Bring Up the Bodies

 At the end of my review for Wolf Hall, I said that I would read its sequels but I wasn't excited for them.  I am so glad I pushed through despite not liking the first book, as I think Bring Up The Bodies maintains the strong qualities of its predecessor while also improving on its weak points.    Like Wolf Hall, Bring Up The Bodies thrives in its attention to detail and quality of writing, but it tightens up the pacing as it focuses on a much shorter time period.  Wolf Hall takes place over the course of over 30 years while its sequel doesn't even cover one.  I find that this allows the book to breathe a lot more and makes each event matter.  Bring Up The Bodies also has a cleaner narrative that is easier to follow and is more interesting than its predecessor.  Focusing on the downfall of Anne Boleyn through Thomas Cromwell's eyes is a genuine treat as we see exactly what mistakes she makes (and doesn't make) in order to lose favor with Henry.  As all good sequels do, Bring Up The Bodies expands on its returning characters and these three in particular benefit greatly from having another book to explore their personalities.     After reading Bring Up The Bodies, my opinion of its predecessor has gone down.  Knowing that Mantel had this within her makes me wish that Wolf Hall was tighter in a similar way.  As it stands, Bring Up The Bodies is one of my new all-time favorite historical novels, and I can now say I eagerly look forward to reading the conclusion of this trilogy. 

I found myself without reading material on a recent flight, so splurged on this, recalling how much I'd loved Wolf Hall. It was a 4- as opposed to 5-star experience for me because I knew what to expect of Mantel's style, whereas I'd been actually shocked by experiencing her craft for the first time. Still, this was a great read. There were points where I felt like the plot was almost careening towards the grim and foregone conclusion, in a way that both nervously thrilled me, and that I suspect may be a fairly accurate reflection of what it would have felt like to be living in the eye of the political storm Mantel depicts.

Such a pleasure to read. I simultaneously root for Cromwell and am disgusted with him. One of my favorite things about this book is that the characters are fully drawn, with motivations that we come to suspect or understand, and yet the familiar ambiguity about whether Anne and her lovers were actually guilty is preserved. As Hilary Mantel says in the author's note, this is not a book about Anne Boleyn, it's about Thomas Cromwell. Still, there is ambiguity about Cromwell, too. Does he understand himself as well as he thinks?

There's a lovely piece about Thomas Wyatt, the poet suspected of having an affair with Anne Boleyn before she took up with King Henry, refusing to allow that poems that seem to be about his own life could be taken literally. At the time, Wyatt was being coy with teasing friends, but the argument becomes very serious when Anne's downfall begins.

I also especially liked the several places where Cromwell explains Henry's behavior, either to his own nephew and son, who are being brought up to be courtiers, or to his fellow officials. His read of Henry is clear-eyed and pragmatic, but for my 21st century mind it is hard to fathom why, seeing so clearly, he would want to serve such a person. And there is why I like to read novels about the 16th century–I like to wonder how those people thought about their world.

I loved this book but not as much as Wolf Hall. Here it felt like the immediacy and intimacy with our boy T Cromwell - with everyone really - was diminished. It was looking at the throbbing heart on an operating table, rather than racing around through bloody ventricles and veins.

If you read the first one then for god's sake read this one too, and if you haven't read the first one yet then this is no place to start.