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The Mirror and the LIght: reflections on reading Hilary Mantel

8/3/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
 London, May 1536
The execution of Anne Boleyn: take 2

He witnesses the execution.   He, Cromwell, the instrument of her downfall.  He  serves the king and Henry VIII wills it.  Get rid of her.  Bring up the Bodies- bring them forth for execution, it’s a concluding scene.

He cannot walk away. It is a haunting, an execution.  All those executions, He has  been here before.  A  world-weariness possesses him. 


He does the king’s bidding. That is what he is for.  Take 2:  he allows himself to look with more humanity.  In her execution  his own end is prefigured- he has a ‘bull neck.’ There is a foreboding. 
Four veiled women, ghost-like, lift  Anne’s remains into an arrow-chest.  Cromwell has done away with Purgatory so where do souls go?
For Cardinal Wolsey, it’s Hell.  A masque: four masked courtiers  grasp the limbs of a flailing jester  in a cardinal’s robe, carrying him off to Hell.  He Cromwell witnesses from the shadows. He will not forget:  George Boleyn,  Henry Norris, Francis Weston, William Brereton.  Executed May 1536.
An ante-type, it’s inspired.

Here the phone rings.  They  talk-over Mantel.  How they read. 
He: the room is in darkness. The only light comes from his Kindle. 
She: a reading chair,  the 900 page tome.  She looks up, reflects.  Sky-scape illuminates her reading.   She has the first two copies locally. His downloads at mid-night. Ahead of her.
It is not a race to the finish. They confer, they mean to savour every word.  How they read, when and where across Mantel's trilogy.
1 Comment
an orienteer
8/3/2020 01:34:51 pm

How many other eager readers across the globe are similarly engaged in this long awaited unfolding story of intrigue in troubled times?

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    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books.)

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