The Mirror and the Light is the third and final Cromwell book by Hilary Mantel. It finishes the story of Thomas Cromwell, advisor to Henry VIII who got rid of his first couple wives and a good chunk of nobles/dynastic rivals on the side. (Plus the whole religion thing.) I read the first two a while ago, and finally remembered to pick up the third when she passed away recently. It is, like the others, damn good. She makes Cromwell into such a complex and sympathetic character; it’s really amazing. You can plumb the origin of his motivations nearly endlessly, and for all the other characters you get a fantastic view into his view of their motivations. The portrayal of Henry VIII is also sympathetic but left me with no doubt as to how f-ed up the whole monarchy thing is. (Incidentally, she states in the afterword that his nephew’s great grandson brought about the “first English republic”, perhaps giving some clue as to her own feelings on the monarchy.)
I was a little put off by the modern, Big-L Literature writing style, where you drift in an out of his head and through his memories. She frequently uses “he” to refer to Cromwell, when normally you’d think it would mean the other character from the previous sentence. But you get used to it. I was honestly not really in the mood for a book that made me work–and this is a long book, I was deceived by the super-thin paper of the copy I read–but I needed to return it to the library so I powered through, and I really do not regret it. I think it will certainly reward a deep reading about human motivations and the like, but if you just want to read a story, which is more or less how I read it, it is still fantastic.
Strong recommendation! If you’re not familiar with the historical situation, other than “that dude Henry had a lot of wives” then don’t read up on it before starting in, but if you are: the ending was classically tragic in the “bad things happening to mostly good people that still deserve it” kind of way (live by the sword, and all that) but damn, the last few pages still have me thinking about what it would be like to be in his shoes.