itt WOLF HALL the book by hilary mantel and the upcoming hbo/bbc miniseries based on the same

really dug this book, thought there was a thread about it, guess not, anyway, excited for this

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bbc-hbo-team-wolf-hall-263566

im intrigued, tell me more

The book jacket featured at the link is a total mess.

*loses interest*

really good historical fiction about thomas cromwell

done right would be like the tudors but good

whoa. the book is fantastic (place of greater safety, about the terror in paris, is also good but not nearly as good as wolf hall). i am stoked for the sequel but mantel has been very ill and in and out of hospital for quite some time. i didn't realize it actually had a publication date set.

the main character is a total fantasy - brilliant, world-wise, badass, a family man, and happens to be completely enlightened vis-a-vis the warped values of his society. so this should be huge.

UK cover

this book kicks ass!

man, nothing?

i think the language is really great. really fluid and choppy, and the present tense really jarring; i still am not used to it. the time and scene shifts are very cinematic i think. mantel has a great ear for dialogue.

i looked up most of the principals on wikipedia and now have an idea of who gets the chop. so now the dramatic question as a reader is when the book ends! (is it a spoiler if it happened 500 years ago?)

idk if the main character is a "total fantasy"? i mean the basic details of his climb: "ruffian", soldier, lawyer, trader, adviser, burgess, etc, are all a matter of record. and the early modern/reformation period was full of people with ideas on the "warped values of his society"!

hey man! knew you would dig this, i dont really have anything smart to say about it, but it ruled

i only know this history in the most basic outline. uhhh, king wants a divorce, break with rome happens, england gets protestantism but not like super-protestantism, and that's it.

yeah i'm really impressed so far!

took me a bit to get used to one of mantel's stylistic choices: unless very obviously noted as someone else, the pronoun "he" is always Thomas Cromwell.

also i'm realizing that knowing this is going to be an HBO joint has put a certain look of things in my mind.

yeah i had this kind of half-baked notion about the way mantel uses "he" and the rise of the subject, cromwell as first modern man or something, but i dont really remember the book well enough

oh cool

http://www.4thestate.co.uk/2011/11/wolf-hall-sequel-bring-up-bodies-hilary-mantel/

i thought this was really fun, i liked how unabashed and romantic it was, am not really looking forward to the tv show tho

Anyone read the sequel yet? I'm waiting on a copy from interlibrary loan.

im about 30 pages into it and so far it seems very much the same

oh good, i need to pick that up. i started reading WH all over again, cos it took me a while to adjust to the style and keep everyone straight, there's things i didn't pick up on the first time. the dialogue is so much fun, really tight, really revealing.

his son is such a dunce but so amiable and lovable. everything with mary boleyn is so heartbreaking.

there's something going on about motivation, the intersection of desire, the 'inner life' and ideology at the moment of formation -- all that stuff about protestantism and capital was being made during the course of these events. cromwell doesn't seem to know himself. iirc there are moments where he asks why he's doing all this and he doesn't really know, "what else is there but affairs?"

Lamp what do you mean by "unabashed and romantic"?

this book is incredible

Am reading A Place of Greater Safety, the schtick is v v similar. Still great.

this is a cool way to learn abt history

I held onto this book for about a year from the library but couldn't get past the first page -- not that I outright hated it or anything, more just, "Hm, well, maybe later." Then someone just recalled it from me so...maybe later.

I'm actually reading APoGS with a book on the french revolution in the other hand, to clarify as i go. It's not essential but it's a pretty big sweep of history, helps to have a bit of background knowledge. Don't think that was so much of a problem with Wolf Hall, sure I occasionally forgot who was who in the vast cast but the main plot was pretty specific & localised.

wikipedia.org

yeah yeah. i wanted more detail. fewer electrons.

ok bring up the bodies is in my possession

gotta finish this

i'm waiting for the new one to go into paperback

lagxxn tell me how it is

i wish theyd just put all books in paperback, hardcover is stupid

^^^^

ya i cant recall the last time i bought a hardcover but i could not wait

hardcovers are awesome yr both dummies

but they r so giant and expensive

impossible to read on the train

impossible to read because the words are so hard

hardcovers are great except when you move house twice in a month

Hardcovers are great for architecture, art, and history books. P much useless for contemporary fiction though.

