“I have touched the highest point of all my greatness; And from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting: I shall fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, And no man see me more.” Oh boy do I need to step up my review writing game, between a ridiculously long illness and studying for the USMLE exams, I haven’t had a lot of spare time to write. To compound the problem, I was tackling a mammoth of a book, […]
What goes up. . . .
This book deserves a better-written review than it’s going to receive from me, since I read it at the beginning of the year, didn’t write a review, and now it’s December 30th. My own damn fault. This is the sequel to Wolf Hall, the story of the rise of Thomas Cromwell (and, at about the same time, Anne Boleyn). The king and Cromwell are staying with the Seymours at their home, Wolf Hall (which made me wonder why the first book was called that, since […]
Wolf Hall, or the redemption of Thomas Cromwell
The tour de Mantel continues with Wolf Hall, about the rise of Thomas Cromwell (no spoilers here, but the fall of Thomas Cromwell comes in another book). We learn a bit about Cromwell through flashbacks – the abuse at the hands of his father, running off to France to become a mercenary, learning about culture and banking in Antwerp, and generally becoming a Renaissance man. He returns to England, becomes a merchant, and eventually ended up working for Cardinal Wolsey, advisor to Henry VIII. Cromwell […]