Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall

When Wolf Hall won the Booker Prize in 2009, I was slightly disappointed. It was one of those books on both, the longlist and the shortlist, that I didn't want to read. I can't quite put my finger on what it was, but there was zero motivation to read the book. A couple of weeks back though, I pulled it out from my Chunksters shelf, and decided to give it a go, prepared to abandon it midway. But, from the minute I started it till the time I turned the last page, I was totally mesmerised, and was kicking myself (not literally) for not pulling it down sooner.

Wolf Hall, at 650 pages, has Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, as the central character. While it's set before and during the English Reformation, the focus is not King Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn; instead, it's the man who was the King's right-hand man.

But - how does a boy, a blacksmith's son, who doesn't even know his own birthday - get to be the King's favourite, and play such an instrumental role in the events that shaped British history? That's the angle Mantel has approached this book from. Fictionalising some of Cromwell's life, while following the actual historical events of the 1500s, she casts Cromwell as a sympathetic loyal family man and not the devil that everyone thinks he is. What is actually incredible is though, while portraying him as the hero (and not the anti-hero), Mantel does share what everyone around Cromwell thinks of him, and some of the things said are far from flattering. The high opinion the reader has of Cromwell though - it never changes. It doesn't even waver. Haunted by personal tragedies, his father's wrath, experiences abroad after running away from home post being victimised by his father's drunken beating once again, Cromwell's rich character shines through.

The Reformation is essentially about King Henry VIII wanting to divorce Katharine the princess of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. To do this, the Church of England is forced to break away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, as the Pope would never void a legitimate marriage. King Henry VIII insists that Katharine was not a virgin when he married her, thereby meaning the marriage was never actually legit.

"Some say the Tudors transcend this history, bloody and demonic as it is: that they descend from Brutus through the line of Constantine, son of St Helena, who was a Briton. Arthur, High King of Britain, was Constantine's grandson. He married up to three women, all called Guinevere, and his tomb is at Glastonbury, but you must understand that he is not really dead, only waiting his time to come again.

His blessed descendant, Prince Arthur of England, was born in the year 1486, eldest son of Henry, the first Tudor king. This Arthur married Katharine the princess of Aragon, died at fifteen and was buried in Worcester Cathedral. If he were alive now, he would be King of England. His younger brother Henry would likely be Archbishop of Canterbury, and would not (at least, we devoutly hope not) be in pursuit of a woman of whom the cardinal hears nothing good: a woman to whom, several years before the dukes walk in to despoil him, he will need to turn his attention; whose history, before ruin seizes him, he will need to comprehend.

Beneath every history, another history."

Real-world events of historical significance, the wars and economic concerns and a rich cast of characters all come together in Wolf Hall. The significance of the title is not lost on the readers as well. As Mantel says in an interview:

Wolf Hall, the Seymour House in Wiltshire, is where we're going at the end of this book. But of course, I chose it primarily for its metaphorical resonance: who could resist it? The whole of Henry's court is Wolf Hall.

Cromwell makes everything his business, his loyalty, first to the disgraced Cardinal and then to the King unequivocal. His occasional thoughts about Anne, who he doesn't really seem to like, are hilarious though.

A little later he hears that Anne has taken wardship of her sister's son, Henry Carey. He wonders if she intends to poison him. Or eat him.

Anne really doesn't come across as a likeable character or Queen though. Instead, the Princess of Aragon seems to have a lot more character, and subsequently, a lot more respect from Cromwell. His interactions with both are delicate, as he tries to make peace and do what is right by the King - not questioning him - which might, in fact, be his biggest failing. It's almost a case of the Henry saying "Jump" and Cromwell replying with "How high?"

Even when Thomas More is in the Tower, awaiting his punishment for not condoning the divorce or the split from Rome, he tries to prompt him to ask for forgiveness, saying Henry's a compassionate monarch. And it's parts like this that makes Cromwell come across as a nicer person than history might indicate. Obviously, certain chunks are fictional, but to take a hated character from history and to turn him into - well, Cromwell in Wolf Hall does take serious talent.

The power struggles, the jealousy, the humour and the emotional baggage that everyone's carrying - it all comes across, so stark, so clear, that every character is ambiguous. There's no black and white. There's no sinner, there's no saint. It's a lot like the real world today - everyone has their place, and everyone has their endgame. To manage that with such a myriad of characters (we actually do meet practically anyone and everyone who was involved in the Reformation, or had a part in Henry's Court or knew Cromwell) is incredibly commendable, and I found it quite difficult to judge the characters or find out if I liked them or not. Cromwell and his family though - loved them to bits. And the Cardinal.

