Category: Book Reviews

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Synopsis from the book cover:

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry’s actions have forced England into dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as Henry falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king’s pleasure, but the safety of the nation. As he eases a way through the sexual politics of the court, its miasma of gossip, he must negotiate a ‘˜truth’ that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.

Some thoughts:

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel is described on the sleeve of the book cover as ‘a speaking picture, an audacious vision of Tudor England that sheds its light on the modern world.’

It is, of course, the sequel to Wolf Hall and I was too keen to read it to wait for the paperback to come out. I finished it a while ago and have been mulling over in my mind what to write about it. On balance, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Wolf Hall and I had just a little feeling of anti-climax about it, but then the novelty of Wolf Hall for me was the way Hilary Mantel not only brought the Tudor world alive but also how she overturned my ideas of both Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More. As there is no denying that I knew that Anne Boleyn was not going to make a go of her marriage to Henry VIII, so there was little drama there for me. I didn’t even want her to escape her fate.

And yet, Bring Up the Bodies is still a brilliant book. It’s beautifully written, even if it is in the present tense, full of colour and detail so that there is no doubt that this is 16th century England, with vivid descriptions of the people, buildings, fabrics, and landscapes of both town and countryside.

One of the things that stood out for me in Wolf Hall was just how much of a family man Cromwell was, how much he loved and protected them. In Bring Up the Bodies, my overall impression of him is as a politician, a schemer and an implacable enemy. Right from the start he’s in the thick of the action as he and Henry are out hunting, flying their hawks. Cromwell’s are named after his dead daughters, a reminder of him as the family man, but immediately we are made aware that he is very much in the king’s service.  

He never spares himself in the king’s service, he knows his worth and his merits and makes sure of his reward: offices, perquisites and title deeds, manor houses and farms. He has a way of getting his way, he has a method; he will charm a man or bribe him, coax him or threaten him, he will explain to a man where his true interests lie, and he will introduce that same man to aspects of himself he didn’t know existed. … he is distinguished by his courtesy, his calmness and his indefatigable attention to England’s business.  (pages 6-7)

Truly, a man not a man to ignore. A man to be wary of, and even though Henry fondly and familiarly calls him ‘Crumb’, a man needing to take great care of himself. Anne Boleyn, in contrast, by the end of the book is ‘ a tiny figure, a bundle of bones’  when she is brought to the scaffold. But Cromwell is not deceived:

She does not look like a powerful enemy of England, but looks can deceive. If she could have brought Katherine to this same place, she would have. If her sway had continued, the child Mary might have stood here; and he himself of course, pulling off his coat and waiting for the coarse English axe. (page 395)

However, this is not the end of Cromwell:

Summer, 1536: he is promoted Baron Cromwell. He cannot call himself Lord Cromwell of Putney. He might laugh. However. He can call himself Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon. He ranged all over those fields, when he was a boy.

The word ‘however’ is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one. (page 407)

And so, on to the next book …

Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder by Catriona McPherson

Published on by Margaret1 Comment
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!

(from Sir Walter Scott: Marmion Canto VI, XVII)

I wasn’t very far into reading Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder when this quotation (above) came into my mind. This is a remarkably complicated plot, with the most difficult family relationships that I’ve ever come across. Fortunately there are two family trees in the opening pages of this book that go some way to sorting it all out.

This is the sixth Dandy Gilver Murder Mystery book:

When the heiress to a department store goes missing, Dandy is summoned to Dunfermline, where two warring families run rival stores. As Dandy starts to unravel family secrets, she begins to discover disturbing connections and it’s not long before she’s in over her head.

(extracted from the summary on the back of my advanced reader copy)

This summary says it all really. It’s set in Dunfermline in 1927 and the two families are the Aitkens and the Hepburns. At the beginning of the book Mirren Aitken and Dugald Hepburn, the two youngest offsprings of the families have disappeared. Rumour has it that they have eloped and both families are dead against their marriage.

But is there more to it than commercial rivalry? Dandy thinks so and when Mirren is discovered dead on the attic floor of Aitkens’ Emporium, apparently having shot herself, she is even more convinced. Added to that on the day of Mirren’s funeral Dugald is found dead on top of the lift up to the Aitkens’ attic. Together with Alec Osborne, her sleuthing partner, she sets about unravelling the truth even though this is against both families’ wishes.

