Silky Man-management: Hilary Mantel, on the art of surviving Henry VIII
March 12, 2016 4:34 PM Subscribe
"If Tudor is measured on a scale, and scored by size of beard, love of jousting and trouble with wives, Charles Brandon would come near the top, second only to the king he served. ... [His] power as a court favourite endured till death removed him in 1545. A long run, on ground slippery with blood: how did Charles do it?" Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, reviews Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend for the London Review of Books.
God, I love Mantel's writing. Thanks for this!
posted by languagehat at 5:07 PM on March 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by languagehat at 5:07 PM on March 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
"Died of disgust", brilliant!
posted by antiquated at 7:04 PM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by antiquated at 7:04 PM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wow. Five wives? Seriously, this guy and Henry were soulmates in how they treated women.
(a) Knocks up young woman he's engaged to
(b) Dumps her to marry her aunt for her money
(c) Goes back to the niece and marries her--while still married to the aunt?!
(d) Niece dies, he eventually gets some kind of dispensation to get rid of the aunt in marriage
(e) Marries an 8-year-old ward of his and doesn't consummate it so he can use her money
(f) Gets rid of that marriage, marries Henry's sister
(g) After the sister dies, marries another teenage heiress.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:04 PM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
(a) Knocks up young woman he's engaged to
(b) Dumps her to marry her aunt for her money
(c) Goes back to the niece and marries her--while still married to the aunt?!
(d) Niece dies, he eventually gets some kind of dispensation to get rid of the aunt in marriage
(e) Marries an 8-year-old ward of his and doesn't consummate it so he can use her money
(f) Gets rid of that marriage, marries Henry's sister
(g) After the sister dies, marries another teenage heiress.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:04 PM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
I love it. Charles Brandon is one of my favorite Tudor Interesting Characters.
posted by corb at 10:30 PM on March 12, 2016
posted by corb at 10:30 PM on March 12, 2016
"What does it mean, to be lacking in Tudor"?
I ask myself this question frequently. Great link, thanks for sharing it.
posted by disclaimer at 11:02 PM on March 12, 2016
I ask myself this question frequently. Great link, thanks for sharing it.
posted by disclaimer at 11:02 PM on March 12, 2016
We need to reintroduce the verb "to swive."
posted by Combat Wombat at 11:26 PM on March 12, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by Combat Wombat at 11:26 PM on March 12, 2016 [8 favorites]
I feel a bit sorry for Steven Gunn. This is supposed to be about his book, but he gets about a third of one paragraph: a dismissive pat on the head that says he worked hard and wrote a dull book like mere historians should.
Otherwise Mantel yields to the temptation to gabble through a detailed but shapeless potted biography. The facts are interesting, but just vomiting them up doesn't make a review.
posted by Segundus at 11:45 PM on March 12, 2016
Otherwise Mantel yields to the temptation to gabble through a detailed but shapeless potted biography. The facts are interesting, but just vomiting them up doesn't make a review.
posted by Segundus at 11:45 PM on March 12, 2016
It's the LRB: The books being notionally reviewed are used as the starting point for an essay on the topic in question by the reviewer. Aren't all literary review magazines like that?
posted by pharm at 12:14 AM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by pharm at 12:14 AM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Time they raised their game, then. The fact that the LRB does it all the time doesn't mean the practice is above criticism.
In this particular case the mention of the author is so brief and offensively condescending, while the 'essay' is so limply dependent on the facts he supplies, it's absurd. I speak as someone who enjoys Mantel's novels greatly.
No doubt the LRB was so knicker-wettingly excited about getting Mantel to write about Tudor stuff pretty much anything would do, but it's disappointing she didn't hold herself to a better standard. IMO.
posted by Segundus at 12:41 AM on March 13, 2016
In this particular case the mention of the author is so brief and offensively condescending, while the 'essay' is so limply dependent on the facts he supplies, it's absurd. I speak as someone who enjoys Mantel's novels greatly.
