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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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Body horror, Cancer, Torture, Gaslighting, Death, Confinement, Blood, Child death, Incest, Terminal illness, Murder, and Sexual content
naomi_k's review against another edition
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage, Death, Infidelity, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pregnancy, Cursing, and Infertility
Minor: Sexual content, Confinement, and Classism
tmickey's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pregnancy, Murder, Miscarriage, Animal death, Sexual content, Grief, Death, Infertility, Infidelity, Torture, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Suicide and Blood
ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition
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
Moderate: Incest, Sexual content, Infidelity, and Infertility
malloryfitz's review against another edition
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pregnancy, and Sexism
Minor: Alcohol, Animal death, Sexual content, Torture, and Blood
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