This feels incredibly timely. Men with troubled childhoods, sent away to school, feeling that they know how the world should be run (SPOILER ALERT: they will make a mess of it), becoming disruptor and causing chaos? Along the way, they attract the support of the poor, even though they will continue to suffer?
Thank God it couldn't happen here...
A couple of people have told me that they gave up on the book. I think, having started on the Wolf Crawl, that I've picked up on Mantel's style - so I can work out whose perspective we're viewing something from.
Like Wolf Crawl (I assume), we're going to be following great men to their early deaths. Again, we're going to be interest not so much in the 'what?' as the 'why?' of events.
I notice Mantel throws in a life expectancy statistic. I assume - but may be wrong - that if you survived the first few years of life you had a pretty good chance of living to a ripe old age (if you were a man, that is: maternal mortality, as we see, presenting a severe risk).
We're already seeing the impact of wheat prices, soon to be a factor in the uprising. Some years ago, I went round the customs museum - Musée national des douanes, and well worth a visit (seriously!) - which had a display about how salt was also an important factor.
It looks like we're in for a fascinating few months.
And thanks to Simon for posting on a bank holiday. I'm not sure that the revolutionaries would approve, but I certainly appreciate it.
Haha, did I schedule this entirely to antagonise our dear revolutionaries? There's something to ponder...
I think this marvellous quote from Mantel's Author's Note would be good here:
"My characters did not have the blessing of hindsight; they lived from day to day, as best they could. I am not trying to persuade my readers to view events in a particular way, or to draw any particular lessons from them. I have tried to write a novel that gives the reader scope to change opinions, change sympathies: a book that one can think and live inside."
A book "one can think and live inside" is a wide and generous idea of what a novel can be. As with Cromwell, we live minute by minute with them and feel their hopes, optimism, ambition, arrogance and fear. And instead of drawing lessons from history, or passing judgment on its participants, we enter into a closer communion with and understanding of the past.
One of the reasons I'm so passionate about the arts is that they can make us see things differently. Yes, we can change our view of Danton, Desmoulins and Robespierre, but it will also help us see the world around us in a different way.
When I saw ‘Richard II’ at the weekend, that also seemed to have something to say about the UK in the 21st Century. (A ruler who thinks he can do just what he likes, but who doesn't realise that his courtiers may desert him.)
Rather than thinking ‘how different from the homeless of our own dear queen’, art can make us reassess both the piece of art and the world that surrounds it.
Agreed - this all seems too contemporary. Perhaps a guillotine should be setup outside certain seats of government, as a reminder of who they work for, and how it can go horribly wrong.
I have been off Substack for a while as it was feeling overwhelming in conjunction with general life. I had to end my other two subscriptions and I have been focusing on what grounds me away from the majority of things social media related. I realised even trying to re-read War and Peace and Wolf Hall was too much at this moment. However, I have had 'A Place of Greater Safety' slow read at the back of my mind and when I saw Simon posted yesterday on Instagram about it starting today a wee voice in my head encouraged me to read it again. So here I am, back on Substack only for this one account and raring to begin APOGS with a lot of lovely people.
Hurray! Well, you are making me glad I remembered about Instagram and posted yesterday, I hadn't been on it for a month or so. Honoured to be your sole subscription!
Very happy to be here for this slow read. I have decided, possibly delusionally, that Mantel’s style here, as compared with the Wolf Hall trilogy, is younger, simpler, less dense. No less clever, she was ever clever, but this is fresher, if that’s the right word. I don’t mean better or worse, just different, and I like both styles.
Her first book? Wow! (I had not even heard of Hilary Mantel till last year and Simon’s substack - I was a W&P reader, though). So I had had no inkling that this was her first book. So far, I am loving her writing.
She wrote it in the 70s, but it wasn't published until 1992, after she had already published a series of contemporary novels. In the 1970s no one wanted to touch a doorstop about the French Revolution written by an unknown female writer. She was very ill while researching and writing it, and the process almost killed her. For years, it sat gathering dust until she replied to a newspaper article about authors' discarded first novels. So it is doubly miraculous that we get to read it!
Her powers of characterisation are really stunning - the characters appear as if casually sketched with charcoal, half-drawn with only a few sentences, yet they leap off the page.
Feeling excited, on the threshold of new knowledge and new reading experiences. This is a new form of slow read for me. I followed last year’s Wolf Crawl but those were books, stories and characters I was familiar with. Here I have only the sketchiest outline of the French Revolution and the three main characters are barely more than names to me. So loads to read and discover.
