Hilary Mantel at the Southbank Centre

Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn deer hunting in Windsor Forest. Painted by William Powell Frith

Last night I fulfilled my book geek duties by sacrificing my Friday evening to go and watch Hilary Mantel talk about her new book, Bring Up the Bodies, with my mum. I say sacrifice... I was begging Mum to come with me... I've seen Hilary Mantel only once in the flesh beforehand but have never heard her talk. I don't know about anyone else but for me I'm always waiting to hear how someone speaks because it's so rarely how you expect. The amount of times you see really tiny figures come out with huge, deep voices... it's hysterical!

Anyway, the best thing about last night was Mantel's enthusiasm and passion. You really felt that you were there, with Henry, with Cromwell, because she brought them so much to life. She talked about how before she begins to write historical fiction, the history is just a pile of random phrases from ghostly figures of the past. Her job is to put them into some form of context and bring those words alive and make the believable. I really do believe she does that but it's fair to say, and people did say last night (comfortingly!) that her books can be quite a challenge - especially Wolf Hall.

 
Her amount of knowledge is brilliant. Last night it came out with such speed and enthusiasm from her mouth that sometimes if you blinked or noticed someone's bald patch in the seat in front, that you found yourself quite lost. The Tudors, for me, as I said in my review last week, are one of my ultimate favourite periods in history and Anne Boleyn one of my favourite 'characters'. I had never quite realised the fear that Henry's court and the country felt at the thought of Anne having any form of power. It's not quite certain what threat she specifically posed to the country and its wellbeing but she was thought to be a manipulative, cunning woman and Henry was fickle and often easily swayed by, as Mantel said herself, whoever the last person he saw.

History is something that is regurgitated back to us so often, whether it by school, family or those annoying people who just seem to know everything. What's great about historical fiction is that it adds humanity to it and can always offer different viewpoints. Mantel picks Thomas Cromwell - what a great character, but your feelings to him are always ambivalent. Mantel kept talking about how some of these figures in her books are ambivalent because on the one hand you are horrified by the goings on in Henry's court and by him and his admirers. On the other hand, once you know a character so personally, you can't help but also root for them. Cromwell and the King are both cases of that kind of ambivalence, I feel anyway.

Anyway, great evening and always enjoyable to watch someone talk passionately on a subject, whether it interesting or not. Shame about the idiots behind me who talked the whole way through...

For my review of Bring up the Bodies, click here.