Genesis of this blog

Last year, as I was reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel,  I found myself transported by this engrossing historical novel which trumps the genre trap and is widely esteemed as a literary novel. I'd given some thought through the years to movie and miniseries fave Henry VIII (as in...what was up with him? did he really believe his own self serving nonsense? Did he ever get the tiniest shivery sensation in the upper vertebrae when he thought about about having ordered the neck-chopping of not one but two women he'd been madly in love with?!? not to mention the head separations of  his most trusted counselors???) I'd not thought much about Thomas Cromwell, one of the trusted counsellors ultimately axed out by His Royal  Badness.  In assorted movies and  miniseries, he seemed  a second-tier opportunistic baddie, and there are plenty of those in the Henry VIII narrative.  I was in for a change in perspective: you can't read WH without giving Cromwell some thought.  The narration, while technically in third person,  adheres entirely to the author's version of  Cromwell's direct sensory intake and thoughts.  Ms. Mantel quite admires Cromwell, but she does not much care for Thomas More, hero of the widely seen sixties movie (based on the play of the same name) A Man for All Seasons. In WH More, the embodiment of all fine qualities in Man, is sanctimonious and cruel, while Cromwell, a skulking villain in Man, is a  likable prodigy of talent and industry, although nobody, Mantel included,  will nominate him for sainthood.

Reading the new sequel to Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, I decided to dive into  multiple interpretations of the characters and forces in Henry's drama, staying (mostly) in the realm of fiction, including dramatizations. I doubted other Tudor fictionalizers  would execute at Mantel's level, and they indeed do not, but there are many respectable and entertaining entries in the Realm of Henry.

So, now I've read a few more books, watched a few more miniseries episodes, and I have a long to-do list, and yes, I will blog about it all.