And a ‘new’ Mantel, too! And when Camille steps unseen out of the shadows, I couldn’t help the echo of Cromwell, the butcher’s dog, unseen in the shadows of Wolsey’s room. Looking forward to more of these reading experiences, exploring the development of a great writer.
I was glad to find the inventor story amid France’s fledgling Industrial Revolution. I took my four year old niece to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester over Easter, and showed her what a Spinning Jenny does. She preferred my pirouettes to the twisting of cotton by a big noisy dangerous machine! But the spinning Jenny changed the world and (at least so far) I have not - like the frustrated inventor in this tale!
I think the subtext of this little tale is also that the Industrial Revolution is getting going in England, but not in France. For lots of reasons, there aren't the conditions in place for a technological and economic revolution here. Most people are impoverished peasants, working tiny plots of land and heavily indebt. Jean Recordain's invention is going nowhere and France is going nowhere, without fundamental change.
Yes, it’s fascinating to consider how different the UK and French trajectories were at this time. GCSE History for me focused on the UK’s industrial transformation from 1750 to 1900, with the Lunar Society a big influence on people like Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton (of steam engine fame) but I only discovered recently how the Lunar Society fell apart under the influence of public concern about the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic Wars. The interest in Enlightenment thinking fell through the floor for a while in the 1790s.
I was particularly interested in Camille in these opening chapters. At first I was a bit frustrated because I felt that he was the most slippery character here - I couldn't get a sense of who he was. But then I wondered if that's precisely the point. He's changed by that initial boarding school experience (either the trauma of being packed off at the age of seven, or, as hinted, something even more sinister going on behind those closed doors) from the bright sparky child of the opening scenes and becomes more aloof, less easy to pin down. Hidden secrets.
Something not conveyed so much in the writing but in the audiobook narration is his stutter. It's quite well done by the narrator and certainly adds to that sense of someone battling himself and the world. Camille is really the central character of the novel, through his individual friendships with Danton and Robespierre. When Mantel came to write the Cromwell books, she wrote that it was a relief to write a character who was not neurotic.
"...and it was concluded that Camille's fluency of speech lay discarded along the coach-route, like a valise or a pair of gloves that has gone astray. No one was to blame; it was one of those things that happen." Brilliant and brilliantly evasive.
"Moll Flanders" is also free at the moment if you're like me and always looking to take advantage of audible freebies. It's a great "page turner" on audible. I'm flying through it this week during any spare moment.
Very excited to be starting on this slow read with all of you! This is my second time reading APOGS and I'm hoping to really savor it. The first time I read it, I really enjoyed the audiobook, but I was rushing a bit to get to the end. Of course, I knew what would happen to the three boys we meet but I didn't know how they got there. :) Looking forward to all the accompanying material you put together, Simon. Allons-y!
OK. It’s 8 pm EST in the US and I’m ready to dive in….I’ve only read the Author’s Note and felt that frisson of delight that sometimes happens when one opens a new book and feels an affinity right off the bat….
Oh, and by the way, the 5-hour film La Révolution Française, really quite well done, is on YouTube. It starts with Robespierre’s speech in the rain while the King and Queen fail to emerge from their carriage: https://youtu.be/YPiiAHSi_48?si=mnQk0DNifcpnVh_r (Desmoulins looks far too tame and mulleted in it)
For those who want to have some visual inspiration. The costumes are exceptionally good.
Well we are off and running! Lots to take in and a new cast of characters to get to know. I’m very grateful for your character links especially in the early weeks as we get bedded in. Also thanks very much for the links to the Revolution podcast. Not my usual listen at all but really enjoyed them - whilst doing the ironing! They helped and I will look to add these in to my weekly routine, when available. 🇫🇷
Simon makes an interesting point here in the comments about inconsistant editing in a first novel - the first of I am sure many 'ah ha' moments. Mantel's style seems even more freeform here than in the Cromwell trilogy. The writing is just as beautiful (to me). But, the first time through I lost my bearings somewhere in all the candlelit, crowded rooms full of tertiary characters and POV, resulting in a DNF despite my interest in France, revolutions, and making fun of lawyers (my vocation). Excited to benefit from the slow read and F&T community perspectives!
It's true! We have so many POVs to contend with here. Even the first one, Camille's father, isn't a major character. Compared to Cromwell where we have this very narrow window of seeing everything through his eyes. It is such a ridiculously ambitious novel. But first novels are often ridiculously ambitious, before a writer has realised how difficult it is. And yet, I hope you'll conclude that Mantel somehow pulls it off!
