One fool he suffers gladly is the king, who calls him ?Crumb.? There are shades of Jeeves and Wooster, as the buffoon Henry, romantically hopeless, rages and whines and boasts, and the dark cloaked minister looks on gravely. Henry is made decent only by the reverence with which Cromwell treats him. But there is a limit. At one point, he screams at his chief minister: ?I really believe, Cromwell, that you think you are king, and I am a blacksmith's boy.? Cromwell reflects, ?You could never be the blacksmith's boy.? Mantel sets the stage through the autumn and winter before that deadly spring. The king grumbles frustrations, as the once-bewitching Anne turns shrewish, her womb not as promising as hoped. Anne is as haughty as ever, but after three years of marriage, she has gone from being so alluring as to inspire a new religion to annoying enough to provoke a beheading, all without changing her affect. Henry alights on wife No. 3, the plain Jane Seymour of Wolf Hall. It is up to Cromwell, once again, to intuit the king?s wishes and realize them. Only this time he doesn?t have eight years, just nine months. A procession of events: We?re at Christmas within 100 pages, then St. George?s Day and on into the breathtaking final third, the grinding death march.
nba lockout over nba lockout news nba lockout news gifts for mom gifts for mom pepper spray storage auctions
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.