Liked it, but took me a long time to get through. It's interesting to see the seeds of the Cromwell books in the way she builds the characters and the story, almost like watching footage of LeBron as a high school basketball player. The talent is there, he's bursting at the seams, but he's unfinished, unpolished somehow.
And by god, the French Revolution was a mess.
Also, the book cements for me that one of Mantel's lifelong themes is that of men whose ambition carries them to the top of the mountain and then casts them down. Cromwell is obviously like that, but so are Desmoulins, Danton, and Robespierre (and the dozens of others who got guillotined during the Terror). And so is O'Brien, the giant.
The Mirror and the Light can't come soon enough.
And by god, the French Revolution was a mess.
Also, the book cements for me that one of Mantel's lifelong themes is that of men whose ambition carries them to the top of the mountain and then casts them down. Cromwell is obviously like that, but so are Desmoulins, Danton, and Robespierre (and the dozens of others who got guillotined during the Terror). And so is O'Brien, the giant.
The Mirror and the Light can't come soon enough.
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