Been looking forward to this so much since the end of W&P (and our fantastic, timezone-defying Zoom debrief!) and now it's here and, like with Tolstoy's epic, I'm an absolute novice—and, once again, absolutely entranced.
Two moments resonated with me in these chapters:
The first that left me dog-earring the page was the image of the "cage outside" and Max's declaration of two absolutisms: 1) "He was not a free bird" and 2) "I was right." That collision of morality and arrogance, in a way, feels like the most prescient foreshadowing one could create, right?
The second arrived from the lips of the marvelous character of Fabre: "Just make sure to live the next forty years without drawing attention to yourself." To read those words in this moment, for myriad reasons, sent a chill down my spine. This book abounds with wisdom, hauntingly, and I cannot wait to explore more.
(More than anything: I'm thrilled about this journey—ready to dive in!)
No rabbit holes to report yet, other than this one. Just wanted to say hello and report on the joy of re-immersion in what is shaping up to be a worthy contender to W&P as a novel to live in. I finished the first two chapters yesterday and am already plunged into the recommended podcast episodes (thanks Simon!). I’m realizing how much there is to learn and absorb about this, and I’m looking forward to the APoGS odyssey with all of you!
My favorite line in these first two chapters was Camille, as his father opened a couple of old strong boxes and a faint, musty smell crept out: “so that is what tyranny smells like.” It seems from the comments that most of the readers are Brits, but I am an American, and I find that right now I am reading this to see how, exactly, a revolution comes to be. How do discontent and oppression come to finally erupt? And is it ever possible to control a revolution so that we can create something better on the other end? The inability of the French to right the (wildly evident to all) wrongs of their system feels very familiar right now.
Thank you Lauren. I, too, live in the US. I’m intentionally reading Wolf Hall to understand how a civil/political church gains power and how that power corrupts the church. I’m reading APOGS to understand , as you say, how revolutions start. I am fervently intentional to spend significant time with people I disagree with. Yesterday it was with kindergarten friends (we talked Medicare a lot so you can see this group has been together a long time.) I realized that we fundamentally have different facts; there’s no common ground on what is true. Now I plan to read APOGS to see if the French, also, had completely different facts, not just opinions.
I've had a hectic couple of weeks, and am spending today getting caught up on everything (hopefully). Anyway. I'm very much looking forward to getting into the depths of this book and learning more about the time period. I've studied a bit about the French Revolution and read APoGS before, but not as a slow or close read. I'm curious as to how it will all feel, in light of current events. I'm also curious as to how much this book might mirror the Thomas Cromwell trilogy. There's already one quote, "The dead don't come back, to quibble or correct" that reflects Wolf Hall's, "The dead do not complain of their burial". I also wonder if I would notice all that if I weren't following along with Wolf Crawl.
My first impression is of the density of the historical detail which for me at the moment is swamping the narrative. I am relatively familiar with this period of history and recently read Simon Schama’s book ‘Citizens’ on the Revolution. Maybe that will change although the whole period is very complex and probably requires a lot of explanation of the background. In the Wolf Hall trilogy that I’m currently reading with Simon, the historical detail seems better balanced.
It's certainly complex, Peter. There's an interview where Mantel reflects on the fact that she somehow managed to turn into fiction the East India Company Scandal (later in the novel), a feat that almost defeated her - but did give her the confidence that she could take on anything!
It's worth saying that she is doing something very different here than in Wolf Hall. In Wolf Hall she creates a very narrow window through which we see the world. Behind Cromwell's eyes. It is exceptionally partial and deceptively limited. In APOGS, she is opening it up: she's challenging what we think of as history, story and narrative. She purposefully inserts historical sources into the text, and historical detail to justapose, complicate and complement the narrative.
So in a way that "swamping" that you are experiencing is deliberate on Mantel's part. It is part of her project of creating something that is alive and talking to itself. Whether it is enjoyable to the individual reader, well that is another thing!
This feels incredibly timely. Men with troubled childhoods, sent away to school, feeling that they know how the world should be run (SPOILER ALERT: they will make a mess of it), becoming disruptor and causing chaos? Along the way, they attract the support of the poor, even though they will continue to suffer?
Thank God it couldn't happen here...
A couple of people have told me that they gave up on the book. I think, having started on the Wolf Crawl, that I've picked up on Mantel's style - so I can work out whose perspective we're viewing something from.
Like Wolf Crawl (I assume), we're going to be following great men to their early deaths. Again, we're going to be interest not so much in the 'what?' as the 'why?' of events.