My only gripe with this book was the way Mantel referred to Cromwell - always in the third person pronoun: He. Occasionally, paragraphs and pages had to be re-read, but that's a small gripe compared to just how fantastic I thought the rest of this book was. There is meant to be a sequel in the pipelines, and I can't wait to read that. Off we go to Wolf Hall, and see what transpires next...

Alice Munro - Too Much Happiness

Too Much Happiness is a collection of short stories by internationally-acclaimed writer, Alice Munro. Not being a big fan of short stories, I always start a collection tentatively, not really expecting to enjoy it, but hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Munro's Runaway, for example, was fantastic. Too Much Happiness is a bit of an ironic name for this collection. While reading the first few stories, it felt like the stories kicked off right about the time the "happiness" ended in the protagonist's lives... when everything seemed to be hunky-dory, and then the world came crashing down. The stories, in their simplicity and their profundity, explored how the protagonists reacted, and gave a tremendous insight into the workings of a human mind.

Like I've said before, it's this simplicity that makes Munro's work absolutely breathtaking. There's no cliffhangers. There's no incredible twists. It's about the brittleness of human relationships - nothing out of ordinary, nothing spectacular, but just... something that's so universal that it touches the reader, and makes the reader root for the protagonists; empathise with them and sympathise with them. Reading Munro isn't an escape from reality. It's facing reality head-on.

She had always been such a reader – that was one reason, Rich had said, that she was the right woman for him; she could sit and let him alone[...]. She hadn’t been just a once-through reader, either. The Brothers Karamazov, The Mill on the Floss, The Wings of the Dove, The Magic Mountain, over and over. She would pick one up, planning to read that one special passage, and find herself unable to stop until the whole thing was redigested. She read modern fiction, too. Always fiction. She hated to hear the word “escape” used about fiction. She once might have argued, not just playfully, that it was real life that was the escape.

All that said though, I did find this collection a tad inferior to Runaway. A couple of the stories just didn't resonate with me, and I was left thinking, this is a tad pointless; or, I really don't get this... It seemed to unrealistic in the oh-so-realistic web of fiction that Munro spins. Fiction and Free Radicals are two of the stories. Even Dimensions, the first story, had me confused. It was tragic, but... I just couldn't relate to the main character.

On the other hand, stories like Face and Child's Play were mind-blowing though, and if nothing else, I can't recommend those two stories enough. It's stories like these that keep me going back to the world of short stories, and as soon as I had finished this anthology, I picked up yet another one of her books, simply because they are meant to be read, treasured and then re-read, just for the odd glimpses they give us into life, reality and everything else.

Colum McCann - Let The Great World Spin

New York, 1974. The magnificent twin towers are unveiled to the world, and the consensus is that they are ugly compared to the splendid sky-scrapers that grace the New York skyline (the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Centre etc). But, a marvelous feat from an athlete, Philippe Petit, almost changes the perception. Petit walked across a tightrope between the towers - he danced, he entertained, he wowed, and he enjoyed himself thoroughly, as the New Yorkers below looked up in awe, wondering if the man dancing with the clouds was suicidal, crazy, or if he had some perfectly legitimate reason to be doing what he was. After all, it’s not often, you see someone dancing with the clouds.

Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrap your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief.

In McCann’s award-winning Let The Great World Spin, on the day Petit takes on the skyline, lives of various New Yorkers intersect. Almost a six-degrees-of-separation kind-of premise, the chapters tell the stories - some in first person, some in third person - of these New Yorkers. Amidst other things, love and loss bring them together. Some live in South Bronx, others in Park Avenue; some are prostitutes, others judges; some have lost one son to the ‘Nam war, some three; some are escaping their drug-addled past only to confront yet another battle, and some are looking for a new future. But - the nameless figure in the sky (in McCann’s book, Petit remains an un-named person; his performance a mere backdrop.), and grief bring them together.

The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.

