'We must roll back time. It will be as if the king blinked, and then lived that first moment again.' Gregory says, 'But is that how time works?'
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further resources: Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall
Welcome to Week 49 of 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 & the Light.
Each week, I delve into the details, providing 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, Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.
I start each post with a summary of the week’s story, illustrated by a map by Matt Brown. This week, we are reading the first half of Part Five. Chapter III. Magnificence, January–June 1540.
In the UK Fourth Estate edition, this section runs from pages 719 to 765. In the US Picador edition, it runs from pages 618 to 657. It begins, “The king’s new castle at Deal is a way station for Anna to wash her hands…” It ends, “The loss of the boy is like a cold wind on his neck.”
This summary is followed by a few footnotes of interest. This week, the blame game starts as the king seeks to roll back time. England is fortified against invasion, as Cromwell feels his foot trip on the stairway to Heaven. He wakes in the night and wonders, What means this?
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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