He is moving too fast to make much of her last sentence; though, as he will admit later, the detail will affix itself and adhere to certain sentences of his own, not yet formed. Phrases only. Elliptic. Conditional. As everything is conditional now. Anne blossoming as Katherine fails. He pictures them, their faces intent and skirts bunched, two little girls in a muddy track, playing teeter-totter with a plank balanced on a stone.
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Welcome to Wolf Crawl. I am your guide, Simon Haisell, and this is a year-long slow read of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror and the Light.
Each week, I dive into the details, with summaries, background, footnotes and tangents to enrich your reading. I am joined on this journey by Bea Stitches, 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 Inheritors by William Golding and Treacle Walker by Alan Garner.
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 the second half of Part One. Chapter II. UK Fourth Estate edition, pp. 75–119.
US Picador, pp. 62–100
US Henry Holt, pp. 63-100 (guide only, editions vary)
Ben Miles audiobook, 2:27:10–4:00:56
First Line: But look: we have sat here too long!
Last Line: …poisoned, and with his throat cut.
This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest.
This week, Anne and Katherine teeter-totter across a muddy ditch, we play real tennis with Hercules – feeling his age. We have a licence to crenellate, to grow our beards and turn the page in the Book Called Henry. We say our prayers in Welsh, meet the queen’s fool and eat the forbidden fruit. In the archives, Bea gets out her stamps and spots Henry at Hampton Court. In the haunting of Wolf Hall, we are the carrion crow, picking over dead meat.
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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