‘Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,’ says Thomas More, ‘and when you come back that night he’ll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks’ tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.’
Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. Hilary Mantel’s prize-winning Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies explore the man and motivations behind this most masterful of political figures.
***
How did you first come across Cromwell, and when did you decide to write about him?
I first came across him when I was a child learning history in a Catholic school. I grew up with the sainted Thomas More looking down from stained-glass windows. As I am a contrarian, it made me ask whether there was more to Cromwell’s story than just his opposition to More, and I carried that question with me. When I began writing, I registered him in my mind as a potential subject. This would have been in the 1970s, before I’d finished my first novel. There seemed to be a lot of blanks in his story, and it wasn’t easy to find out anything about him, but it’s in those gaps that the novelist goes to work. Read more…
*I like the works of double Man Booker Prize winner Dame Hilary Mantel
*I am a fan of Wolf Hall, her work of historical fiction
*I also enjoyed the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies
*I have read neither of the above, but would like to
*I am looking forward to The Mirror and the Light, the third in the series
*I partake in television watching Read more…
Until 2013, the name Gabriele D’Annunzio was known only to students of Italian history, devotees of Decadent poetry and fashionistas with an interest in turn-of-the-century menswear. Now the name of this repulsive yet compelling man rings many more bells, thanks to the thrilling Samuel Johnson prize-winning biography The Pike by Lucy Hughes-Hallett.
She details D’Annunzio’s evolution from an idealistic poet who allied himself with the Romantic aesthetic to an instigator of radical right-wing revolt against democratic authority, who eventually declared himself the Commandante of the city of Fiume in modern-day Croatia, intending to establish the utopian modern state upon his muddled fascist and artistic ideals and create a social paradigm for the rest of the world. Read more…
As your till receipts will testify, the cost of food has climbed alarmingly of late. And it looks as if higher bills are here to stay, not just for years, but for decades. A series of global factors – climate change, a growing world population, shortage of oil, market speculation and a weak pound – are combining to drive up the price of food. The underlying trend is that food prices will continue to rise in real terms for the next 30 years. So we have moved into a period when food become a much more significant item in the household budget. Read more…
This month our theme is power, and who has more power than the royals themselves? All good monarchs know the cost of power and what it takes to hold onto it. From historical fiction, children’s to fantasy – there are so many examples of great kings and queens in literature. Some are brave and noble, some are cruel and immoral and others are just badass! Here are just four of my favourite fictional kings and queens…
Power. It can be so deadly in the wrong hands, and who else knows how to spin a tale around that than our authors? The month’s theme draws on the power play that so often drives the narrative in the literature that has us gripped, frightened and thanking a higher power that Oliver Cromwell isn’t our boss.
