The Mirror & the Light: A Novel (Wolf Hall Trilogy, 3)
The brilliant #1 New York Times bestseller
Named a best book of 2020 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The Guardian, and many more
With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.
The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.
Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze?
Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light completes Cromwell’s journey from self-made man to one of the most feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied and defined his age.
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Community Reviews
Like the other two books in this series, this book was really good at drawing me in and making me care about the events of hundreds of years ago.
And the events were described thoroughly, all of the moving parts considered and calculated before Cromwell made his next move. So that was good.
It was, however, just too damn long. And not like Anna Karenina or the Savage Detectives where I couldn’t tell you what to cut bc it was unnecessary, this book I can tell you exactly what needs to go: those flashback descriptions. In the first two books it was fine when we were establishing characters and their pasts, but at this point we know who Cromwell is. 33 hours into a 38 hour book, I do not need another reminder that he is a blacksmith’s son and that the forge was hot and the cobblestones outside his home were slippery or some such nonsense. I don’t care. Make the book shorter.
Anyway. Real content- I think Cromwell’s death comes down to three things:
1. Henry no likey the fourth wife Cromwell picked for him
2.his enemies really really hated that Henry had just appointed a commoner like him to nobility
3. He never remarried, meaning any rumors about his intentions with royal women could not be entirely dismissed
The way the book sets it up, I think #3 was pretty preventable, and it was not really clear why he didn’t remarry. Yes, he missed his first wife (she died) and he was a busy man, but he had plenty of opportunity to remarry and plenty of options available. Though it’s never said in the book, given that these excuses are rather flimsy and the consequences pretty dire, it’s like Mantel is keeping us as the readers open to the probability that Cromwell actually was waiting for a royal bride. Pretty clever, that.
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