The book starts slowly with an introduction to two Irish brothers, who have immigrated to New York as adults - Corrigan, a radical monk living amidst the prostitutes and pimps in the Bronx, and Ciaran, aimlessly trying to find his place in life. The next chapter cuts to Claire, living in Park Avenue, mourning the loss of her son in Vietnam. A group of other mothers who lost their sons will be arriving at her penthouse apartment later in the day, so as to find comfort in each other... but, when people come from totally different walks of life, there is more that divides them than what brings them closer. And then there’s the next story: an artist in her twenties, with a history of drug abuse (now cleaned up), is in the passenger seat during a fatal hit-and-run accident - an incident that is bound to ensure that her life will change forever. And then - then we go back to the beginning, where Tillie, a thirty-eight year old prostitute recounts her life’s story, while at court: slightly hackneyed, quite unsurprising, marginally apologetic. Jazz, her daughter, is a prostitute as well, and while Tillie doesn’t make any excuses, there is a tinge of contriteness to her recap. All this against the historical event of the man on the wire.

It was America, after all. The sort of place where you should be allowed to walk as high as you wanted.

The emotional aspect of this book is what makes it so riveting. Claire’s hesitance and tentativeness, Ciaran being overtly protective of his magnanimous brother, Tillie’s raw honesty... how different people cope with grief, and how they try to fathom the crazy world around them. It’s a novel of massive scope, heartbreaking but not depressing... hinting that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and eventually, hope is not in vain.
The diversity of characters is incredible, and one can’t help but cheer on all the primary characters, although... some of the backup characters (including some of the mothers in Claire’s support group) - the less said, the better. It’s so real, so... non-fictional. The irony, of course, is, the one event that seems fictional (i.e. the grand walk across the towers) is what is non-fictional.

In the wake of 9/11, the significance of this walk seems so much greater. Everyone stood up and took notice of this marvelous feat, and in spite of all the grief in the world, on that fateful day, Petit’s act was what was on everyone’s mind, and they all came together to witness that... and then there was 9/11, which, for completely different reasons, brought the city together again, and showed just how resilient, brave, strong and heroic the people are - in spite of the horrors that life brings in its wake.

Erin @ ErinReads has scheduled this as her Reading Buddies read for the month of July. Pop over to see more thoughts and discussions on this book, for I really don't think my post has done an incredible book much justice.

Michael Cunningham - Specimen Days

I absolutely adored Cunningham's The Hours, and couldn't wait to read another book by Cunningham. And then - then I saw the cover of this one, and I was in love! I knew I just had to read the book. And so, I did. Essentially, Specimen Days is a collection of three novellas, as opposed to one novel. Like The Hours, there are three inter-linked stories, and like The Hours, a famous literary persona makes an appearance (in this case, it's Walt Whitman).

However, unlike The Hours, this novel is set in entirety in New York, and it's set across time. The first story goes back to the era when Whitman was still alive, during the time of the Industrial Revolution; the second story is almost current-day set in a post 9-11 New York haunted by terrorist threads and the final story is set in a futuristic society of half-humans and aliens.

In an almost Cloud Atlas-esque fashion though, the protagonists across the stories seem to be re-incarnations of themselves. There's Simon and Catherine (Cat, Catareen) as the two adults and Lucas (Luke) as the adolescent. A bowl makes a reappearance across the ages as well, as does the poetry of Walt Whitman.

The first story, In The Machine, is set during the time of the Industrial Revolution (nineteenth century), where Lucas, a young boy, starts working in the factory where a terrible accident led to his brother's unfortunate demise. Lucas, who spouts Whitman (a present-day poet at the time) incessantly, reaches the haunting conclusion that the machines are evil and are trying to pull the living in, as they did to his older brother (Simon). His innocence and adamance is almost heart-breaking as he tries to convince Simon's fiancee, Catharine, to stay away from the "machine."

And then we move to The Children's Crusades, where Cat plays the leading role, as a woman who is a police psychologist. Amidst other things, she mans the phone line where would-be terrorists and assassins call up and drop hints about potential upcoming bombs. The latest set of terrorism seems to be coming from a group of children, who quote Whitman's Leaves of Grass, hug a random stranger, and then the bomb detonates...

Finally, there's Like Beauty, set in a post-apocalyptic New York, swarming with aliens and androids. Simon, an alien, who is programmed to recite Whitman at the unlikeliest of times, runs away with Catareen, a lizard-like alien, in search for the man who created him. They take a trip across the country, along with Luke, and manage to find a place on a spaceship that will take them to paradise - a different planet.