I notice Mantel throws in a life expectancy statistic. I assume - but may be wrong - that if you survived the first few years of life you had a pretty good chance of living to a ripe old age (if you were a man, that is: maternal mortality, as we see, presenting a severe risk).
We're already seeing the impact of wheat prices, soon to be a factor in the uprising. Some years ago, I went round the customs museum - Musée national des douanes, and well worth a visit (seriously!) - which had a display about how salt was also an important factor.
It looks like we're in for a fascinating few months.
And thanks to Simon for posting on a bank holiday. I'm not sure that the revolutionaries would approve, but I certainly appreciate it.
Haha, did I schedule this entirely to antagonise our dear revolutionaries? There's something to ponder...
I think this marvellous quote from Mantel's Author's Note would be good here:
"My characters did not have the blessing of hindsight; they lived from day to day, as best they could. I am not trying to persuade my readers to view events in a particular way, or to draw any particular lessons from them. I have tried to write a novel that gives the reader scope to change opinions, change sympathies: a book that one can think and live inside."
A book "one can think and live inside" is a wide and generous idea of what a novel can be. As with Cromwell, we live minute by minute with them and feel their hopes, optimism, ambition, arrogance and fear. And instead of drawing lessons from history, or passing judgment on its participants, we enter into a closer communion with and understanding of the past.
One of the reasons I'm so passionate about the arts is that they can make us see things differently. Yes, we can change our view of Danton, Desmoulins and Robespierre, but it will also help us see the world around us in a different way.
When I saw ‘Richard II’ at the weekend, that also seemed to have something to say about the UK in the 21st Century. (A ruler who thinks he can do just what he likes, but who doesn't realise that his courtiers may desert him.)
Rather than thinking ‘how different from the homeless of our own dear queen’, art can make us reassess both the piece of art and the world that surrounds it.
Agreed - this all seems too contemporary. Perhaps a guillotine should be setup outside certain seats of government, as a reminder of who they work for, and how it can go horribly wrong.
Indeed, we're not advocating violence - rather the opposite.
(And I'd add financial institutions and large commercial organisations to that list.)
I’d be too afraid some idiot might use it!
I have been off Substack for a while as it was feeling overwhelming in conjunction with general life. I had to end my other two subscriptions and I have been focusing on what grounds me away from the majority of things social media related. I realised even trying to re-read War and Peace and Wolf Hall was too much at this moment. However, I have had 'A Place of Greater Safety' slow read at the back of my mind and when I saw Simon posted yesterday on Instagram about it starting today a wee voice in my head encouraged me to read it again. So here I am, back on Substack only for this one account and raring to begin APOGS with a lot of lovely people.
Hurray! Well, you are making me glad I remembered about Instagram and posted yesterday, I hadn't been on it for a month or so. Honoured to be your sole subscription!
I am very glad you did too 😊 This is one subscription I am definitely keeping. The slow reads last year were what kept me going as I said before.
Very happy to be here for this slow read. I have decided, possibly delusionally, that Mantel’s style here, as compared with the Wolf Hall trilogy, is younger, simpler, less dense. No less clever, she was ever clever, but this is fresher, if that’s the right word. I don’t mean better or worse, just different, and I like both styles.
Hey Susan! That sounds about right. Amazing to think this was her first book.
Her first book? Wow! (I had not even heard of Hilary Mantel till last year and Simon’s substack - I was a W&P reader, though). So I had had no inkling that this was her first book. So far, I am loving her writing.
She wrote it in the 70s, but it wasn't published until 1992, after she had already published a series of contemporary novels. In the 1970s no one wanted to touch a doorstop about the French Revolution written by an unknown female writer. She was very ill while researching and writing it, and the process almost killed her. For years, it sat gathering dust until she replied to a newspaper article about authors' discarded first novels. So it is doubly miraculous that we get to read it!
Thanks for this. Yes I read about her illness, but another “wow”, to think she was writing this while sick. My appreciation grows…
It is amazing indeed!
Her powers of characterisation are really stunning - the characters appear as if casually sketched with charcoal, half-drawn with only a few sentences, yet they leap off the page.
And yet she couldn’t get it published for decades!
Yes I agree it feels like a prelude to Wolf Hall in terms of style and manner.
Feeling excited, on the threshold of new knowledge and new reading experiences. This is a new form of slow read for me. I followed last year’s Wolf Crawl but those were books, stories and characters I was familiar with. Here I have only the sketchiest outline of the French Revolution and the three main characters are barely more than names to me. So loads to read and discover.