that p much makes no sense

i like reading them on the train! paperbacks are too flimsy or perhaps i am just careless and rough but i like the reassuring weight of a hardcover novel in my bag as well, they are less fun to take on planes tho, too big.

i think 'bringing up the bodies' was really good but i always like the parts in stories where the hero has everything going p smoothly and is coming out on top and you can feel the sympathetic flush of success the defining sequence of the book i think is cromwell at home over christmas endlessly cajoling, directing, scheming, joking moving all these people into place with tireless good humor ceding his dead daughters wings to some other little girl, waiting

man i can't wait

the dialogue is just amazing in the first one. all his conversations with his sweet, dim (but not too dim) son are so funny and awkward

hardcovers of popular books very cheap thru' Amazon 2nd hand, got almost pristine Wolf Hall recently for <£3, will maybe read it come holiday.

that p much makes no sense

Why not? I like hardcover books when they have lots of gorgeous pictures to look at and are typically formatted larger, I don't think they are necessary for most fiction. But thats just my personal preference. FWIW, 98% of the fiction I read it in eBook format anyway.

gross

i think 'bringing up the bodies' was really good but i always like the parts in stories where the hero has everything going p smoothly and is coming out on top and you can feel the sympathetic flush of success

― Lamp, Tuesday, July 24, 2012 11:10 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol when more and gardiner where simultaneously marginalized i was so happy for him

i had a few physical correspondences that i couldn't shake

cromwell: al swearingen
anne: sasha grey
henry: tim tebow (older)

lmao oh no

yeah i know

ahhhhhhh hahahahaha

new one seem to be written in a somewhat simpler lighter mode, maybe to reflect cromwells ascension, or maybe by accident, or maybe im imagining it, anyway im gonna miss this guy when there are no more books left

except he has to like write it down on parchment and send it by courier to Spain

Norfolk 2.0 Mr Toad is one of the most despicable characters I can remember on TV.

Norfolk 1.0 was more standard alpha antagonist in comparison.

BBC could be making six or seven of these stage play as telly shows a year if they bothered.

Such amazing stuff.

it definitely harkens back to the “I Claudius” era of tv in a weird way

Yeah I don't think this is expensive or way beyond British telly it's just exactly the right thing.

Some of the motifs and music etc are so absolutely beautiful, and the long silences or scenes with people walking or whatever. Just a total treat to watch.

both seasons of this were perfectly done, but if the bbc drama dept were to try and replicate this success, it's almost guaranteed they haven't really learned why it was good. Because basically most of what they produce is garbage these days. Even the other successful stuff!

You know what I kept thinking when I was watching it? What do they do in summer, do they still keep wearing all those furs and heavy clothes? No wonder they all died of sweating sickness.

Am I alone in finding S2 considerably weaker than S1? Still glad to have seen it but don’t have the same level of immersion because of writing, editing and even acting choices.

sadly, Bernard Hill was so much a superior Norfolk to Timothy Spall, but for me, it didn't derail the series.

Agreed Calzino about BBC generally, VG is right also that it feels more like older stuff, idk. Not Americanised just a straight up and down similar to a play.

The costumes are absolutely hilarious in general. I like Crom's one buddy with the leopard print, working for him.

xpost I think maybe the plot is murkier in s2 than s1 and tho they provided some great Rylance scenes some of the flashbacks were sort of cheesy or retro. didn't think it was a big dropoff tho.

I really disliked the use of the Cardinal, particularly the last appearance, which seemed a heavyhanded and distracting way of making that point. The dialogue was often stiff and clunkily expository compared to the cool subtlety of S1.

Yeah some of the nightmare scenes also were like something from a bad soap opera in the nineties. They were brief so didn't really matter overall but still pretty stupid.

Spall’s Norfolk was definitely distracting, he was just permanently at 10 so after episodes of shouting belligerently at everything when he needs to shout belligerently it doesnt have much impact

i mean the book Norfolk is a grumpy prick anyway so its not wrong to play him that way but Hill was a bit more nuanced in his portrayal imo

I thought a lot of the minor characters were forgettable enough? Conscious I've said I think it's amazing but also very brief and no real agency for the secondary roles.

