Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Wonderful title, don't you agree?

The bodies in question are those of Anne Boleyn, second of the six wives of Henry VIII of England, and of the five men convicted of being her adulterous lovers, all of whom are executed so that Henry can marry his third wife, the demure Jane Seymour. With only daughters, Henry is still frantic to have a male heir and hopes Jane can give it to him. Besides, he is besotted with her and she will not have him outside the marriage bed. Henry's go-to man in cases like this is Thomas Cromwell, his commoner-born Secretary who has risen to great power through uncommon intelligence and an unparalleled talent for intrigue.

This is Cromwell's story, told through his eyes, of how he accomplishes the wishes of his king to rid himself of Anne, at the same time enacting personal revenge on the men he has chosen as scapegoats. His pragmatic attitude is that they may or may not be guilty of adultery with the Queen, but they are demonstrably guilty of other offenses.

Many historical novels give a "thick" picture of the times--what people wore, what they ate, how they lived, what they did for pastimes, and so forth. This one does not. Rather it is concerned almost entirely with the political machinations of jockeying for power and wealth among those closest to the king. Because King Henry's quest to marry Anne Boleyn led to his being made head of the Church in England, rather than the Pope being the head, the story also includes the emergence of the Protestant influence, and how that led to even more political divisiveness.

All of this wheeling and dealing is very interesting and informative, and the character Thomas Cromwell is conveyed as being complex and intriguing. The novel is well written and often unexpectedly humorous. However, I daresay the novel would be much more entertaining for British folk, who perhaps already have opinions as to the how's and why's of the situation.

I have one very specific complaint about the novel: It is written as the present-tense account by Thomas Cromwell, except that the author uses "he" instead of "I." So what would be a perfectly readable account becomes all muddled with pronoun references. Consider this passage:

"Rafe pulls up a low stool and sits thinking....They are used to each other's silent company. He inches a candle closer and frowns at some more papers...."

Would you not assume the "he" in the last sentence to be Rafe? But, no, it gradually becomes apparent that the "he" is Cromwell. The previous novel in this series, Wolf Hall, was written in this manner also. In this novel the author occasionally writes, "he, Cromwell," apparently as a response to the criticism of her previous novel. But I cannot, for the life of me, understand why she wrote the novel in such a way that it would be difficult for a reader to follow the action. If any blog readers have an idea, would you please comment.

I believe it takes a great deal of talent to write a really riveting historical novel, because much of the suspense and tension is necessarily removed. After all, we already know what happened. Hilary Mantel has done an exemplary job here, and both Wolf Hall and this one won England's Man Booker Prize. I would not have thought they were that good, but then I am not British.