for the texture that it gives to things that really happened - the conversations, personalities, dynamics that are lost in the cold tally of dates and events that co
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I really enjoy historical fiction around the Tudors, and Henry VIII in particular, so I was very interested to read this novel, which covers the weeks and days leading up to Anne Boleyn's execution from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. But the voice used in this, a weird third-person/first-person hybrid, served to distance me from the narrative. This is, of course, on top of Cromwell's own emotional distance from the action. I kept going on this, thinking I would adapt. By the time I realized
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Hilary Mantel could write about a root canal and she would imbue it with strange beauty, profound meaning, and haunting poetry. Such is her gift.
I understood and appreciated this so much more in the 2nd read.
Jul 02, 2012
Jen
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Oct 17, 2012
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Oct 21, 2019
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Liz
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