And a ‘new’ Mantel, too! And when Camille steps unseen out of the shadows, I couldn’t help the echo of Cromwell, the butcher’s dog, unseen in the shadows of Wolsey’s room. Looking forward to more of these reading experiences, exploring the development of a great writer.
I was glad to find the inventor story amid France’s fledgling Industrial Revolution. I took my four year old niece to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester over Easter, and showed her what a Spinning Jenny does. She preferred my pirouettes to the twisting of cotton by a big noisy dangerous machine! But the spinning Jenny changed the world and (at least so far) I have not - like the frustrated inventor in this tale!
Ah, love that!
I think the subtext of this little tale is also that the Industrial Revolution is getting going in England, but not in France. For lots of reasons, there aren't the conditions in place for a technological and economic revolution here. Most people are impoverished peasants, working tiny plots of land and heavily indebt. Jean Recordain's invention is going nowhere and France is going nowhere, without fundamental change.
Yes, it’s fascinating to consider how different the UK and French trajectories were at this time. GCSE History for me focused on the UK’s industrial transformation from 1750 to 1900, with the Lunar Society a big influence on people like Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton (of steam engine fame) but I only discovered recently how the Lunar Society fell apart under the influence of public concern about the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic Wars. The interest in Enlightenment thinking fell through the floor for a while in the 1790s.
I was particularly interested in Camille in these opening chapters. At first I was a bit frustrated because I felt that he was the most slippery character here - I couldn't get a sense of who he was. But then I wondered if that's precisely the point. He's changed by that initial boarding school experience (either the trauma of being packed off at the age of seven, or, as hinted, something even more sinister going on behind those closed doors) from the bright sparky child of the opening scenes and becomes more aloof, less easy to pin down. Hidden secrets.
Something not conveyed so much in the writing but in the audiobook narration is his stutter. It's quite well done by the narrator and certainly adds to that sense of someone battling himself and the world. Camille is really the central character of the novel, through his individual friendships with Danton and Robespierre. When Mantel came to write the Cromwell books, she wrote that it was a relief to write a character who was not neurotic.
I keep wondering about the stutter - Why? Who? When? Or did I miss something?
"...and it was concluded that Camille's fluency of speech lay discarded along the coach-route, like a valise or a pair of gloves that has gone astray. No one was to blame; it was one of those things that happen." Brilliant and brilliantly evasive.
Breaks my heart! I’ll probably be sobbing soon 😄
For anyone with an audible subscription, A PoGS is included in your membership!
I read the book and am now listening to the audiobook. The narrator is excellent; each character has a distinctive voice.
Thank you! I had no idea - what a treat
"Moll Flanders" is also free at the moment if you're like me and always looking to take advantage of audible freebies. It's a great "page turner" on audible. I'm flying through it this week during any spare moment.
It’s available on Spotify too
Very excited to be starting on this slow read with all of you! This is my second time reading APOGS and I'm hoping to really savor it. The first time I read it, I really enjoyed the audiobook, but I was rushing a bit to get to the end. Of course, I knew what would happen to the three boys we meet but I didn't know how they got there. :) Looking forward to all the accompanying material you put together, Simon. Allons-y!
OK. It’s 8 pm EST in the US and I’m ready to dive in….I’ve only read the Author’s Note and felt that frisson of delight that sometimes happens when one opens a new book and feels an affinity right off the bat….
Oh, and by the way, the 5-hour film La Révolution Française, really quite well done, is on YouTube. It starts with Robespierre’s speech in the rain while the King and Queen fail to emerge from their carriage: https://youtu.be/YPiiAHSi_48?si=mnQk0DNifcpnVh_r (Desmoulins looks far too tame and mulleted in it)
For those who want to have some visual inspiration. The costumes are exceptionally good.
Well we are off and running! Lots to take in and a new cast of characters to get to know. I’m very grateful for your character links especially in the early weeks as we get bedded in. Also thanks very much for the links to the Revolution podcast. Not my usual listen at all but really enjoyed them - whilst doing the ironing! They helped and I will look to add these in to my weekly routine, when available. 🇫🇷
Simon makes an interesting point here in the comments about inconsistant editing in a first novel - the first of I am sure many 'ah ha' moments. Mantel's style seems even more freeform here than in the Cromwell trilogy. The writing is just as beautiful (to me). But, the first time through I lost my bearings somewhere in all the candlelit, crowded rooms full of tertiary characters and POV, resulting in a DNF despite my interest in France, revolutions, and making fun of lawyers (my vocation). Excited to benefit from the slow read and F&T community perspectives!
