Reviews with content warning for Incest - Bring Up the Bodies

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Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

10 reviews

pkc's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was just insanely good. I really enjoyed Wolf Hall, but found it especially challenging. It takes a great author to hear those critiques and very subtly tweak their prose so that the critiques are addressed but the tone and timbre remain unaffected. Cromwell is such a brilliantly written baddie, but Mantel never seeks to make him look truly wicked. In fact, he’s so cunning that sometimes, I was inexplicably coming around to his way of thinking before giving myself a shake. Mantel’s command of language brings unconventional beauty to some truly dark moments and I can’t praise this book highly enough.

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naomi_k's review against another edition

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dark informative tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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tarajoy90's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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queerloras's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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jhbandcats's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The second entry in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy is just as good as the first. As King Henry VIII grows increasingly enamored of Jane Seymour, Cromwell is charged with getting Queen Anne Boleyn out of the way so Jane can become Henry’s third queen. Cromwell’s in a difficult spot - the political machinations of the various factions around Henry mean he’s always watching his step. He has no true friend, just people who want to use him or stay out of his clutches, so if he’s not careful, Cromwell could fall as quickly as Anne’s admirers.

As before, the writing is exquisite. It’s a bit challenging - there aren’t always quotation marks and it’s difficult to tell who is saying what - but once the rhythm settles in it flows smoothly. Mantel’s sardonic wit is as caustic as ever; she describes Anne Boleyn’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, as looking “like a piece of rope chewed by a dog, or a piece of gristle left on the side of a trencher.”

Wolf Hall is one of my favorite all-time books, and Bring Up the Bodies is a worthy sequel. I’m now hoping to finish the trilogy with the 800+ page The Mirror and the Light. Mantel is just an extraordinary writer.

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ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“But remember this above all: defeat your instinct. Your love of glory must conquer your will to survive; or why fight at all? Why not be a smith, a brewer, a wool merchant? Why are you in the contest, if not to win, and if not to win, then to die?”

TITLE—Bring Up the Bodies

AUTHOR—Hilary Mantel

PUBLISHED—2012

GENRE—historical fiction

SETTING—Tudor England

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Thomas Cromwell; English history; an interesting portrait of Tudor court life & etiquette, politics & protocols; the complexity of human nature; gorgeous writing style

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

BONUS ELEMENT/S—Definitely how subtly funny this book is?? Like I was laughing out loud quite a lot and I feel like for such a serious drama-type book, that’s really cool that Mantel was able to include a bit of brevity here and there. Very much in line with her focus on the complexity of human natures.

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it’s like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you’re thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws.”

Like I have said, this historical period is not my usual thing (though I did go through this phase in highschool 😂) but it’s the writing style that does this series for me. Mantel is able to pull me into the world of Tudor England and its characters as though they were brand new to me.

And while I loved Wolf Hall, I thought Bring Up the Bodies was even better. Once again I was impressed by the dialogue. It’s so believable both for the historical time period as well as for how you’d imagine real people actually conversing… (i.e. p 19) I can perfectly visualize the room, the people, feel and smell the whole scene quite effortlessly.

I was even more impressed with Mantel’s further characterization of Cromwell in this book. It was amazing to me that in spite of the resources and vision Cromwell had for trying to create a “better world”, and how he put them all to use as extravagantly and efficiently as possible, that “fate” was always against him because of how the system within which he was trying to thrive was intentionally structured from the beginning, from the outside-in and vice versa. I don’t think he ever really acknowledges that. He continued to believe that reform was possible when revolution was always the only answer. *coughcough*

What I also found so disturbing even more so in this book than in the first for obvious reasons (poor Anne 😬) is that the world building is so effed up—especially the political structure and protocols. Like, were this a fantasy story, you’d almost be confused or want to dismiss it as unbelievable or too complicated or say that it just doesn’t make any sense or that people couldn’t have possibly lived that way. But this *isn’t* fantasy. It’s *history*, incredibly well-researched history that Mantel has interpreted and depicted in a way that in spite of being so bizarre is so clearly and disturbingly believable. And of course what’s even more disturbing is that a lot of these values and customs are still *present* in modern systems! It’s wildddd. 😅(Also see my previous comment about reform vs. revolution. 🤣)

BUT at the same time all the characters and their actions and choices make PERFECT human sense and you can see and understand every single person and how they lived and why they believed what they did etc etc to the point where you almost forget that they’re based on real people whose actions are NOTORIOUS too, beyond explanation or understanding, and yet here Mantel has given a possible interpretation that makes just eerie sense.

Gah! Amazing.

The style and pacing at the end of the book was also excellently executed I felt. It reflects the reality of the nature of information (mainly its significant lack) surrounding Anne’s last days and so feels very pinched, segmented, and halting—almost uncomfortable, *which*, I felt, mirrored also how Cromwell was handling the experience of the trials and executions—as something he has to perfectly control but also somehow *get* through to achieve his desired ends in spite of the fact that they were completely traumatizing him—and I think it is just incredibly well-done. I love when style and structure mimic a character or the plot. Truly the best way to affect excellent atmosphere.

Ok I think that’s enough. 😂 Can’t wait to read The Mirror and the Light!

“‘Well, Francis,’ he says. ‘We know not the hour, do we?’”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TW // infidelity, incest, sexual content, legal injustice (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

more by Hilary Mantel!—TBR
the Welsh Princes trilogy, by Sharon Kay Penman
The Sunne in Splendour, by Sharon Kay Penman—TBR
When Christ and His Saints Slept, by Sharon Kay Penman—TBR
Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll—for the parody of English court etiquette—the scene early on (in Mantel’s book) when they’re trying to decide how to wake Henry who’s fallen asleep at the dinner table particularly recalled Carroll’s story for me 😂

Content Warnings

catrionamayj's review against another edition

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dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Couldn't put it down for the last 200 pages. Can definitely see 'The Mirror and the Light' in my future.

Content Warnings

katherine_ridley's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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beckyo's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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nadia's review against another edition

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challenging tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed this reread! After I found Wolf Hall more a struggle to get into than I remembered, this one was a lot easier. And when I dug up an old blog post I wrote back in 2014 (over 8 years ago), I had the same experience:

I found the writing easier to follow in this book and I’m not sure whether that’s down to me being more used to Mantel’s style or that the nature of the material meant that it was dealt with with less subtlety and more drama. I wasn’t complaining. Whilst the book started rather slowly, as the story proceeds it turns into a real page-turner.

Having gone through this twice, I reckon the writing, while still excellent, is, on the whole, more direct in this one!

There will still parts where I had to reread paragraphs a few times to grasp the meaning, and some aspects did some rather dull, but those were few and far in between.

Keeping track of who's who was still relatively difficult on the whole, especially without a paper copy to easily flick back and forth, but having reread Wolf Half very recently definitely helped!

Finally I'm ready to for The Mirror & the Light!

P.S. Review from 2013 was 4⭐️ ; I probably would have given it 4.25 if StoryGraph had existed!

P.P.S. I'm currently enjoying watching the BBC adaptation of the two books with some friends. It's really good!

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