The Mirror & the Light
Ratings25
Average rating4.4
I absolutely loved Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, so my excitement for The Mirror & The Light was on par with many of yours. I ordered the 4th Estate hardback, got the Kindle edition and Audible audiobook as soon as they became available, and got going.
I'm putting this on hold for the time being. I'm almost 200 pages in, and it's been quite a slog. The first two books had such fervent momentum going on that I'm finding it quite difficult to get this one going.
I'm rereading Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and loving every page of it (halfway through the second volume after starting the first one in late February), which offers an interesting counterpoint to my experiences so far with this book. I'll return to this later, maybe in the summer.
Yes it is long, Yes she could have probably split it with “Bring Up” but it makes temporal sense why she did not do so but these books are seminal if you enjoy Historical Fiction and they deserve full attention. I am also glad I re-read the previous two for the best effect.
I read this book less carefully than the other two in the trilogy, a little more distractedly (pandemic reading), so I don't have substantive comments. I'm sad that Hilary Mantel is done writing this trilogy and that I am done reading it.
This was an excellent finish to a complete masterpiece of a series. These books will stay with me. I feel grief that they've finished!