Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror & The Light takes its title from Thomas Cromwell’s flattering characterization of Henry VIII: ‘What should I want with the Emperor, were he emperor of all the world? Your Majesty is the only prince. The mirror and the light of other kings.’ This book is third in a trilogy about the life of Cromwell and his times. The book begins with the beheading of Anne Boleyn. Cromwell has risen to the office of Privy Seal and is King Henry’s closest adviser and perhaps the most powerful person in England. Cromwell knows everything, can do anything, and is seven steps ahead of everyone. He accumulates more power, more titles, but then slips up by arranging the King’s marriage to Anne of Cleves. The King is unable to consummate the marriage and, since there’s no Viagra in the 16th century, someone must be blamed and the fate he has arranged for so many before him finally befalls Cromwell himself.
As Cromwell contemplates his life while imprisoned in the Tower, awaiting execution, he muses: “The law is not an instrument to find out truth. It is there to create a fiction that will help us move past atrocious acts and face our future. It seems there is no mercy in this world, but a kind of haphazard justice: men pay for crimes, but not necessarily their own.”
The writing is wonderful, almost poetry. Description of life in the 16th century is vivid and detailed. And the tale itself is fascinating. However, the book may not be for everyone. It’s 757 pages and you can’t skim – too much happening in each sentence. There’s a 7-page list of the cast of characters at the beginning of the book (normally when I see something like that, I don’t read the book). However, though it’s an undertaking, for me it was entirely worth it. It may be the best book I’ve ever read. The first two books of the trilogy, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, both won the Man Booker prize. I’m surprised this one didn’t (it was long-listed), but maybe they have a rule you can’t win three Man Bookers because it makes all the other authors look like rank amateurs. Here’s what Kirkus Reviews says:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/hilary-mantel/the-mirror-amp-the-light/
