Release date for third book in Mantel's Cromwell trilogy

[issybird]

The Mirror and the Light, the third book in Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy (the first two both won the Booker), will be released next year according to an article in the Guardian.

I was blown away by the first book and was hugely let down by the second. Still, I'm excited to see how Mantel wraps the story up.

[amjbrown]

What brilliant news! This is an amazing period of Cromwell's live (and Tudor history) as anyone who has read Diarmaid MacCulloch's excellent biography will be able to attest.

I had an issue with your link (spurious " needed removing). This should work...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...nced-for-2020?

[ElspethB]

Finally! Now if only they can get Mark Rylance back for the concluding part of the BBC miniseries!

Originally Posted by issybird

I was blown away by the first book and was hugely let down by the second. Still, I'm excited to see how Mantel wraps the story up.

Spoiler:

Cromwell loses his head

issybird, I'm curious to know what didn't you like about Bring up the Bodies. It's been years, but I recall liking them both very much.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ElspethB

Finally! Now if only they can get Mark Rylance back for the concluding part of the BBC miniseries!

Spoiler:

Cromwell loses his head

issybird, I'm curious to know what didn't you like about Bring up the Bodies. It's been years, but I recall liking them both very much.

There were, as I recall since as you say it's been years, three things that I didn't care for in Bring up the Bodies. I'll spoiler the last.

The first is that I was disappointed since it seemed to me that Mantel dumbed down the second book. A lot of people struggled with Cromwell's internal dialogue in the first book and she made it much more obvious when he was thinking as opposed to speaking in the second. But the convoluted aspect was part of my enjoyment of the first, so I resented that change.

Second was unavoidable, but still. There's not much known about Cromwell's early life, so Mantel was able to exercise a lot of artistic license in fleshing out his story. But once we got to the Catherine of Aragon/Anne Boleyn years, not only is it much better documented, I'm quite familiar with it. So there was a lot less discovery and more just watching the events play out.

Spoiler:

Third, I really, really disliked the big payoff in terms of the reason for the selection of Anne's putative lovers. It totally strained my credulity and wasn't worth it in itself.

But, as I said, doesn't mean I won't be around for the wrap-up!

[ElspethB]

I found your first point especially interesting because I listened to the audiobooks for both of them, and one of my criticisms of Simon Slater's narration of Wolf Hall was that Slater used his narrator voice instead of his character voice for Cromwell's internal dialogue. Maybe that was a choice on his part, but I found it jarring.