Footnotes and Tangents

Footnotes and Tangents

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Gavin Crawford's avatar
Gavin Crawford
Jan 3

I'm standing at the threshold again. That familiar, uncomfortable feeling of being the new kid, the one who doesn't quite know the rules yet, the wallflower at the edge of the crowded room. Except this time, the room is digital, and I'm 78 years old, and I've done this dance enough times in my life to recognize it for what it is.

My son Drew told me about this. His partner Keith heard about it from Jen Troup, the Ambassador, no less, who'd done the "War and Peace" crawl at Footnotes and Tangents in 2025. When I discovered the Wolf Hall trilogy was running again in 2026, starting January 1st, I signed up on New Year's Eve. Just like that. No hesitation. Maybe that's what seven decades teaches you, how to say yes before the fear catches up.

I've read these books before, when they were first published. I loved them dearly. But this time, I'm going to read them aloud. All three. Every single page, spoken into existence in my living room, sitting in my armchair with either daylight streaming in or a booklight around my neck.

Why aloud? Because I've spent too much of my life skimming, and Hilary Mantel's prose demands that you dwell. "Gemini" tells me "When you speak the words, you taste them differently. You catch the rhythms, stumble over her famous "he" ambiguities in ways that force you to slow down and think harder about who's actually speaking." Until the late 17th century, the majority of people read their books out loud. Perhaps even Cromwell read everything out loud It's whats called embodied reading, and for books this dense, this layered with Tudor intrigue and sensory detail, I want that full immersion.

The slow read format is perfect for someone like me. I've always been addicted to rabbit holes, give me a historical detail or an obscure reference and I'm gone for an hour, following tangents down Wikipedia corridors and through academic papers I barely understand but can't stop reading. So the Footnotes and Tangents approach isn't just compatible with my nature, it's designed for it. The tangents aren't interruptions; they're invitations.

I'll be keeping a journal of the whole experience. I want to track what changes when I vocalize these books, when I perform them in my own small way. How often in the past has an audio book created an image of a character that was different to the one I had perceived when I was reading it silently? I want to capture the specific passages that hit differently when spoken aloud, the moments where reading becomes almost theatrical. I'm curious about the synchronicities, what in my 2026 life will mirror Thomas Cromwell's 1520s? What will the Tudor world illuminate about our current moment?

And yes, there's the community aspect. I posted earlier, that I am : "A 78 y.o. with a Spotify age of 21. Living in the 2020s not the 1960s." Got a couple of likes, one from Simon. Then silence. That old Monash University feeling crept back in, standing in front of the imposing Menzies Building in February 1965, utterly lost, not knowing where to go or what to do, unable to approach anyone. I was the most spectacularly terrible university student that year. Completely alone, too shy to make friends, no idea how to study or write a paper. I floundered.

I don't flounder academically anymore. Seventy-eight means I've learned how to construct complex arguments, how to write opinion pieces for my Substack, how to research properly. But social engagement? That's still tricky. Online makes it easier, no crowded rooms where I'm the wallflower watching clusters of friends I can't break into.

So here I am again, at the beginning. Except this time I'm choosing it. I've ordered second-hand copies of all three books to arrive soon, though I'll start on my Kindle. I'll make notes in the margins. I'll speak the words aloud and see what happens to my brain when it's forced to slow down, to crawl rather than scroll.

The read officially begins on January 5th, tomorrow here iin Australia. 33 pages, apparently. I found that information buried somewhere in the app after two days of confusion. Classic. But I'm ready now. I know Thomas Cromwell established himself in Florence first, that he understood political intrigue, that he stepped over bodies to get where he got. I know Henry VIII was like a certain American president I won't name, always had to have his own way, and people lost their heads when they didn't please him. Thomas must have known his own head was at risk.

This year is my experiment in attention. In dwelling instead of skimming. In building community despite my wallflower tendencies. In following tangents wherever they lead, Tudor textiles, 16th-century logistics, obscure theological debates, the specific weight of a Cardinal's hat.

By December, I want to know how my brain has changed. I want a worn spine on those books and a pile of bookmarks and a year's worth of marginalia that tells the story of this crawl. I want to understand what I see differently after 365 days of speaking Hilary Mantel's sentences aloud.

So here we go. Three books, thousands of pages, read one careful spoken word at a time. The rabbit holes are waiting, and I'm ready to fall.

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Melissa Wiebe 🇨🇦🇺🇦's avatar
Melissa Wiebe 🇨🇦🇺🇦
Jan 6

Here are the page numbers for the Henry Holt edition of Wolf Hall:

1 Across the Narrow Sea / Paternity 3 - 27

2 At Austin Friars / Visitation 28 - 53

3 An Occult History of Britain (Part 1/2) 54 - 89

4 An Occult History of Britain (Part 2/2) 89 - 126

5 Make or Mar / Three-Card Trick 127 -162

6 Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 1/2) 163 -194

7 Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 2/2) 194 - 222

8 The Dead Complain of Their Burial / Arrange Your Face (Part 1/2) 223 - 250

9 Arrange Your Face (Part 2/2) 250 - 276

10 ‘Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?’ (Part 1/2) 276 - 314

11 ‘‘Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?” (Part 2/2) / Early Mass 314 - 340

12 Anna Regina (Part 1/2) 343 - 377

13 Anna Regina (Part 2/2) 377 - 395

14 Devil’s Spit / A Painter’s Eye 396 - 432

15 Supremacy 435 - 474

16 The Map of Christendom (Part 1/2) 475 - 507

17 The Map of Christendom (Part 2/2) / To Wolf Hall 507 -532

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