In contrast, I didn't really think Lewis was great in s1 but thought he really improved in s2.

his gouty Hank was v good

Yeah the turn of the king was the best arc of the story for me, along with Cromwell losing his ability to finesse his desires

Also - and this is maybe too picky - but the first series was shot so beautifully with very naturalistic lighting, whereas this series seemed to lean on digital comping and looked a bit more Netflix to me. A few scenes I thought characters were green screened or the backgrounds made out of focus digitally, instead of using a lens that did it naturally

Also Foy was missed, she was easily the strongest foil to Rylance in S1.

xpost i didnt notice that at all!

I’m probably hyper sensitive to that stuff. The major green screen moment I thought was about 45 sec into ep 6 (so as to avoid spoilers). And there were focus pulls etc in other episodes which looked digital rather than optical. I complain only because the look of the first season was so ravishing.

I noticed that but from memory that was a thing in s1 as well? Maybe, can't be sure.

It is shot in quite a strange way more generally I thought, like there are a lot of sequences that feel like the way you'd see a fly-on-the-wall sport documentary or something, sort of close in from behind or similar.

haven't watched this yet because perhaps foolishly i'm re-reading as i never actually finished Bring Up the Bodies or *started* The Mirror and the Light. it does seem likely to me that the director (obviously himself no slouch) having mantel on speed dial helped convey exact nuances, the words or passing expressions that make underground connections. it amazes me re-reading and re-watching early episodes the quality of the adaptation, dramatisation and script generally. it may be because of the density of internal observation in the books that they are able to bring it to screen concisely but with the sense that very little meaningful has been left out and that there's still a load of space in it. it's covering a *lot* ofc - what it was like to be at the frontier of the Renaissance and what it means to be a human, what it is to be a *person*, across banking, art, commerce, and the philosophical conflict there, religious conflict, the mutual fascination of the relationship between Anne and Cromwell and Henry, the process of political climbing, the nature of 16thC manners and households, the rise and fall of families, the cloth industry, artistic depiction and composition, myth v religion v new sciences, love & duty, the processes of diplomacy and vendetta, war and trade. and it does it without breaking a summer sweat.

matttkkkk correct that the lighting in the first series was beautiful and am intrigued if they have changed the composition of it in the second.

I may well be overthinking it. Same cinematographer for both series: http://www.fdtimes.com/2015/06/17/gavin-finney-bsc-wolf-hall-candlelit-summilux-c-t1-4/

One ep away. Cromwell getting into more and more brawls as he loses power was a fairly good move.

watched first 3 eps now, will return to thread when i've finished. piss-taking of Tom Truth's poetry was a very funny scene

It is shot in quite a strange way more generally I thought, like there are a lot of sequences that feel like the way you'd see a fly-on-the-wall sport documentary or something, sort of close in from behind or similar.

― LocalGarda, Sunday, 22 December 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Think this is just a fashion that has being adopted more generally. Found it repetitive but not to the level of annoyance as I quite liked it.

yeah didn't bother me or feel it was negative, just was interesting. i guess succession has a touch of this also tho in a diff way.

I rewatched the first series before starting this one and haven't noticed glaring stylistic changes but something I can't put my finger on feels a little different maybe

yeah same, basically. maybe the definition or something of it felt more modern, idk.

i dont know enough abt the relevant painters at all but i definitely felt there was a shift between "holbein as cheery character on set" in the first series and "holbein's mannerisms everywhere shaping the mise en scene" in the second (where by holbein i actually mean yes ALL of the court painters of the age, including all the othes one i don't know enough about etc) -- viz what constitutes naturalism in modern camera-based drama subtly supplanted by something more static and stylised, with (ok and now i'm off on one a bit) cromwell increasingly fighting to hold his place in such tableaux, which he too was collecting and paying for and encouraging? these are paintings designed to reflect an ORDER (mirror and light lol) and TC's presence increasingly manifests as a disorder, despite all his efforts (because of his efforts) to reshape society to absorb him comfortably -- until he is violently expelled, butcher's boy butchered blah blah

so i do agree that there's a visual shift between s1 and s2 but i'd have to rewatch to see if my theory which is mine does actually support this reading and you can too (tell me what you think in the comments)

The scene with the daughter as she looks at the tableaux was great ("The realm goes on")

Execution with no trial must be nice.

nice for whomst?

Was thinking it for Cromwell. He was toast, and didn't have to go through the motions of having his inferiors cross examine him in public.

He did have a trial of sorts I guess just not a public one.

I suppose this final EP bought home that I only really loved half of the season.

