MixedThe Hindu (IND)It is the job of a writer of historical fiction to put the reader in ‘the moment’, even if the moment is 500 years ago. So says Hilary Mantel, who does exactly that ... There are passages in the book that brilliantly bring alive Tudor England — its magnificent courts, costumes, jousts and pomp along with the back alleys and the underbelly of London. There are vivid descriptions of England’s sounds, sights and smells and a particularly amusing account of Hans Holbein agonising over how to paint the now bloated and far-from-attractive Henry VIII in a flattering light ... There is all the high-intensity drama and action one would expect from Mantel. But once the business of executions, seductions, marriages and treason is over, somewhere around the halfway point in the book, the narrative starts to sag. The accounts increasingly take on a chronicle-like quality, fabulous for a history buff, but not so much for someone who wants a fast-paced Tudor thriller like Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies ... doesn’t somehow build up to a nail-biting climax. There is too much meandering for a lay reader whose arms have begun to ache from the weight of the book. And alas, attention slips from Thomas Cromwell’s unfolding saga to how many more pages there are left to read.
