Bring Up The Bodies (2012)
Who wrote it?
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel (1952- ; active 1985- ), born Glossop, Derbyshire, UK. Born to parents of Irish descent but born in England, she was raised as a Catholic but lost her faith aged 12. She studied law, initially at London School of Economics but transferred to the University of Sheffield. After university, she worked in the social work department of a geriatric hospital and as a department store sales assistant. She married geologist Gerald McEwen in 1973, and over the course of the late 70s and 80s they lived in Botswana for 5 years and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for 4. While in Botswana she suffered from a severe form of endometriosis, with the ensuing surgery leaving her unable to have children.
She began writing a novel about the French Revolution in 1974 (eventually released in 1992 a A Place of Greater Safety), though her first published novel was 1985's Every Day is Mother's Day. From 1987-91 she blended her literary career with a job as film critic on The Spectator. Over the course of the following decades she accumulated a range of awards and nominations for her varied novels and short stories, notably the Cheltenham Prize for Fludd (1990) and the Hawthornden Prize for An Experiment in Love (1996). 2006's Beyond Black was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, but 2009’s Wolf Hall gave her a Booker win, before its sequel Bring Up The Bodies repeated the feat a mere three years later. She received her damehood in 2014.
What's it about?
Bring Up the Bodies is the sequel to Mantel's 2009 Booker winner, Wolf Hall. It continues to follow the life of Thomas Cromwell, blacksmith's son now risen to Master Secretary to the King's Privy Council. King Henry VIII is tiring of his second wife Anne Boleyn, who has yet to bear him a male heir, and beginning to fall in love with Jane Seymour, a former attendant to the Queen and inhabitant of Wolf Hall.
Cromwell initially tries to negotiate a separation through Anne's family, but soon begins to learn of rumours that Anne has been unfaithful to the King. The more he digs, the more he uncovers, notably from the testimony of the musician Mark Smeaton. The second half of the novel is devoted to a detailed imagining of the final weeks of Anne's life, in which Cromwell is charged with bringing the Queen and various men she is accused of consorting with to justice.
Cromwell relishes the role, and uses it very much to his own advantage, ensuring those who were responsible for the downfall of his mentor Wolsey are punished irrespective of conclusive evidence, and those he favours (notably the poet Wyatt) are spared. By the end of the novel, he is confirmed as the King's chief advisor and rewarded with a barony, but omens of what is to come next are already building in the background...
What I liked
In honesty, most of this is going to be pretty much the same as for Wolf Hall. If you liked that, you’re going to love this…
Yet there are also areas of improvement. One, as a friend pointed out, is that you’re already immersed in the world, so there’s less of that pesky flicking back and forth to check who’s who in the cast list.
Another is the sharpness of focus. Where Wolf Hall had a huge amount of ground to cover, and several big ticket characters (Wolsey, More) competing for attention to the point that Henry struggled to get a look-in, Bring up the Bodies is much more zeroed in on its central protagonists, and on one specific, and very famous, moment in history.
This also gives some of the supporting case room to breathe and grow, whether it’s in humourous directions like the hilariously awful Norfolk, or being given more depth like Call-Me Risley (though to be fair his constantly repeated nickname is still the best thing about him…).
There are also more shades of grey to Cromwell in this part. If Wolf Hall was a counter to previous overly negative depictions, this brings to the fore his self-serving nature in style. He’s ruthless and focused almost entirely on self-advancement, and all the more enjoyable a character for it.
There’s some fairly graphic sexy stuff in here! Mantel seems to be having a lot of fun with the characters attempts to dance around the details of Anne’s infidelity (and occasionally just going straight in for it) - very amusing stuff in places.
What I didn’t like
For a good third of the book, I was less enthusiastic than I ended up being. It kicks off very much in the mould of its predecessor, leaving me wondering if it would be a bit of an unnecessary read, but the punchy second half more than makes up for it.
Despite the fact that it’s subtly different to Wolf Hall, it does perhaps beg the question of what the judges felt was being achieved by rewarding another book in the same series. I guess if you take a purist approach, that shouldn’t be an issue, but it’s not like a second win that is vastly different from the first (as in Peter Carey) so there’s a slightly sense of an opportunity missed to reward something fresh. But it doesn’t diminish the fact that this is another great read.
Food & drink pairings
Just make me some broth, I’ve got lives to ruin here… too busy for food
The sweet taste of the blood of one’s enemies?
Fun facts
Hilary Mantel was only the fourth author to be awarded the Booker twice, following J. M. Coetzee, Peter Carey and (via a slightly more convoluted route) J. G. Farrell.