No doubt the LRB was so knicker-wettingly excited about getting Mantel to write about Tudor stuff pretty much anything would do, but it's disappointing she didn't hold herself to a better standard. IMO.
posted by Segundus at 12:41 AM on March 13, 2016
Wow. Five wives? Seriously, this guy and Henry were soulmates in how they treated women.
(a) Knocks up young woman he's engaged to
(b) Dumps her to marry her aunt for her money
(c) Goes back to the niece and marries her--while still married to the aunt?!
(d) Niece dies, he eventually gets some kind of dispensation to get rid of the aunt in marriage
(e) Marries an 8-year-old ward of his and doesn't consummate it so he can use her money
(f) Gets rid of that marriage, marries Henry's sister
(g) After the sister dies, marries another teenage heiress.
My role model.
I keed, I keeed ...
posted by oheso at 1:03 AM on March 13, 2016
(a) Knocks up young woman he's engaged to
(b) Dumps her to marry her aunt for her money
(c) Goes back to the niece and marries her--while still married to the aunt?!
(d) Niece dies, he eventually gets some kind of dispensation to get rid of the aunt in marriage
(e) Marries an 8-year-old ward of his and doesn't consummate it so he can use her money
(f) Gets rid of that marriage, marries Henry's sister
(g) After the sister dies, marries another teenage heiress.
My role model.
I keed, I keeed ...
posted by oheso at 1:03 AM on March 13, 2016
This is the entire raison d'être of the LRB: *every* review in the LRB is like this. Their readers aren’t reading the LRB for reviews of interesting books, they’re reading it for interesting essays by good writers using recently published books as an excuse to write an essay on a particular topic. If the reader ends up wanting to know more about the topic, maybe they go on to read the book in question.
They’ve been like that since the magazine was founded & I doubt they’ll “raise their game” because some sniffy commentator on the internet who doesn’t even buy the magazine doesn’t like it :)
posted by pharm at 1:22 AM on March 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
They’ve been like that since the magazine was founded & I doubt they’ll “raise their game” because some sniffy commentator on the internet who doesn’t even buy the magazine doesn’t like it :)
posted by pharm at 1:22 AM on March 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
Plus, this concerns a reissue of what appears to be a sturdy classic of Tudor studies, reviewed by the no-question highest-profile Tudor-popularizing author of, what, the last century? It's effectively an advertisement for the book being notionally reviewed. It's also of greater interest as a little sizzle reel for her next book, which I for one await with the bated breath of a hungry kenneled hound.
posted by mwhybark at 3:17 AM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by mwhybark at 3:17 AM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
The Reverend Octavius Theosophus Snark, rector of the twin parishes of Swiving Parva and Swiving Magna, stared dourly over his kedgeree at the latest edition of the London Review of Books.
"Mrs Butterbun!" he yelled. "Come here at once, if you would be so kind."
His housekeeper heard the call from deep within the pantry where she was, if not hiding, then at least waiting out the most dangerous part of the day. She knew the import of that call, and she dreaded it.
"Yes, your reverence?" she said, as brusquely as she dared, on entering the dining room.
"How long have I been taking this organ, Butterbun?" he demanded.
"The Review, sir? At least twenty years, probably more."
"Let us say twenty five, then. And in all this time, do you know what? Do y'know?"
Mrs Butterbun sighed inwardly'. She'd hoped it was just a fishbone in the kedgeree that had angered her incumbent. But she made no outward reply. None was necessary, or would even be welcome.
"I'll tell you what. In all this time they haven't published a single review of a damned book. It's all hoity-toity elites parading their damnable erudition. False colours, Butterbun, false colours!"
"Indeed it is, sir. Quite a scandal, I'd say"
"What's that? Shut up, woman. You're my housekeeper, not an accursed social commentator. Cancel my subscription at once, I will not be made a fool of by metropolitan dandy sodomites."
"At once, your reverence."
