My adoration for Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall series is quite well-documented, but I didn't get around to watching the BBC/Masterpiece Classic adaptation of the first two novels until this week. What finally inspired me was the fact that the changing weather reminded me of the experience of reading Bring Up the Bodies last fall, which got me deep into a Hilary Mantel mood. Since I couldn't justify starting any of her other books until at least reduce the size of the ridiculous stack of books next to my bed, I decided to cheat a bit and watch the tv miniseries instead. It's only six hours long, and only includes the action from the first two novels; I have no idea if BBC will produce a follow-up after the publication of the third (and supposedly final) novel in the series, but I would hope so. Based on the level of excitement expressed my grandparents, PBS devotees, 'Wolf Hall' was quite popular.
Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace': Week It Doesn't Matter Anymore
Over a long, cold, rainy weekend, I quietly and with little or no fanfare, finished War and Peace. The conditions were ideal for hours spent reading in a cozy chair, so that's exactly what I did. I feel a natural sense of accomplishment, but I can't help but notice that my life has been profoundly changed in the past by much shorter books, and this time around, 1200 pages later, I don't feel very different. It was good, and it is worth the effort, and Tolstoy does not waste a single one of those 1200 pages. But that said, Anna Karenina was better, at least for me. When I finished Moby Dick, for example, I felt exhilarated, and like I had finally learned the meaning of a universal truth about Melville and that novel, but with War and Peace, I feel no such thing. Maybe it doesn't help that basically no one I know has ever read War and Peace because it is so absurdly long, and maybe it was never going to live up to the time it took to finish. I wouldn't really recommend reading it to anyone, but I will go ahead and endorse the upcoming BBC adaptation, which looks really lovely. No official trailer yet, but I'll share it when it comes out.
Now on to the most important issue: what should be my next big fat book?
#ReadWomen2014: Hilary Mantel
I have already advocated for Hilary Mantel's most popular and very critically acclaimed novel Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies. And as if you needed another reason to check them out, the BBC is adapting them with Damian Lewis as Henry VIII, and there is a stage adaptation on Broadway, so you need to read them before they reach total pop culture saturation. Plus volume three in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy is expected to be published in 2015.
When you've completed that task, dive into the rest of the Hilary Mantel oeuvre, which includes her incredible collection of short stories The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, published earlier this year. She has plenty of other novels and short story collections to check out, as well as a one-volume memoir, but of greatest interest to me is her historical fiction account of the Reign of Terror, A Place of Greater Safety. Everything I've read of heard about it makes it sound like something I would love, and if Wolf Hall is any indication, Mantel has a pretty firm grasp on historical fiction.