![]() ![]() Throughout the novels, Mantel plays with her readers’ expectations of Cromwell, whose modern-day infamy stems from at least two sources, only one of which was contemporary. Torture, or merely aggressive questioning? Blackmail, or simply shrewd intelligence gathering? The reader cannot be certain whether a crime has in fact been committed, or whether she simply expects that a crime will be committed, given that Mantel’s protagonist is Henry’s notorious consigliere Thomas Cromwell, described in Mantel’s “Cast of Characters” as “a blacksmith’s son: now Secretary to the King, Master of the Rolls, Chancellor of Cambridge University, and deputy to the king as head of the church in England” ( Bodies, ix). Indeed, they are portrayed by Mantel as perhaps only potential crimes. ![]() The crimes by the state, in contrast, are more inchoate and subjective. The crimes against the state are variations on the obvious one, given the context of the court of Henry VIII: treason. The Tudor novels of Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, with a third installment still to come – depict two species of crime: crimes against the state, and crimes by the state. Review of WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES, by Hilary Mantel ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |