She took her hand from his shoulder. She balled her two hands into fists and punched them in the air, and from the depth of her belly she let loose a scream, a halloo, in a shrill voice like a demon. The press of people took up the cry. They seethed and pushed forward for a view, they catcalled and whistled and stamped their feet. At the thought of the horrible thing he would see he felt hot and cold. He twisted to look up into the face of the woman who was his mother in the crowd. You watch, she said. With the gentlest brush of her fingers she turned his face to the spectacle. Pay attention now. The officers took chains and bound the old person to the stake.
Hilary Mantel first came to my attention with Beyond Black. This is a dark and faintly disturbing novel with a supernatural premise. It’s a ghost story through and through; an unusual one of course, because Mantel is such a distinctive voice. Where the ghosts in Beyond Black are unquestionably real, Mantel keeps them just under the surface in Wolf Hall. The spirit world exists in bad dreams and warnings of ill omens, or in the hauntingly unforgettable horrors of brutal 16th century England where Mantel explores the life of Thomas Cromwell.
My opening quote is from a passage in the book where the young Cromwell is forced to watch a public execution. Violent torture and execution spreads throughout the pages of Wolf Hall. Public burnings and the discussion of horrible ends to life are familiar to Mantel’s world. And the novel is frank about this, beginning with an awful scene of brutality as it describes how the young Cromwell is beaten senseless by his abusive father. Mantel’s novel follows Cromwell’s life as he rises from these pitiful beginnings to sit in the inner circle of Henry VIII. For me, this is much more than a traditional historical book. In a recent interview Hilary Mantel explained some of the reasons for writing Wolf Hall. Whilst anyone with a reasonable knowledge of the period will know Cromwell’s place in history, his personal life has remained mostly unknown. What sort of a man was he? How did he come to be so favoured by the king?
Mantel has set herself a challenge but comes to answer these questions brilliantly, and the book’s key episode is where Cromwell seals his important and enviable bond with the king. Henry is troubled by dark dreams of his dead brother. Unable to make sense of them he calls for Cromwell, and his visitor manages to calm him with the right word, and the best careful gesture. More effectively so than the king’s usual aides. This is a lesson in human nature, the art of politics and the most artful ways of achieving one’s ambitions. For me, Cromwell appears to personify the first modern man in a dark and still primitive age. Classless, forward thinking, wise yet not as cunning as sometimes portrayed by historians or authors. Foremost, above and beyond the dark mentality of the public burnings; spritually and even morally evolved – where his father was cruel Cromwell does not repeat the same brutality on his own family.
Wolf Hall is a difficult novel to read but is worth sticking with for Mantel’s often remarkably poetic pieces of writing. I never thought I’d find myself agreeing with Michael Portillo, but he was right on last night’s Late Review when he said that the book would have benefited from some fiercer editing. At 650 pages it is a marathon read, and doesn’t even cover all of Cromwell’s life. This, I fear, will go into the second and equally lengthy volume. But I also agree with John Carey, who believes that Wolf Hall will win this year’s Booker. It’s just too much of an original and striking piece to ignore.
There’s something about Nick Hornby that makes me want to keep reading his novels, even though there’s a high disappointment factor. After the initial joy of High Fidelity he’s never quite returned to that peak, with his stream of fiction becoming weaker with each release. Only last year’s Slam suggested that he may have returned to something of his former greatness.
Juliet, Naked again looks at male obsession, a subject very familiar to Hornby. The title refers to The Beatles stripped down version of their final release, Let it Be, Naked, where the fictional Tucker Crowe, a reclusive rock star, releases a similarly no nonsense version of his acclaimed Juliet. Crowe is in some ways an American version of Syd Barrett, abandoning his fame to live quietly and in obscurity. The age of the internet has brought the Crowe obsessives together, poring over his lyrics and the countless bootleg albums of his concerts.
The novel’s lead character Alice shares her life with one such Crowe obsessive, a man most content to scour online forums and blogs for information about his hero, going as far as visiting the toilet of the bar where Crowe was last spotted in public.
There’s a lot of humour here, and some wry observations, but sadly Hornby’s latest quickly loses all of its promise. The problem is the unengaging characters which develop little more than simple sketches, and the unrealistic premise which introduces Crowe as a potential love interest for Alice. Oddly, the backstory involving a forgotten English seaside resort was far more interesting than the dull and unconvincing Crowe, and a missed opportunity for developing into a far better book. I’m sorry, but this is one to avoid.
I’ve welcomed the return of Waking the Dead with open arms. It’s one of the best things on television in recent years. One of the many reasons to champion it is Trevor Eve, who continues to give a stunning performance in the lead role of Boyd, a fascinating, difficult and forever hard to read and unpredictable detective.
Boyd is, at times, quite a nasty piece of work, a likely reason why he’s so popular with viewers. He’s usually sullen and humourless, so miserable that he makes Inspector Morse look like Ken Dodd. Boyd is controlling and manipulative, often coming across as equally unlikeable as the villains he’s trying to catch. He gets what he wants, appearing at his most charming when there’s something clear in his sight (in an episode I shall call The Nasty Heart Surgeon he’s particularly friendly to a little girl, but only because her father is one of Boyd’s likely suspects). A viewer won’t go as far as shouting “boo, hiss!” at Boyd but is likely to say “you bastard!” at least once per episode.
Boyd has his demons, brought to the fore at the close of the last season with the death of his son. Consequently, he is a man who often appears on the brink. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly either. In fact he doesn’t take anyone at all gladly. And, this being a modern detective series, there’s no such thing as a softly, softly approach. When a suspect needs questioning they usually face Boyd full on, the rest of the team watching open mouthed behind a two way mirror, poised ready to pull him out if – and when – he goes too far. Grace (Sue Johnston) often steps in as the voice of reason when this happens (in The Nasty Heart Surgeon he leaves a female officer alone with a rape suspect, in the episode I shall call East European Illegal Organ Trading he deliberately sets off a sprinkler system in a bid to unnerve a suspect with a phobia about water). Grace is usually the best at calming things down (though she doesn’t actually say “calm down, calm down”, which might have been a neat touch considering her Brookside roots). Grace is the police psychologist. Boyd accepts her role but dismisses it where he can, viewing his own role as something more “concrete”.
your job’s all abstract … airy fairy … at least I get down to the nitty gritty.
The current series finds the team in a new headquarters, a dark and gloomy cavern where they look like leads in one of the sparser stagings of a Beckett play. In the opening episode Grace asks Boyd where her office is. He gestures to an unlit corner muttering “over there”. The most we can hope for in the way of lighting is a mean rationing of Ikea spotlights. The team unpick their cold cases, unsolved crimes from the past, by sticking post-its on a see-through wall. A very striking visual technique, something I’ve been trying to get for the office for ages. The almost gothic setting for the team HQ in Waking the Dead reminds me of the one in Torchwood, although this is possibly the only link between these two programmes you’re likely to see. Both though feature a team of experts who appear to operate just outside of the law (in The Very Nasty Heart Surgeon Boyd is investigated for breaking and entering). There’s also a very good share of strong female characters. Supporting members of the team also have a tendency to get killed off. No aliens of course, although the team leader does have a fondness for wearing long coats.
Waking the Dead does feature an inevitable quota of clichéd acting, here giving a generous amount of time to computer acting. Our team appear unaware of mouse functionality, and use all of their computer applications by furiously tapping away at the keyboard. At least everything is nicely keyboard accessible. Eve (played by Tara Fitzgerald) is particularly good on the computer. In the episode I shall call It Had to be Twins she constructs an entire 3D simulation of a house interior and peppers it with visual representations of DNA samples found at the crime scene. All by keyboard. Eve’s genius at forensics (Boyd often shows his silent exasperation at her thoroughness) is balanced by Spencer (Wil Johnson), who appears ostensibly as some no-nonsense muscle but is a man often deeply affected by things. Spencer is dropping hints that he wants to leave the team. With only two more episodes to go, I can’t help thinking that there might be something horrible in store for him.
The stories in Waking the Dead are at times preposterous and convoluted, although I always find them fascinating and always gripping. This is helped by the excellent performances. In It Had to be Twins, the lamest of plot devices (“ah, they were twins all along”) unfolded as a believable mystery stretching back to 1967 and featuring two interweaving stories that I found connected rather cleverly. “East European illegal organ trading” was particularly darkly themed, where the series was allowed to become its most Silence of the Lambs ish. For good measure, I also found a similarity with 28 Days Later where Spencer has a most disturbing encounter. Boyd was again allowed to be his horrible self, and became particularly agitated by Eve’s romantic involvement with a murder suspect. Cue one of the best “you bastard!” moments and Boyd at his most controlling.
At times, but only very rarely, does Waking the Dead give in to lazy plotting, such as Boyd’s ease of tracking down a rapist through a “relative’s” DNA in The Very Nasty Heart Surgeon. In the same story, one suspect hides evidence as a security measure against another; the second suspect finding this evidence all too easily. All in all, however, this is superiorly cerebral stuff and shows how far tv has come, with an irony being the presence of Trevor Eve. We can remember him fondly from Shoestring when he played the most amiable of detectives, and the antithesis of Boyd. But Shoestring was 30 years ago, and a world as quaint perhaps as Dixon o’ Dock Green. Perhaps Waking the Dead doesn’t really portray the world we live in today, only the tv version of it, but authentic or not I can still enjoy it just as much as Torchwood.
Previous Page |
Next Page
