Last year, Hilary Mantel made
English literary history when she became the first woman to win the Man Booker
Prize for the second time. She was awarded the prize for her fuck-off brilliant
novels about Henry VIII's fixer and all-purpose pit-bull, Thomas Cromwell, (think of him as the
Tudor court's Tom Hagen or Al Neri) - Wolf Hall (2009), and Bring
Up the Bodies (2012).
Of course, the question on the literatis' lips (and mine),
is - can she score a proverbial hat-trick and win a third Booker for the final
instalment in the Cromwell trilogy The
Mirror and the Light currently in progress?
God, I hope so.
First published in 1985, Mantel is a freakishly gifted
observer of people, culture and society. Her books, which range from
claustrophobic and bizarre, piano-wire-tight domestic dramas mired in the everyday
and which draw from personal experience (Eight
Months on Ghazzah Street, Every Day
is Mother's Day, Vacant Possession)
to epic historical novels about Europe's best-known powerbrokers and monsters (A Place of Greater Safety, Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies), are
extraordinary.
With a few well-placed words and a handful of sentences
(along with some deadly exchanges of pithy dialogue) she puts the reader smack
bang in the middle of some truly uncomfortable moments, both real and
imagined. The interrogation scenes between
Cromwell and Anne Boleyn’s suitors in Bring
Up the Bodies are scary good. The Robespierre of A Place of Greater Safety makes Pol Pot look like a fluffy puppy.
I'm not sure I want her at my next dinner party, casting her
eyes over the guests, picking apart every gesture, every nuance, every dirty
look, or conversational lapse. Reading about it afterwards would be rather like
having your skin removed in one piece, having it cured and then being told to
lie down on it.
Yes, she is THAT GOOD. I am her number one fan, devotee, and
acolyte. Call me a 'Mantelyte'.
Moreover, she's a great essayist too. A rare creature is
that novelist who can tell killer stories but also provide smart commentary on
politics, religion, history and society. Google her journalism if you don't
believe me.
The now-infamous speech Ms Mantel gave at the British Museum
earlier this year, Royal Bodies,
landed her in hot water with the UK's deliberately moronic and mischievous
tabloid press because of her allegedly unflattering description of Ms Kate
Middleton. I won't deconstruct it for you here, as I expect any intelligent
grown-up who reads or listens to it, will understand precisely what the author
was saying about the nexus between watchers (us) and the watchees (celebrity royals)
and the role of the media as pimps/intermediaries in this creepy relationship.
Yes, the speech is THAT GOOD. That both David Cameron and Ed
Miliband saw fit to strenuously attack Ms Mantel and defend the Duchess of
Cambridge, proves beyond doubt neither of these men is fit to run a bath, let
alone a country of over 60 million people.
Dickheads.
I read Wolf Hall
for the first time last year and have read it three more times since. I'm waiting
for a friend to return Bring Up the
Bodies so I can read it for a second time. My shaking fingers will be
poised, hovering over the keyboard ready to press 'submit' on my Book
Depository order of The Mirror and the
Light upon its publication.
I know how it ends. Anyone with the faintest knowledge of the
Tudors (and that includes watching the slap 'n tickle, doggy-style TV version
with Jon Rhys-Meyers) knows how it ends. Thomas Cromwell gets it in the neck.
He gets it in the neck mostly for setting Henry VIII up with an ugly German and
thinking he can get away with it. But only a genius like Hilary Mantel can take
a story we already know, breathe bloody, smelly, foul and stinking life into it
and have us begging for more.
I can't wait.