There are things I like about this book. The setting in Dunfermline is convincing, the descriptions of both stores provide fascinating details of the 1920s department stores. In a note at the beginning of the book Catriona McPherson acknowledges that she has used what she describes as, ‘the insanely detailed and unexpectedly riveting‘ book From Ascending Rooms to Express Elevators: A History of the Passenger Elevator in the Nineteenth Century by Lee E Gray (2002).

I liked the puzzle aspects of this book, even though I failed to work it out completely. But I thought that most of the characters were difficult to distinguish, partly because their names were too confusing, with alternative names – Mary Aitken, also known as Mrs Aitken and Mrs Ninian Aitken or Mrs Ninian. There is also Arabella Aitken, also called Mrs Aitken, Mrs Jack Aitken, Mrs Jack or simply Bella (I liked that version best). I even found the men’s names troublesome, what with Robert and Robin, Mr Hepburn, young Mister Hepburn and Master Hepburn – I could go on. Dandy and Alec are similarly confused.

It’s a very detailed book (and not just about the lift) and at times that became confusing too so that I had to keep flipping backwards to go over passages making sure I understood it. It has a heavy sombre tone and there is quite a lot of repetition as Dandy and Alec keep reviewing what they have discovered and wondering what it all means. For me it could have been much more succinct. Despite these misgivings I did like this book, but not as much as the earlier Dandy Gilver books that I’ve read.

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Minotaur Books (22 May 2012)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1250007372
  • ISBN-13: 978-1250007377
  • Source: Advance Reader Copy
  • My Rating 3/5

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Given a choice of reading one long book or several shorter books, in the past I’ve always gone for the long book, as I like to got lost in a book, but more recently I’ve preferred shorter books. So this is the reason that Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety has sat on my bookshelves unread for a few years. It took me over a month to read it and I did pause for a while to read other shorter books in between. And this book is certainly a book that takes you to another time and place.

It is a remarkable book about the French Revolution concentrating on three of the revolutionaries – Georges-Jacques Danton, Camille Desmoulins and Maximilian Robespierre, from their childhoods to their deaths. Along with these three main characters there is a whole host of characters and without the cast list at the beginning of the book I would have struggled to keep track of them. In fact, some of the lesser characters were just names to me and I never saw them clearly, but that didn’t surprise or deter me, given the enormity of the task of chronicling the events of the French Revolution.

But the main characters stand out and there are also vivid portraits of such people as Mirabeau (a renegade aristocrat), Lafayette (a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Commander of the French National Guard), Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. I was also fascinated to read about Jean-Paul Marat  (he who was murdered in his bath), the Marquis de Sade and Pierre de Laclos (Les Liaisons Dangereuse) – I didn’t know anything about de Sade’s and de Laclos’s involvement in the Revolution.

My European History at school stopped at 1789, so although I remembered listing the causes of the Revolution and the events that led up to it, my knowledge of the main event, as it were, is patchy and incomplete, mainly gathered from books such as A Tale of Two Cities and TV programmes over the years. I found the first part of A Place of Greater Safety covered much of the ground that I was familiar with, but seen through the eyes of the three main characters as they grew up.

Despite Mantel’s insight into the personal lives and characters of the three main protagonists I never really sympathised with any of them – after all they were responsible for the deaths of many people, including their own friends and played a major part in the Reign of Terror. But at times I was drawn into hoping that they would escape their fate – they were all guillotined. They were all lawyers who grew up in the provinces, knew each from their youth and moved to Paris.

Camille Desmoulins is perhaps the star of the book. It was he who instigated the storming of the Bastille. He was by all accounts a charismatic character, despite his stutter. He and Danton lived close to each other, and Danton, a large, loud and ugly man who had the power of captivating his audiences, had a liaison with Lucille, Camille’s wife. Robespierre was a much cooler character and his involvement in the Terror (in which many people lost their heads) was chilling. But even he came over under Mantel’s pen as almost a likeable human being, revealing his weaknesses as well as his power. As long as he could he shielded Danton and Camille as opposition to them grew.

Unlike Wolf Hall, this book isn’t written in the first person, but it moves between the first and third person points of view, giving an almost panoramic view of the characters and their attitudes to the Revolution. It really is written in a most diverse style, moving between locations, characters and even tense. There are also passages written as script-style dialogue, passages from recorded speeches and pamphlets, ‘woven’ into Mantel’s own dialogue. She writes in her Author’s Note that this is not an impartial account and she has tried to see the world as her characters saw it, so where she could she used their own words.

