Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell #2) by Hilary Mantel

This second volume in Mantel’s proposed trilogy has fear and trepidation woven into the very sentences. Cromwell has moments of prescience when he can see that his tendency to go “all in” on support for the people he works for will bring him grief and destruction in the end. But, you know, I like him better for it. The man who could rewrite Machiavelli and teach him a thing or two has, at heart, a heart.

In Mantel’s novel I often got the notion that Cromwell directed the King’s attention towards Jane Seymour. That Cromwell mistrusted Anne Boleyn, I don’t think there can be any doubt, though he supported her until her jealousies and scheming became too much for even Cromwell to stomach. It doesn’t make any sense for Cromwell to put Henry and Jane together unless he suspected all along Anne’s tendency to plot would be her epitaph.

In the BBC production starring Mark Rylance, however, we get a slightly different interpretation: in Rylance’s performance we see Cromwell’s surprise, uncertainty, fear, and a growing knowledge that Henry would throw off the yoke of marriage once again, and entreat Cromwell to "fix" a divorce for him. Cromwell himself had always been attracted [either sexually or simply as a father figure] to the young, silent Jane Seymour and notes with consternation how Jane drew the King’s eye. With his knowledge of the King, he surely fears for anyone coming unprepared into the King's orbit.

Either interpretation deepens the character of Cromwell, though one is far more scheming and less attractive. I think Mantel meant us to recognize the humanity in Cromwell, though she has him serving up the coldest dish of long-held revenge we have perhaps ever seen. Cromwell hates the young Master of the Privy Chamber Harry Norris for his role in a play which humiliated the memory of Cromwell’s beloved Cardinal Wolsey. Cromwell bides his time but eventually finds a way to unseat Norris.

The title, Bring Up the Bodies, refers to the trial of five court regulars who were thought to be intimates of Anne Boleyn: Harry Norris, George Boleyn, Mark Smeaton, Francis Weston, and William Brereton. There is still an open question as to whether the queen slept with them while she reigned. Hard as it is to believe, it may not be out of place today, which is why we even entertain the notion. Anne Boleyn was married to King Henry only three years. It seemed to have been a trial for both of them.

Mantel did meticulous research so we can assume the portrait of a petulant monarch who does not deal well with failure or challenges has basis in fact. Certainly looking at his decisions alone might lead one to think in that direction. But it is Cromwell that is the central character in this drama, and Mantel does not let our eyes or thoughts stray far from the man. Mantel's chapter headings toll the years, and if the reader already knows Cromwell lived only four years beyond the death of Anne Boleyn, each chapter heading rings sonorous, ominous.

At the end of this novel we are treated to how his contemporaries view him, and it is not a flattering portrait. They wonder Cromwell won’t go after the King next. We’d like to be able to defend him, but know he is simply doing what is necessary for himself—he has an unquenchable appetite for the hand to hand combat that is his life.

I look forward to how Mantel deals with the end of Cromwell and the story she has made her own.


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Burqas, Baseball, and Apple Pie by Ranya Idliby

Idliby felt compelled to take up the challenge of educating her neighbors and fellow Americans about Islam and its believers in order to protect her children against bullying in school and in their daily lives. In the process she educated herself. She navigated the treacherous waters that can be found swirling about [any] organized religion to uncover basic truths that help her to be a better person, citizen, mother. She did not duck difficult questions about Islam. If only we all looked at the underpinnings of our beliefs with such seriousness, I feel sure we would be finer examples of our species.

She discovers the roots of and addresses the issues we have all wrestled with when considering Islam and Muslim societies abroad: the apparent subjugation of women, and the literal interpretation of the Quran. She is careful but unyielding in face of the worst excesses of American hate-mongering. How completely disorienting it must be to awake and find oneself part of a newly-designated “outsider” group.

There is a very nice section at the end, when Idliby considers the marriage prospects of her children. I think she solves it admirably, eloquently, and the book is worth reading for that alone. Would that every child had a mother so thoughtful with her guidance, we would not have such intractable social ills.

I liked the chapter devoted to Samuel Huntington’s 1993 article in Foreign Affairs, which is still being discussed today: in this chapter she explains her discomfort when someone considers the “inevitable, preordained, historically predetermined” conflict of values, religion, and cultures. She asks, fairly, how that fits with her family living in America as good citizens and progressive Muslims. “It is more accurate today to speak of the complicity of civilizations.” It is an interesting point which extends the discussion with hope and direction, i.e., usefully.

This book would do well to go on school reading lists because it is so clear in its examples of thoughtless, heartless things all of us, but especially children and teens, think and say that really hurt others and hinder their development as responsible adults. (I am not talking now about her examples of TV Fox and Friends and Sean Hannity raves that are pure and simple uninformed hate talk.) Children need to be educated about their language and tone, and what’s funny and what is really not so funny. She is clear about this—how hurtful things make it difficult for discriminated groups to participate.

It is sad, but probably true that “Islamophobes make it easier for terrorists to find one more vulnerable recruit….radicalization in American-born Muslims is not caused by the Quran: rather it is rooted in alienation, where troubled youths embrace a radicalized prospective of the world, enabled and empowered by radicalized readings of the Quran.” This is too simple, but there is some truth here. The discussion is a valuable one for it gives us something we can do: educate ourselves.

It is worth noting, however, that Idliby’s brand of religion is not always recognized by her fellow Muslims as Islamic. Just as there are some in every religion or group who seek to include variants, there will ever be those who claim their own particular understanding is the right one. It is not that we are back to square one, exactly. We have expanded our understanding a little to include this family and others like it in what we take to be ‘our America.’


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