"Now then, here's the problem. What shall I read at the breakfast table?"
"I understand that the Erotic Review has a special offer for new subscribers, sir, being a set of eight etchings by that noted artist, Thomas of Finland."
"Capital! Subscribe me forthwith. And send for that new stableboy, Blenkins. Your endless prattling has stretched my patience as tight as a jockey's jodhpurs. I must seek discharge presently , lest apoplexy tarnish my appetite."
In a mere hundred years' time, thought Mrs Butterbun as she hurried away, they'll have invented the Internet, a natural haven for the Reverend, and none of this will be necessary. Oh, make it soon, make it soon...
"BUTTERBUN! THERE'S A BONE IN MY DAMN KEDGEREE!"
Not soon enough.
posted by Devonian at 6:51 AM on March 13, 2016 [25 favorites]
"Mrs Butterbun!" he yelled. "Come here at once, if you would be so kind."
His housekeeper heard the call from deep within the pantry where she was, if not hiding, then at least waiting out the most dangerous part of the day. She knew the import of that call, and she dreaded it.
"Yes, your reverence?" she said, as brusquely as she dared, on entering the dining room.
"How long have I been taking this organ, Butterbun?" he demanded.
"The Review, sir? At least twenty years, probably more."
"Let us say twenty five, then. And in all this time, do you know what? Do y'know?"
Mrs Butterbun sighed inwardly'. She'd hoped it was just a fishbone in the kedgeree that had angered her incumbent. But she made no outward reply. None was necessary, or would even be welcome.
"I'll tell you what. In all this time they haven't published a single review of a damned book. It's all hoity-toity elites parading their damnable erudition. False colours, Butterbun, false colours!"
"Indeed it is, sir. Quite a scandal, I'd say"
"What's that? Shut up, woman. You're my housekeeper, not an accursed social commentator. Cancel my subscription at once, I will not be made a fool of by metropolitan dandy sodomites."
"At once, your reverence."
"Now then, here's the problem. What shall I read at the breakfast table?"
"I understand that the Erotic Review has a special offer for new subscribers, sir, being a set of eight etchings by that noted artist, Thomas of Finland."
"Capital! Subscribe me forthwith. And send for that new stableboy, Blenkins. Your endless prattling has stretched my patience as tight as a jockey's jodhpurs. I must seek discharge presently , lest apoplexy tarnish my appetite."
In a mere hundred years' time, thought Mrs Butterbun as she hurried away, they'll have invented the Internet, a natural haven for the Reverend, and none of this will be necessary. Oh, make it soon, make it soon...
"BUTTERBUN! THERE'S A BONE IN MY DAMN KEDGEREE!"
Not soon enough.
posted by Devonian at 6:51 AM on March 13, 2016 [25 favorites]
Mod note: Segundus, you don't like the piece, you've made your point; let other people who want to discuss it discuss it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 9:23 AM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 9:23 AM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Gunn is now a senior figure in Tudor studies, but this book was first published in 1988. The new edition is handsomely produced and illustrated, but the text is of specialist interest; it is only on painstaking work like this that narratives can confidently be built. It results from work in the archives which will not need to be repeated, and is devoted quite properly to the details of the duke’s labyrinthine property dealings, lawsuits and household matters, with the political backdrop sketched in only lightly. As close work with the documents, it’s hard to see how it could be done better. Gunn points to the gaps in the evidence and is not tempted to fill them by speculation. The book is never picturesque. You have to bring your own Tudor.Which is not faint praise coming from a great novelist whose work turns on an axis of narratives confidently built -- and no one can bring the Tudor like Mantel.
posted by jamjam at 7:05 PM on March 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
Thanks for the link. My wife loves all things that bring the Tudor.
posted by crocomancer at 8:37 AM on March 14, 2016
posted by crocomancer at 8:37 AM on March 14, 2016
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-Sir Thomas More
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:43 PM on March 12, 2016