Read of the Week

This week I enjoyed Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. It was an interesting book, told from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, very uncommon amongst novels about Anne Boleyn. Mantel humanizes familiar characters and makes them seem refreshed and alive. Her descriptions of King Henry's rages, conniving court politics and Jane Seymour's frigid and dull personality are so incredibly vivid that you can easily get lost in the story. Even while lost in the narrative, I found myself disagreeing with the author that Cromwell implicates many of Anne's alleged lovers in his quest for revenge for their role in and mocking of the fall of his former master Cardinal Wolsey, though the angle is interesting to consider. My one complaint with the book is the portrayal of Anne. She is painted as uncaringly ambitious and overly haughty. She was undoubtedly ambitious and haughty, but her more endearing characteristics were completely ignored. Although this portrayal could be intentional, Mantel might've been trying to help readers understand not only the mind-set of Cromwell, but also the Tudor theological idea that women were offensive to God due to original sin. Be aware that the author holds a very favorable, almost hero-like view of Cromwell which makes her seriously consider some of the adultery rumors that directly led to Anne's fall,  in spite of the fact that most historians now agree she was innocent.  Despite this, the book is incredibly well researched and written. Absent from it are the overt creative liberties taken by some historical novelists. Pick it up today, you won't be disappointed.

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