The characters are wonderfully drawn across all three stories, and the rapport between them is extremely real. Some of them are outsiders, whereas some of them are searching for a place where they belong. The way things are described had me nodding along in agreement, specially in the second novella.

"Look around," she said. "Do you see happiness? Do you see joy? Americans have never been this prosperous, people have never been this safe. They've never lived so long, in such good health, ever, in the whole history. To someone a hundred years ago, as recently as that, this world would seem like heaven itself. We can fly. Our teeth don't rot. Our children aren't feverish one moment and dead the next. There's no dung in the milk. There's milk, as much as we want. The curch can't roast us alive over minor differences of opinion. The elders can't stone us to death because we might have commited adultery. Our crops never fail. We can eat raw fish in the middle of the desert, if we want to. And look at us. We're so obese we need bigger cemetery plots. Our ten-year-olds are doing heroin, or they're murdering eight-year-olds, or both. We're getting divorced faster than we're getting married. Everything we eat has to be sealed because if it wasn't, somebody would put poison into it, and if they couldn't get poison, they'd put pins into it. A tenth of us are in jail, and we can't build new ones fast enough. We're bombing other countries simply because they make us nervous, and most of us not only couldn't find these countries in a map, we couldn't tell you which continent they're on. [...] So tell me. Would you say this is working out? Does this seems to you a story that wants to continue?"

The title itself is inspired by one of Walt Whitman's works - something I'm not very familiar with, which makes me feel slightly guilty, for I don't think I missed a lot in the book. Some of the references though seemed unnecessary, but I think that might be a result of me not really seeing the whole picture, as I'm not well-versed with Leaves of Grass, or much of Whitman's work/thoughts.

Have you read Specimen Days? Or any other Cunningham?

If you've read Specimen Days, do you think knowing a lot more about Whitman's work would improve the reading experience manifold?

Lorrie Moore - A Gate At The Stairs

A Gate At The Stairs is one of "those" books - beautiful writing, intelligent conversation flowing through the book, a sensitive plot, and a book with great potential. Tassie is a college student in the Mid-western town of Troy, who finds a job as a baby sitter for Sarah, an affluent restaurant-owner who adopts Emmie, a "biracial" child. Sarah is perpetually busy running the upmarket restaurant, and Tassie ends up spending a fair bit of time mothering Emmie.

While there are two other parallel stories (Tassie's "first love" and Tassie's brother contemplating his future at the military), the adoption of the biracial two year old by a white couple was the one that had me glued to the book.

When a boy uses the infamous n-word at Emmie, the babysitter reports it to Sarah, who starts a "group" for parents with non-white children. The group meets every Wednesday, and contemplates what the future holds as well as discusses the present-day situation of the African American race. In a post 9/11 world, racism in midwestern America is still rampant, and the lives of the minority is still under question. The snippets of conversation on Wednesday evenings that Moore penned down had me absolutely boggled. Call me naive, but I don't think much about racism or how a person's caste or skin colour can affect their place in society. In my ideal world, it shouldn't, and maybe because I've not witnessed it first hand, I'm absolutely oblivious. As Martin Luther King once said, "judge not a man by the colour of his skin, but by the content of his character" - but that doesn't really happen, does it?

Yes, I've read a fair bit about slavery and the troubles African Americans face, but, most of those books are from a different age, and in my little head, that time had just gone by. The unfairness of racial abuse towards biracial children literally had me perplexed!

Anyway, I digress. Back to Moore's book.

As one might expect, the plot twist comes from a blast from the past that reminds the many characters that the past does not forget. In my opinion, this was a little excessive as well, and Moore was trying to make the plot more dynamic, more "exciting" - to an extent, she did succeed, but, it just left me feeling perplexed.

The book was an interesting read, but, the last seventy pages just ended up taking a gigantic detour and having a story which didn't really fit in with everything else. Again, maybe it was something that does belong to the post 9/11 world? I don't know - I think the book would have benefitted from either streamlining the story, or avoiding some of it, despite it being emotionally powerful, and relevant in this day and age.

You can't fault the writing style though. It's beautiful, witty, insightful, and although Tassie at times comes across as way too mature for her age, at other times I could relate to her and her college lifestyle. Even Sarah and Edward (Sarah's husband) characters are well-developed, and while I didn't care much for the latter, I did sympathise with Sarah.

Think this book is worth a read, and I'd love to read more of Moore's works, to see if they're as insightful.

Have you read anything by Moore? How do you think her short stories compare to her novel?