has died, aged 70. I confess to never having read any of her books, though my mum raves about her. Anyone here a fan? Can anyone help me get over my prejudice against historical novels?
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Hilary Mantel
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I thought the first two Thomas Cromwell novels were fantastic, but haven't read the third yet. Also recall enjoying Eight Months on Gazzan Street, but with some reservations. The trouble is I can't recall it well enough to remember what those reservations were - so I guess it didn't make that much impact on me.
70 feels very young, and when I'd seen pictures of her there were no suggestions of ill health. It's very surprising.
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I strongly dislike the genre, but loved the trilogy, and am not the only person I know for whom that was the case. ad hoc might want to give Wolf Hall a go. You should be able to tell within the first 100 pages if you want to continue.
She had health health issues for her entire adult life, particularly severe endometriosis, but this is still as great a shock as it is a loss
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Her writing in London Review of Books is usually excellent, I'm pretty sure the people at LRB have unlocked all her writing today in her honour, so go to site and have read. https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/hilary-mantel
I liked Wolf Hall, but not as much as I hope I would.
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I've made a couple of attempts at the trilogy. I really need a 6 week vacation where I can shut out all distractions and resist the temptation to alternate it with other reading (which then takes over because it's less work).
The TV adaptation was all from Cromwell's perspective (were there any scenes where he wasn't there?) but that's harder to pull off in a book, especially if you want the reader to have empathy for the victims who met horrible deaths after he stitched them up (supposedly as revenge for how they treated his mentor).Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 23-09-2022, 15:50.
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On endometriosis. It affects up to 11% of women. It takes women an average of 6.7 years of complaining of symptoms and seeing 7 different medical professionals to finally be believed and get a diagnosis, which is at "the extreme end of diagnostic inefficiency". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endometriosis
As people on this thread have testified, I would say that's an underestimate as well. Women often suffer with painful periods for years or decades before going to see anyone about it. Women are just taught that periods are painful, being a woman is painful and they should suck it up and accept it. We have ridiculous mantras like "no pain, no gain" and women who complain of pain are assumed to be weak or exaggerating their suffering.
Endometriosis is a lot more severe than many people realise. It's not just about womb tissue growing outside the womb in nearby places like the fallopian tubes. Endometrial tissue can grow anywhere in the body and has been found as far afield as the chest cavity or even the brain. And the even weirder thing is that endometrial tissue outside the womb still bleeds on a monthly basis with the same hormonal cycle as that inside the womb. Normally with a period, the blood is evacuated safely each month, but if the tissue is somewhere it shouldn't be, that's just internal bleeding with all the associated problems of internal scarring, infection risk, blockages, etc. This literally means that women can menstruate in their brain or their chest, or anywhere in their bodies, often throughout the pelvic cavity.
Endometriosis often causes infertility. It doesn't really attract any funding or much research. No-one really knows what causes it and the treatments are pretty barbaric, ranging from "take a painkiller dear" to "erm, we'll just chop all the bits out of you", but they can just grow back again.
If 11% of men had this condition, I'm pretty sure we'd be much closer to finding a cure. Tactical Genius this is an example of the type of medical inequality I was talking about on the intersectionality thread.
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Finished the trilogy on Wednesday. I feel that the third volume has some structural and focus issues (but I still enjoyed it). There's a fictional daughter and the last six months, where it all unravels for Cromwell, are rushed. She does include most of the warning signs (Henry drops hints that he's starting to doubt him, especially on Pole) but I think she downplays the significance of Henry bringing back Gardiner and other conservatives and she probably thought that Cromwell did not see the vultures starting to circle because he was so sure the Cleves strategy would work and left himself no Plan B if Henry didn't like her.Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 25-11-2022, 10:47.
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I thought the acceleration was deliberate, given it is told from Cromwell's point of view. The picking up of the pace of events felt to me like a deliberate choice from the writer to give a sense of the situation spiralling out of her central character's control. Things start going in several directions at once, and he can't keep on top of things any more.
The Cromwell PoV thing might also explain the downplaying of characters like Gardiner. Cromwell doesn't perceive the threat as serious (he has played and beaten Gardiner so many times before that he is sure Gardiner is his patsy, to use modern parlance) so the threat isn't represented as it really loomed.
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