It's true! We have so many POVs to contend with here. Even the first one, Camille's father, isn't a major character. Compared to Cromwell where we have this very narrow window of seeing everything through his eyes. It is such a ridiculously ambitious novel. But first novels are often ridiculously ambitious, before a writer has realised how difficult it is. And yet, I hope you'll conclude that Mantel somehow pulls it off!
Been looking forward to this so much since the end of W&P (and our fantastic, timezone-defying Zoom debrief!) and now it's here and, like with Tolstoy's epic, I'm an absolute novice—and, once again, absolutely entranced.
Two moments resonated with me in these chapters:
The first that left me dog-earring the page was the image of the "cage outside" and Max's declaration of two absolutisms: 1) "He was not a free bird" and 2) "I was right." That collision of morality and arrogance, in a way, feels like the most prescient foreshadowing one could create, right?
The second arrived from the lips of the marvelous character of Fabre: "Just make sure to live the next forty years without drawing attention to yourself." To read those words in this moment, for myriad reasons, sent a chill down my spine. This book abounds with wisdom, hauntingly, and I cannot wait to explore more.
(More than anything: I'm thrilled about this journey—ready to dive in!)
Marvellous, Marcus.
No rabbit holes to report yet, other than this one. Just wanted to say hello and report on the joy of re-immersion in what is shaping up to be a worthy contender to W&P as a novel to live in. I finished the first two chapters yesterday and am already plunged into the recommended podcast episodes (thanks Simon!). I’m realizing how much there is to learn and absorb about this, and I’m looking forward to the APoGS odyssey with all of you!
Welcome back!!
My favorite line in these first two chapters was Camille, as his father opened a couple of old strong boxes and a faint, musty smell crept out: “so that is what tyranny smells like.” It seems from the comments that most of the readers are Brits, but I am an American, and I find that right now I am reading this to see how, exactly, a revolution comes to be. How do discontent and oppression come to finally erupt? And is it ever possible to control a revolution so that we can create something better on the other end? The inability of the French to right the (wildly evident to all) wrongs of their system feels very familiar right now.
Thank you Lauren. I, too, live in the US. I’m intentionally reading Wolf Hall to understand how a civil/political church gains power and how that power corrupts the church. I’m reading APOGS to understand , as you say, how revolutions start. I am fervently intentional to spend significant time with people I disagree with. Yesterday it was with kindergarten friends (we talked Medicare a lot so you can see this group has been together a long time.) I realized that we fundamentally have different facts; there’s no common ground on what is true. Now I plan to read APOGS to see if the French, also, had completely different facts, not just opinions.
I've had a hectic couple of weeks, and am spending today getting caught up on everything (hopefully). Anyway. I'm very much looking forward to getting into the depths of this book and learning more about the time period. I've studied a bit about the French Revolution and read APoGS before, but not as a slow or close read. I'm curious as to how it will all feel, in light of current events. I'm also curious as to how much this book might mirror the Thomas Cromwell trilogy. There's already one quote, "The dead don't come back, to quibble or correct" that reflects Wolf Hall's, "The dead do not complain of their burial". I also wonder if I would notice all that if I weren't following along with Wolf Crawl.
I liked that echoing comment about the dead, too!
My first impression is of the density of the historical detail which for me at the moment is swamping the narrative. I am relatively familiar with this period of history and recently read Simon Schama’s book ‘Citizens’ on the Revolution. Maybe that will change although the whole period is very complex and probably requires a lot of explanation of the background. In the Wolf Hall trilogy that I’m currently reading with Simon, the historical detail seems better balanced.
It's certainly complex, Peter. There's an interview where Mantel reflects on the fact that she somehow managed to turn into fiction the East India Company Scandal (later in the novel), a feat that almost defeated her - but did give her the confidence that she could take on anything!
It's worth saying that she is doing something very different here than in Wolf Hall. In Wolf Hall she creates a very narrow window through which we see the world. Behind Cromwell's eyes. It is exceptionally partial and deceptively limited. In APOGS, she is opening it up: she's challenging what we think of as history, story and narrative. She purposefully inserts historical sources into the text, and historical detail to justapose, complicate and complement the narrative.
So in a way that "swamping" that you are experiencing is deliberate on Mantel's part. It is part of her project of creating something that is alive and talking to itself. Whether it is enjoyable to the individual reader, well that is another thing!