A review by wollstonecrafty
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

hilary mantel's editor told her to clarify whom her 3rd person pronouns were referring to and she found and replaced "he, cromwell" and then never looked back. no i have not heard of literary devices. that particular flourish was the only remarkable aspect of her prose to me, but I was 200 pages in before I realized nothing had happened in the traditional narrative sense, so there was SOMETHING net-like and ensnaring about her writing gliding me along.

in terms of historical fiction as genre: the book's refusal to yield or generate the absolute truth, even from a intimate, limited perspective (he, cromwell), separated it from loads of "juicy historical dramas" that basically function as celebrity tell-alls, albeit about tudor england or whatever. you remain uncertain of whether anne boleyn did commit adultery! it doesn't matter because of the both contrived and coincidental nature of politics and political storytelling -- eg. cromwell spins tales to suit the moment but anyone in the regime could have been the target.

all praise aside, i genuinely hated reading the end I was so viscerally uncomfortable. good for ms mantel for being able to hang out with all these horrible men in her head for years?