Tag: Hilary Mantel

(Hilary) Mantel pieces

I recall a piece about Hilary Mantel in The Guardian the other day, which mentioned a forthcoming collection of essays; and I was immediately taken by the title: “Mantel Pieces”. This I thought very clever indeed – a nice play with name in the first instance, and then there is the association to fireplace which extends to frame and flame, warmth and light, kindle and burn, etc., and extended then to the shelf above – a piece, a place of display and decoration. Many attributes that could well apply to a fine piece of writing. And certainly to most everything put to page by Hilary Mantel.

Maybe it was that I was just a little too interested in what Mantel had to say about not making the Booker shortlist (pragmatic and gracious, of course!), or maybe it was not said; for whatever reason I failed to get that the collection does in fact comprise her contributions to the London Review of Books over thirty odd years, and this I register only now on reading this blog entry at the LRB. (A delightfully informative blog entry by the way; fulfilling the requirements as stipulated by the marketing department!) Mantel Pieces, then, is a compilation of twenty essays or reviews and, even more tantalising, each is accompanied by fragments of correspondence (for instance, with the editor Mary-Kay Wilmers) or artwork relating to the piece.

Fact-checking my own recollection: in fact, the subject matter of the collection was NOT said in the abovementioned Guardian article – only the October publication date. What it did say and I should add, is that at the moment Hilary Mantel is busily at work adapting The Mirror and the Light for the stage (alas, there is no mention yet of a continuation to the BBC television effort), and so, even if inclined to, she has little time to cry in her teacups, and obviously maintains an air of optimism in terms of a return to normality in the theatrical landscape in London.

And, diverting slightly, more generally speaking on the politics of book awards, I note the following:

  • As I predicted, there does appear again to be murmurings about the probity of opening up of the Booker to US authors (coming mostly from the conservative media in the UK granted), but Hilary Mantel is otherwise inclined and accepts the diversification argument and encourages British and Commonwealth authors to accept the challenge of greater competition. As I said: gracious. I was actually quite peeved, specifically about the Mantel omission and more generally am sceptical of conflating powerful US book market interests with good literature !
  • And then, this just read in the NYT, which is illustrative of the above said, and is some affirmation of my argument:

…another major literary event threatens to make an already overcrowded fall publishing season even more chaotic: the release of former President Barack Obama’s memoir, “A Promised Land.”

On Tuesday, the Booker Prize said it was moving its award ceremony, previously scheduled for Nov. 17, to Nov. 19 to avoid overlapping with the publication of Mr. Obama’s book…

…[this]could also fuel new criticism that the prize, originally established in 1969 to honor writers from Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland, has become too Americanized and increasingly focused on the U.S. book market. American authors have dominated the Booker nominees in recent years, following a 2014 rule change that made any novel written in English and published in the U.K. eligible…

It is clear, the book business (and when all’s said and done awards are after all just another element of merchandising) operates on a global scale as with most everything else these days – for good or ill, and that is unlikely to change.

Yes, yes…I get it that the Booker people fear their winner will go under in the Barack Obama hype, it is just that I consider their argument somewhat specious – many, many people will read Obama and a lot, lot less people will read a fine contemporary novel, and some will read both, and maybe I am the latter, but they are hardly works in competition to each other. More honest would have been to admit to kowtowing to the pressure of monolithic publishing companies.

The good news is: in former President Obama, we have an ardent reader, from whom we can expect each summer one of his cult reading lists, which is sure to include National Book Award and Booker nominees and unknown gems and certainly NOT a de rigeur presidential afterlife – granted he has no reason to read a thousand pages of politicking; he lived it to write it!

A cracking end

Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize nomination prompts me to finally write some words on The Mirror & the Light – inadequate as they may be. Whilst not exactly putting it off, I just felt, like I said, inadequate – unable to find a way in and unable to cohere my many thoughts. At the time of publication in March, I linked to some various degrees of flattering reviews and there are many more to easily be found around about, so I will only add mention here, and for my own devices, Daniel Mendelsohn’s review in The New Yorker. Firstly, because I always enjoy Mendelsohn’s writing, and secondly, because it errs from the absolutely positive resonance to be found elsewhere – “…bloated and only occasionally captivating…” is less than charitable! – but it is thought provoking anyway, placing as it does this end to the Cromwell saga in the context of the two preceding novels and Mantel’s other work. Also, it does offer a good starting point for me; suggesting some interesting aspects – and doing so sometimes in respect to that which I perceive to be absent.

My copy of “The Mirror & the Light”, Fourth Estate, UK hardback ed.

The New Yorker review is from way back at the beginning of March, and there is no need to get into why that seems now like almost another time – not exactly medieval, but still…! Perhaps, because Mendelsohn’s reading and writing came before the Corona pandemic fully insinuated itself upon us (and what we read, and what we read into that which we read), he doesn’t seem affected by, or least ways lend his criticism to, the pervading atmosphere of death and impending death that at times almost overwhelmed me; be it to come at the gallows, in child-bed – or, and especially, through plague and disease. When the King’s summer tour route has to be meticulously researched and planned to avoid outbreaks of plague [p.680 Fourth Estate ed.], I could do nothing but think of the here and now and thwarted summer holidays. Trivial comparison I know.

Death also finds its extension in the ghosts of the past; omnipresent in the novel and as Cromwell’s constant company – for him, the past is never past (to use Mendelsohn’s expression), nor the dead ever put to rest. Mendelsohn, interestingly, comments more generally in regard to the supernatural in Mantel’s larger body of work – alerting me to an unfortunate gap in my reading, that will be rectified.