In doing this she also set a few "firsts" - the first female author and first living British author to win twice; the shortest gap between winners and (obviously) the first time two books from within a series had both won the award.
At the time of its Booker win, Bring Up The Bodies had already sold more copies than the other 11 novels longlisted for the 2012 Prize combined.
The trilogy was completed in 2020 with The Mirror & the Light, which covers the last four years of Cromwell's life, culminating in his execution in 1540. It won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize, but missed out on the Booker shortlist.
Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies have been adapted for both stage and television. The first stage production was by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2013, which then transferred to London in 2014 and Broadway in 2015 with Ben Miles as Cromwell. The Mirror & the Light was staged by the same producers this year, albeit beset by COVID-related issues.
The BBC TV adaptation somehow managed to compress the first two novels into a six-part series, and featured an extremely starry cast including Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Damian Lewis as Henry VIII. The final novel has yet to receive the same treatment.
Vanquished Foes
Debrah Levy (Swimming Home)
Alison Moore (The Lighthouse)
Will Self (Umbrella)
Tan Twan Eng (The Garden of Evening Mists)
Jeet Thayil (Narcopolis)
Anyone here that might have given the Booker some fresh blood instead of a re-run of 2009? I haven’t read any of these.
The Orange/Women's prize went to Madeline Miller with her debut The Song of Achilles, winning out over Anne Enright and Ann Patchett among others. There was no crossover with the Booker shortlist, though Bring Up the Bodies did appear on the 2013 list.
Context
In 2012:
Hurricane Sandy wreaks devastation across North American Atlantic coast
Barack Obama re-elected US president, defeating Mitt Romney
Blackouts in India in July constitute the worst power outage in world history
Sinking of the passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia off Italian coast
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, US
Shooting at cinema in Colorado during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises kills 12
Washington, US, becomes the first jurisdiction in the modern world to officially legalize the possession of cannabis for personal use
London Olympics
Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II
Kim Dotcom's Megaupload filesharing site is shut down by the FBI
Felix Baumgartner becomes first person to break sound barrier without machine assistance, during a record space dive
KONY 2012 viral Youtube film
Final print edition of Encyclopedia Britannica
John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
David Byrne, How Music Works
Marvel's The Avengers / Avengers Assemble
Skyfall
The Hunger Games
Lincoln
Django Unchained
Frank Ocean, Channel Orange
Kendrick Lamar, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
Taylor Swift, Red
Lana del Rey, Born to Die
Life Lessons
Revenge is sweet
…for the moment at least
Score
8.5
Yes, possibly slightly better even than its predecessor. Does its victory add to the richness of the Booker pantheon? Not really. Is it a great read? Yeah, it is.
Ranking to date:
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) - 9.5
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981) - 9.5
Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee (1999) - 9.5
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst (2004) - 9
Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively (1987) - 9
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (2008) - 9
Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth (1992) - 9
Oscar & Lucinda - Peter Carey (1988) - 9
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978) - 9
Life & Times of Michael K. - J. M. Coetzee (1983) - 9
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (1997) - 9
Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982) - 9
The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai (2006) - 9
Life of Pi - Yann Martel (2002) - 8.5
Bring Up The Bodies - Hilary Mantel (2012) - 8.5
The Bone People - Keri Hulme (1985) - 8.5
How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman (1994) - 8.5
Troubles - J.G. Farrell (1970, "Lost Booker") - 8.5
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes (2011) - 8
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (2000) - 8
Possession - A. S. Byatt (1990) - 8
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (2009) - 8
Saville - David Storey (1976) - 8
The Sea - John Banville (2005) - 8
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell (1973) - 8
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (2003) - 7.5
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992) - 7.5
The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson (2010) - 7.5
Rites of Passage - William Golding (1980) - 7.5
The Gathering - Anne Enright (2007) - 7.5
True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey (2001) - 7.5
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) - 7.5
Last Orders - Graham Swift (1996) - 7
The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (1970) - 7
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer (1974) - 7
Holiday - Stanley Middleton (1974) - 7
Heat & Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) - 6.5
In a Free State* - V.S. Naipaul (1971) - 6.5
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle (1993) - 6
G. - John Berger (1972) - 6
The Famished Road - Ben Okri (1991) - 6
Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby (1969) - 5.5
The Ghost Road** - Pat Barker (1995) - 5.5
Staying On - Paul Scott (1977) - 5
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan (1998) - 5
Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner (1984) - 4.5
The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis (1986) - 4
*Read in later condensed edition.
**Third part of a trilogy of which I hadn’t read pts 1&2
Next up
800+ pages of Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. See you in a while…