The events of this book are complicated, so the need to dramatize and the need to explain must be set against each other. …

I am very conscious that a novel is a co-operative effort, a joint venture between writer and reader. I purvey my own version of events, but facts change according to your viewpoint. …

I have tried to write a novel that gives the reader scope to change opinions, change sympathies: a book that one can think and live inside. The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true. (pages ix-x)

I think, for me, that Hilary Mantel succeeded with this book. I have struggled reading other books written in the present tense, but either I’m getting more used to it, or Hilary Mantel’s style has won me over. Either way, reading this book and Wolf Hall has been a pleasure – ‘real journeys’ into other times and places.

  • Paperback: 880 pages
  • Publisher: Fourth Estate; (Reissue) edition (4 Mar 2010)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 000725055X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007250554
  • Source: my own copy
  • My Rating: 4/5

Today I’m eagerly waiting for the follow up to Wolf Hall to be delivered to my letter box: Bring Up the Bodies is published today and I’ve had an email saying it’s on its way to me.

Ninepins by Rosy Thornton

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

I finished read Rosy Thornton’s book Ninepins a few days ago.  It’s a remarkable book about mothers and daughters, about growing up and relationships. It’s quite difficult to describe – it’s not exactly a thriller, although there is a mystery element to it and the tension  and suspense gradually build throughout the book. And it’s not exactly a romance, although there is a love story in there too. It’s about people, but there is a satisfying plot and beautiful descriptions of the locations – I learnt a lot about the Cambridgeshire Fens.

It rings true to life, with all the anguish and angst of bringing up children as Laura, a divorced single mum struggles to cope as her daughter Beth turns twelve. They live in an old tollhouse, called Ninepins – there used to be a bridge across the lode and the toll was 9d (nine pence), which over time morphed into ‘Ninepins’. To help out with her finances she rents out the self-contained pumphouse, converted from a fen drainage station, to students. Her new lodger is Willow, a 17-year-old student, with a troubled past. She has been in a care home and still needs Vince, her social worker for support. Laura is not sure what influence Willow will have on Beth, who is having difficulties making friends at her new school. When Beth gets into trouble at school, Laura becomes even more anxious and she doesn’t seem able to do right for doing wrong. Then there is Willow’s mother whose appearance on the scene brings about devastation.

This is a darker book than Rosy’s other books that I’ve read and it captures perfectly the precarious relationships between parents and children as they begin to grow up and feel independent. Just how much leeway should Laura give Beth, how much should she intervene in her life, how much should she monitor what Beth is doing are questions that Laura is trying to resolve. Willow’s and Vince’s appearance in their lives bring changes that Laura had just not considered.She knows a little about Willow’s background and what she does know bothers her immensely. It’s the relationships in this book that are the focal point as Laura, Beth and Willow come to terms with their situations. A gripping story that held my interest throughout.

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd (16 April 2012)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1905207859
  • ISBN-13: 978-1905207855
  • Source: Author review copy
  • My Rating: 4.5/5

The Hanging Valley by Peter Robinson: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

There are 20 books in Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series (listed at Fantastic Fiction). I’ve read a few of them, completely out of order, but it doesn’t seem to matter too much as each one stands alone, although I suspect I’d get a better idea of Banks’s personal life if I had read them in order!

The Hanging Valley is the fourth one in the series.

Synopsis (from the back cover):

A faceless corpse is discovered in a tranquil, hidden valley below the village of Swainshead. And when Chief Inspector Alan Banks arrives, he finds that no-one is willing to talk. Banks’s frustration only grows when the identity of the body is revealed. For it seems that his latest case may be connected with an unsolved murder in the same area five years ago. Among the silent suspects are the Collier brothers, the wealthiest and most powerful family in Swainsdale. When they start use their influence to slow down the investigation, Inspector Alan Banks finds himself in a race against time…

My view:

As well as the Collier brothers, there are other suspects, including John Fletcher, a taciturn farmer, Sam Greenock and his wife Katy who own the local Bed and Breakfast guest house. There’s something not quite right about Katy, she’s obviously troubled and hiding something, and she is dominated by Sam. As I read on I thought the killer was first one character, then another and never really worked out who it was until quite near the end. I enjoyed the puzzle.