Also not mentioned in the review, is the role of rumour and here-say in fuelling discontent amongst the people; the speed at which news and fake-news spreads into far counties (and beyond, to France and the Empire) is startling given the primitive trains of communication, and is eerily reminiscent of the power of social media in this day and age of conspiracies, disinformation and gossip galore. For instance, during the so-called Lincolnshire Rising that anticipated the Pilgrimage of Grace, the folk firmly believe Henry to be dead, a puppet laying in his bed with crown upon its head, and that (the surely to be damned) Th. Cromwell rules in spe, and connives without restraint to demolish the churches, de-frock their clergy, increase taxes and impose draconian levies [p.297].

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Booker 2020

Literary awards stop not for this mean, increasingly unpredictable virus making lives miserable – and to various degrees, dependent upon circumstance. Here, then, providing a modicum of distraction, the just announced longlist for The Booker Prize 2020:

The Booker Prize 2020 longlist
  • The New Wilderness by Diane Cook (Oneworld Publications)
  • This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Faber & Faber)
  • Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)
  • Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze (4th Estate, HarperCollins)
  • The Mirror & The Light by Hilary Mantel (4th Estate, HarperCollins)
  • Apeirogon by Colum McCan (Bloomsbury Publishing) 
  • The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste (Canongate Books)
  • Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing)
  • Real Life by Brandon Taylor (Originals, Daunt Books Publishing)       
  • Redhead by The Side of The Road by Anne Tyler (Chatto & Windus, Vintage)
  • Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Picador, Pan Macmillan)
  • Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward (Corsair, Little, Brown)
  • How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang (Virago, Little, Brown)

I can only say that I have only read Mantel; and the daunting task of writing my thoughts on her remarkable work remains on my longlist (of things to do)! And, I can only say what I’ve said before, and that is: the United States has any number of major book awards (National, Pulitzer being foremost) why on earth the Brits allowed them in the Booker a few years ago I really don’t know. Well of course one does – $$$! In my opinion, it is becoming too top heavy stateside these days – no antipodean, only one resident (I think) of the African continent, none from southern Asia, or the Caribbean. In fact there are only three listed from the UK which means, the laws of probability being such as they are, one may very well end up with a shortlist without a British writer! I hear already the screams of “Scandal!” – but what would the Booker be without controversy? Rarely has there not been a loud gripe of some sort – in or out, sponsor, judge … What was it last year? Oh, I remember – against all the “unwritten” rules, it was awarded jointly to Bernadine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood.

And I will also say that I haven’t read Anne Tyler for donkey’s years, and she was a constant companion of … let me see… the third decade of my life. Can I read Tyler again without bemoaning my lost youth?

The jury is diverse which is good, and I also note with delight that Margaret Busby leads it and Emily Wilson is another of the judges. Of the latter I need say nought (see my never ending Odyssey project!), but Busby reminds me of The Daughters of Africa, which I would like to read after all these years and then their is last year’s follow up anthology.

The Booker Prize longlist July 28th 2020

First reflections

“The Mirror & The Light” by Hilary Mantel
My copy of “The Mirror & the Light” by Hilary Mantel, Fourth Estate, UK

Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror & The Light is out today! Welcomed by Wolf Hall fans everywhere, and in London with long queues – though why that should be necessary in this day and age I really wouldn’t know – and with various degrees of mostly ecstatic reviews. Ms. Mantel it seems has survived the hype – alone that, a feat! At almost 900 pages I will need some time, but time that will absolutely be found, and sooner I hope rather than later. I had pondered some time last year returning to the first two of the trilogy in preparation, unfortunately…! Perhaps a browse back is in order, and the hope that knowing we are rid (to put it crudely!) of More and Boleyn and approximately how we got there is enough! Maybe a little more than a browse.

Here is a NY Times review, and also an informative magazine piece on Mantel. Should you have access, The Time Literary Supplement review by Edmund Gordon will surely persuade the unpersuaded.

Portrait of Thomas Cromwell,
Hans Holbein the Younger (1532–1533), The Frick Collection.

By the way, Holbein, whose portrait of Th. Cromwell is perhaps the most recognisable reproduction, and whose rising star in the Tudor court was courtesy of the patronage of Cromwell, has again a recurring presence in this final novel of the series and with psychological dimensions beyond the historical or purely narrative; another NY Times review (this time from Thomas Mallon) makes the interesting observation:

“…For all its political and literary plotting, “The Mirror and the Light” is most memorable for its portraiture, with Cromwell acting as our Holbein, challenging us to weigh his interpretive assessments against our enormous accumulated knowledge of his concerns, biases and kinks.”

The New York Times, Book Review, Feb. 25 2020

The Mirror & the Light – a taster …

The Mirror & the Light (The Wolf Hall Trilogy) by Hilary Mantel, Fourth Estate, 2020.

…to titillate or torment or both, The Guardian today has published an extract from the opening chapter of Hilary Mantel’s conclusion to her Thomas Cromwell Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, that is to be published in the UK on March 5 – beginning just as Bring up the Bodies ended with the spectacular execution of Anne Boleyn; in all its grotesqueness and nobility.

A reading by Ben Miles from the audio book is there to! And here is a video clip from the opening scene of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2014 production of Wolf Hall, with Miles as Cromwell.

Act 1 Scene 1 | Wolf Hall | Royal Shakespeare Company

The Mirror and the Light

The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel, pub. Harper & Collins, March 5 2020.

As one of those many waiting – at first patiently, and for a little while now not so – I note here the really excellent news of the forthcoming publication, in March 2020, of Hilary Mantel’s concluding book to her Thomas Cromwell trilogy.

Could it be, I should return for another read of the preceding books – Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies? I think so – there is time enough and Mantel’s Cromwell is so powerful, so agonisingly real I have to make reacquaintance with him and his journey so far before accompanying him to the demise he knows he deserves.