Hilary Mantel

Is anyone else tired of Post-Modernism? Hands? These novels about themselves and literature, all tied together and around each other, doing coordinated backflips, while reciting (and understanding every intertextual reference of) The Wasteland. Like performance artists tying string around themselves and calling it art (true story). Being a child of this monster, I include my writer self here. (But definitely not any seedling of an artist self.)

The other day it occurred to me that cynicism is a passion/belief/hope with grill marks. Like a child who watches his father choke on a chicken bone and... won't eat chicken. No, actually, that doesn't work: he'd become a chicken-murdering crazy man. Well, now it works but it's a little weird.

I must be back in form because My Point has gone a-wondering.

Post-Modernism is a bore, so now what? Retreat to the classics? No! - I mean, you could, the classics are classics for a reason. But what if I told you that someone did something different? That said something had a plot, characters and not a single zombie/dragon/vampire in sight? That this book would graft to your fingers until you were done? Keep you up on a 'school night'? Dose its cynicism by pointing out ourselves in every character?

I imposed myself upon Ms Hilary Mantel with the novella called Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. It is the story of a husband and wife who are relocated to the Middle East by Mr's company. They live in a compound but, still, cultural clash and this starts to look like A Passage to India. Oh but no. (I'm going to stop here and write the spoiler at the end.)

The next party she hosted was at the museum: in the French Revolution room. I never imagined I would empathise with those revolutionaries (good) turned murderers (do I need to say bad?). Nevermind that most heinous of murderers Robespierre. No, not so much empathise as host their voices in lodgings in the outer suburbs of my brain.

Yes, It was One of Those - the kind that takes something of you with it when you put it down. Albeit a teensy bit too long. See end for spoiler.

Then she hosted a party in the Tudor room. I don't like the Tudors' story. I get it: Katherine good, Anne bad, Henry - we're ambivalent about him. He murdered how many wives and split the Catholic church, but hey, he was spoilt - like an overripe plum. C'mon, this is a large reasonably sized kinda tiny bigger-than-Mars planet (is it? I really have no idea) - surely there is more history than just this.

But I trust my friend so I attend. Also, out of loyalty. She'd be devastated if I didn't arrive. And there's a dress in my cupboard that I never wear. (Focusing, focusing...)

Wolf Hall features no zombies (the dead people stay dead) or dragons, and definitely no vampires. It is all of the above and a tome, but definitely not even a teensy bit too long. The language, the details, the character portrait, everything is concise, propelling you along, so that you miss the movement when you stop. The protagonist is Thomas Cromwell, most beloved of men, so Henry VIII's crazy is a comfortable arm's length away.

At no point does this tome obviously glance down at its navel, even though it might casually establish the existence of its bellybutton every so often.

Spoiler time. (Tea will be served shortly.) The title and first page(s) of Hilary Mantel's books never refer to the book you are holding but to events beyond the story. Wolf Hall is the subject of Mantel's next book, Bring up the Bodies. This title refers to the death of all (what, million or so?) of Henry's wives.

I copped on after I had finished reading Eight Months and flipped back to check something. It took about half an hour to establish that the discrepancy at the end is intentional. People say 'it blew my mind'. That's silly. It didn't. Because when something blows your mind, you do a Decartes and try to reverse engineer the concept of 'knowing'. This didn't. But it impressed me.

Your hands are still up? Because you're tired of Post-Modernism or you have a question? No, I won't tell you the secret to Eight Months. No, I don't really know Ms Mantel and I only stalk electronically. Like a normal person. What does the cynicism steak have to do with this?

We have seen histories like the Tudors' waft past us, even in our own lifetimes. They are usually bloody, doomed and misguided. We consume the images of the first two from news media, almost literally like zombies or vampires. How often do we give a thought as to how a human being, with the same needs and desires as us, gets there? How often do we wonder what would take us there, as more than an academic exercise? How often do we wonder whether we are already there?

Ms Mantel doesn't plonk us in the viewing room of a museum in evening gowns and tuxes - she asks us to help arrange the displays. Ok, so she is Post-Modern and she has a navel, but this time I don't mind.