“If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?”
England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves.
Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, …
“If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?”
England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves.
Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?
With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion, and courage.
--front flap
After having read the first two volumes in this trilogy, I essentially knew what to expect from Mantel's writing style, and I couldn't wait to be sucked back into the world that she created. The novel is by no means short, but it never drags. Taken as a whole, an astonishing achievement, learned and readable, a brilliant cast of characters, and mesmerizing re-creation of the age.
Completing The Mirror And The Light is like waking from a dream. I've read the entire trilogy one after the other and absolutely adored every page of every one. All three are written in a very idiosyncratic style, almost like a stream of consciousness but as if Cromwell is observing his own life at one remove. I've seen people turned off these books by that stylistic choice but to me it worked perfectly, at times it was like I was reading prose in the style of poetry - a constantly shifting perception of events, past influences and a haunting history melding together in a blur of emotions and ideas. Beautiful.
The entire trilogy has made it into my personal top 3 (I tend to lump book series together as one entity), second only to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. It's been a long time since a (series of) book(s) moved me …
Completing The Mirror And The Light is like waking from a dream. I've read the entire trilogy one after the other and absolutely adored every page of every one. All three are written in a very idiosyncratic style, almost like a stream of consciousness but as if Cromwell is observing his own life at one remove. I've seen people turned off these books by that stylistic choice but to me it worked perfectly, at times it was like I was reading prose in the style of poetry - a constantly shifting perception of events, past influences and a haunting history melding together in a blur of emotions and ideas. Beautiful.
The entire trilogy has made it into my personal top 3 (I tend to lump book series together as one entity), second only to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. It's been a long time since a (series of) book(s) moved me and affected me quite so much. Brilliant.
It is long, yet somehow one doesn't want it to end.
The quality of writing is extraordinary, and the way Mantel evokes an era none of us can know is so bold and brazen that the reader falls under her spell completely.
Very cleverly, she does not crave our sympathy for Cromwell in any of the three books; he is a bit of a thug and a man of his time. However, the reader is invited to respect him and to admire his transformation from humble beginnings in Putney to become one of the most consequential people of the 16th Century. At the end, Cromwell accepts his fate, and its inevitability. As inevitable - and unavoidable - as a kick to the head from his father Walter. For if Cromwell had tried to live his life in a way to avoid such a miserable ending, then he would have had …
It is long, yet somehow one doesn't want it to end.
The quality of writing is extraordinary, and the way Mantel evokes an era none of us can know is so bold and brazen that the reader falls under her spell completely.
Very cleverly, she does not crave our sympathy for Cromwell in any of the three books; he is a bit of a thug and a man of his time. However, the reader is invited to respect him and to admire his transformation from humble beginnings in Putney to become one of the most consequential people of the 16th Century. At the end, Cromwell accepts his fate, and its inevitability. As inevitable - and unavoidable - as a kick to the head from his father Walter. For if Cromwell had tried to live his life in a way to avoid such a miserable ending, then he would have had no life worth living at all.
