[HN Gopher] Hilary Mantel, Historian ___________________________________________________________________ Hilary Mantel, Historian Author : diodorus Score : 17 points Date : 2022-10-16 03:24 UTC (19 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bostonreview.net) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bostonreview.net) | kitd wrote: | I finished reading "The Mirror and the Light" just a few weeks | ago. The final scenes leading up to Cromwell's execution was some | of the best writing I have ever read. | | Cromwell was a fascinating person. There can be very few non- | leaders who have had such an impact on history. | telesilla wrote: | I felt myself dying, as I read the last chapters of the book - | I didn't want it to end, knowing what was to come. As I myself | were giving up the ghost, after living with the Cromwells for | three books. She was a remarkable writer. I regret I won't read | her future unwritten works but am grateful for her completed | ones. | ggm wrote: | In a different genre, Dorothy Dunnett might lay claim to the same | historiography, she meticulously researched real events and | documented behaviours of the time, and wound up recruiting | historical figures of often quite minor note, not by any means | all princes and masters, for her cast. | | I am tempted to say Colleen McCullough too. But I think less so. | | Mantel was perhaps unique in the genre of being celebrated for | literary qualities much more than historical. I don't think the | Booker committee cared if she did the research. | | Also, like all good historians, other historians do take downs on | her portrayal of Cromwell. They're "standing on the toes" people | more than Newton's "standing on the shoulder of giants" (which of | course predates Newton and I will deservedly be castigated for | naming it thus) | | I really liked "a place of greater safety" from 1992 which | proceeded the Cromwell books by some years. Spine shivering | stuff. The film "Danton" came out some years before in 1983 and I | remember thinking that the book influenced how I thought about | the times when I saw the film, long after release. | gerikson wrote: | I too can recommend A Place of Greater Safety. Really brings | the French Revolution to life. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-16 23:00 UTC)