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sethdmichaels.bsky.social · @sethdmichaels.bsky.social@bridge.neodb.net

Rated The Mirror & the Light 8/10

The completion of a trilogy that includes my favorite books of the last decade. <br/><br/>The best comparison I can make for this book and its place in the series is the later seasons of a show like The Sopranos or Mad Men, where the toxic impact of the central character becomes apparent as the world they so competently built starts coming apart, and you're left a little queasy at having rooted for them. <br/><br/>It's about a lot of things - but particularly about the impossibility of ethical action and self-protection in a system built around monarchical whim, and the dangers of succeeding within the confines of unjust structures. It's also very much about what you'd call "toxic masculinity" and how inseparable it is from a governing system in which one man is theoretically able to get anything he wants but whose legitimacy is dependent on his contingent ability to produce sons. (I of course found myself constantly struck by parallels between the thuggish, capricious strongman and his wary courtiers in 1500s England and our current day.) <br/><br/>This book is very long, much looser and less structured than the earlier two, and I'd really only recommend it if you're already on board with those two and want more. But, as always, Mantel is an exceptional writer with great imagery, emotional observation, insight, evocative language, and capacity to depict a complex world through the subjective view of one participant. I found myself emotionally gripped as the book approached its ending less from empathy with Cromwell and more from the feeling of leaving the world and the story behind. As a trilogy it's an incredible accomplishment, one I will continue to think about for a long time to come.

#book

Published 2026-08-18 14:46 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere