robinson v. mantel

also like the only two fiction writers whose new books i still read. i haven't read Lila yet, but i'd like to!

feel like this could've also been posed as gilead trilogy v. cromwell trilogy

Trilogy? Oh right, come October. Will prob reread Gilead before considering a new one, am wondering if I might have cooled on it. Mantel otoh I want to lock in a room and force to write historical fiction for the rest of her life. Not necessarily Tudor, A Slice of Greater Pastry doesn't have the wow factor of Cromwell's voice but it still zings with a real and awful vitality.

i think robertson davies prepped me early in life to love literary trilogies

Would be keen on other Mantel recommendations. I tried An Experiment in Love but it wasn't really on my wavelength.

i really liked Beyond Black and the parts of the Cromwell trilogy i've read so far (the first and some of the second)

Housekeeping is undeniable--I have to vote Robinson.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/19/hilary-mantel-fantasised-killing-margaret-thatcher

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stoked for lila, gonna reread gilead first. good piece about some of its themes: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/07/marilynne-robinson-lila-great-achievement-contemporary-us-fiction-gilead

hilary mantel is cool but marilynne robinson is all-time. i'm just finishing _mother country_ right now, which is one of the most well-argued, passionate polemics about class and injustice and overall stupidity that i have ever read.

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Just read Gilead and Home back-to-back. Couldn't say a bad thing about either of them, although Gilead is obviously a gentler ride. I do find Jack problematic though. Della and Glory and Ames all call him a good man, while he confesses to drunkeness, theft, cowardice, lying, and malice, and his actions and the fruit of them are plain to see. A villain with a heart of gold? Of course humans are frustratingly complicated, Cosby just the latest to show us the radical disconnect there can be between heart and hand. Jack is a proclaimed enigma, to others and to himself, and I wouldn't prefer a cardboard villain. I don't know. Maybe I just foolishly want literature to provide easy answers? Although I have less of a problem with Mantel's Cromwell, convinced he's doing the right thing as he tightens the nooses of those in his way.