My issue in the main is that Cromwell is as much of a monster as all the rest of them. That he was our future is not a consolation (especially as we live in this present) so making up a daughter (from the wiki there are records but its not entirely clear we have anything like its being presented), and especially this potential drama of what could've been in his head over whether he betrayed Wolsey, the stuff with Dorothea which plays into that as well...I just don't buy the humanizing of this man, feels overegged. Which is why I quite liked that he threw a few punches, even if it was him losing power it was an acknowledgment that this is what he was. Even if he could write a sweet legal document that did things.

So the last EP was really strong because you get to see Cromwell as what he is best at, which was manoeuvering around, but also facing up to his less clever but (by birth, class, all the shit that we are living with to this day) less able superiors (though Spall's one note performance makes sense in the last words to Cromwell, they were a bunch of gangsters, and that's who we are ruled by). As Cromwell points out they use the tricks he devised to execute him.

On the flip side it gives Mark Rylance plenty to work with and the execution is exemplary. There are strong scenes throughout the season, even if I'd edit out 1-2 EPs worth.

But I haven't read the Mantel books. Would be up for reading the first one, for sure.

Also I liked the actor who played Gardiner quite a bit. Pure slime of a man.

As I understand it, he probably did have a daughter outside of marriage, but Mantel created the character of Jenneke. I’m sure I read a note about why but can’t for the life of me find it.

guy who played Gardiner also played the hanging-out-with-the-nazis-during-ww2 Windsor in the netflix series, and was also very impressively vile in that role. I'm going to watch S2 again because I didn't follow all of this season that well, especially the early eps, and missed a lot of the subtle undercurrents that weren't being telegraphed. I only ever read the first book, so am more informed by history than fiction going into this one. I find it fascinating/amusing that characters like Richie Rich were Cromwell creatures who seemingly owed him everything for the fortunes and status they had acquired and they sold him out *just like that*.

i beg anyone itt who has only read book 1 but has watched the whole series: definitely do take the timr to read books 2 and 3 if you can. they add a lot of depth to what is set up about TC in book 1, and explain more of the undercurrents & internal narratives that are glanced at in the show.

i think my main critique of season 2 is how much you lose of cromwell without access to his internal narratives - the way she writes TC’s execution is so much more emotionally devastating bc it’s from his pov

imo

Written in early pandemic https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-mysterious-sweating-sickness-in-hilary-mantels-wolf-hall-trilogy-and-the-private-country-of-illness

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jan/25/mark-rylance-took-significant-pay-cut-to-get-wolf-hall-made-director-tells-mps

On PBS now, either to binge on Passport or watch once a week over the air like yr. grans did with “Upstairs, Downstairs”.

I’m binging of course. Some thoughts:

—regarding the different look to S2 discussed above, Shrewsbury Abbey is definitely recreated by CGI, at least when TC and the abbess are talking in that cloister—something very uncanny valley about it.

—miss a consistently used foil throughout the series like Foy’s Anne. She was perfect.

—the continuing mystery of why Cromwell didn’t remarry after his wife died. For the time, that was very unusual I understand. Im only in episode 3 of series 2 but the books never get onto that either— while we are privileged to many of his other thoughts Mantel makes no effort to explain why he didn’t. It would have saved him some trouble! Was Dorothea his only plan? Dude had plenty of other ladies on the boil for him (the show doesn’t really get into but the last book in particular has a poor widow —which he gives away to Richard—and another courtier as being portrayed as probably willing to be asked).

lol i got super-excited bcz my mum's parents lived like 40 yards from shrewsbury abbey and i know it quite well and couldn't believe i'd missed the chance to re-connect (the present-day building is easily old enough but it has no surviving cloisters and it's built of red sandstone)

however it's actually shaftsbury abbey -- which is a ruin today and so i guess had to be CGI'd?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w10816en3o

Peter Kosminsky told BBC Two's Newsnight they eventually opted to axe costly exterior scenes in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light, meaning almost everything in the Tudor drama, screened by the BBC, became "conversations in rooms" instead.

Shaftesbury not Shrewsbury, shit.

Too much soprano keening on the soundtrack, too many dreams of Dorothea, etc. all told the second series was pretty satisfying if dumbed down a little bit. Wished the beheading scene had more of his abstract stream of consciousness that the book had but I’m sure that’s tough to portray on TV.

Surely there were less ridiculous ways than showing the Archbishop in the crowd ...

Yeah that was disappointing