But he is crying again. The ghosts are gathering, he feels cold, his position is irretrievable. In Italy he learned a memory system, so he can remember everything: every stage of how he got here.
Last Week | Home Page | Reading Schedule | Further Resources
Welcome to week 5 of Wolf Crawl. I am your guide,
, and this is a year-long slow read of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror & the Light.Each week, I dive into the detail with summaries, background, footnotes and tangents to enrich your reading. I am joined on this journey by
, who delves into the archive on our behalf, and Matt Brown, who makes maps to help us find our way through Cromwell’s world.You can find the reading schedule and plot summaries for the full cast of characters on my website, Footnotes and Tangents. There, you can join other slow reads, including Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell, and Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety.
I start each post with a summary of the week’s story illustrated by a map created by Matt Brown. This week, we are reading Part Two. Chapter III. Make or Mar, All Hallows 1529 and Part Three. Chapter I. Three-Card Trick, Winter 1529–Spring 1530.
In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 154–197. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 142–182. It begins, ‘Halloween: the world’s edge seeps and bleeds.’ It ends, ‘– sit down with the Boleyns.’
This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest. This week, we look at Cromwell’s confidence trick, his grief at Esher, and the art of memory. Then we meet Rafe Sadler in the archives with Bea Stitches, and we meet the gathering ghosts in the Haunting of Wolf Hall. We close with my favourite quote of the week.
And then it is over to you. In the comments, let us know what caught your eye and ask the group any questions you may have. And if you’ve tumbled down a rabbit hole or taken your reading off on a tangent, please share where you have been and what you have found.
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