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks had been transferred to Eastvale from London two years earlier and is still getting to know the area. He’d moved from London because of the sheer pressure of the job and the growing confrontation between the police and citizens in the capital had got him down. Crime in Eastvale had been slack until this murder happened. And it’s complicated, the locals close ranks and Banks has to work hard to get information, first of all to discover who the victim was and why he had been killed. The trail leads him abroad to Toronto before Banks discovers the truth.

The Hanging Valley is rich in description, both of the Yorkshire Dales and of Toronto. (Peter Robinson was born in Yorkshire and now lives in Toronto.) The hanging valley sounds a beautiful spot, a small, secluded wooded valley with unusual foliage:

… the ash , alders and sycamores … seemed tinged with russet, orange and earth brown. It seemed … like a valley out of Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’.

… the valley clearly had a magical quality. It was more luxuriant than the surrounding area, its ferns and shrubs more lush and abundant, as if, Neil thought, God had blessed it with a special grace. (page 5)

All of which makes the discovery of the corpse so shocking, with its flesh literally crawling. So, I enjoyed this book on two levels – the mystery and the writing itself. I did think, though, that it could have been shorter and more concise, and some of the characters were rather indistinguishable which is why I rated it 3/5.

  • Paperback: 324 pages
  • Publisher: Pan; New edition (8 Nov 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0330491644
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330491648
  • Source: I bought it

The Village by Marghanita Laski: A Book Review

Published on by Margaret


Persephone edition endpapers

The Village was first published in 1952 and chronicles life in an English village immediately after the end of the Second World War. It begins with two women meeting to go on duty at the Red Cross post as they had done throughout the war. They are from different ends of the village, Wendy Trevor from up the hill where  the gentry live and Edith Wilson from Station Road where the working-class live.  Both knew that the breaking down of social barriers had just been one of those things that happened during a war. Mrs Wilson acknowledged that she would miss the camaraderie:

‘There’s a lot of us will miss it’, Edith said. ‘We’ve all of us felt at times, you know, how nice it was, like you and me being able to be together and friendly, just as if we were the same sort, if you know what I mean.’ (page19)

But the war had changed much and the social barriers were rising, but when Wendy’s daughter, Margaret, falls in love with Edith’s son, Roy, the Trevors are horrified and refuse to give their permission for the couple to marry. Margaret does not have the same attitude as her parents:

‘The trouble with you, Miss Margaret, is that you’ve got no sense of class.’ (page 113)

I thought at first that this book was not as good as Laski’s Little Boy Lost, which I loved, but as I read on I realised the simple direct style of writing contained depth and complexity and  by the end I was convinced I was living in the village, amongst these people at the end of the war. It’s not as heart-rending as Little Boy Lost, but it is absorbing reading.

The Village is not only a love story, it’s a novel exploring the issues of class and social mobility, family relationships, parental control and the position of women. Although the Trevors and the Wilsons are the main characters, it’s a novel about the whole community,with a list of all the characters at the beginning of the book, including their station in life.

Included in the mix are the Wetheralls, Ralph and his American wife, Martha. They provide an interesting perspective on the complex British class system, comparing it with the American attitudes to different groups of people. Ralph, a business man, explains to Martha because they’re in ‘trade’, the Trevors who are gentry but hard up, still look down on them – and class is still most important. Martha wants to help Margaret and can’t understand that class doesn’t go by money, until Ralph points out that it was the same in America – ‘Plenty of your old Boston families are nearly as poor as the Trevors, but they still look down their noses at everyone else.’ (page 166)

He goes even further comparing the position of the working-classes in Britain to that of negroes in the United States, not the southern states but in the ‘enlightened North‘:

‘Many’s the time I’ve sat in your mother’s apartment in New York and heard you all talking in a broadminded way about treating the negro properly, but I’ve never come in and found a black man dropped in casually for cocktails, and I wouldn’t expect it, any more that I’d expect to find the Trevors  accepting Roy Wilson as a son-in-law.

…

Honestly now, you wouldn’t have married a negro, would you? You’d do your best to stop your daughter from marrying a negro. Well, you take my word for it, the Trevors will feel just the same way about Margaret marrying Roy Wilson, if there’s any question of it, which I very much doubt.’ (pages 231-2)

It ‘s certainly a book I’d like to re-read.

  • Paperback: 312 pages
  • Publisher: Persephone Books Ltd; First Edition edition (22 Sep 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1903155428
  • ISBN-13: 978-1903155424
  • Source: I borrowed the book from a friend, and now want my own copy!
  • My Rating: 5/5

I wrote about the beginning of The Village here.