Peter Galen Massey

In Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel continues her speculation on the life of Thomas Cromwell – Master Secretary and consigliere to King Henry VIII of England – as he works to remove Anne Boleyn from the throne of England because Anne has failed to produce a male heir for the king and, more essentially, because Henry has grown tired of her.

Mantel delivers a brilliant synthesis of the genre and literary novels, offering action, intrigue, sex, and blood as well as masterful writing, sharp-edged dialogue, finely drawn characters, and acute psychological insights. More impressively, she takes absolute possession of Cromwell’s mind and then offers readers a prime seat in it.  Bring Up the Bodies is the sequel to Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, Wolf Hall.

In our previous installment of Made-Up Truth, we were pleased to present a transcript of The Football Circus show featuring special guest commentator, Barack Obama, discussing fantasy football.

This week, Made-Up Truth is delighted to offer a transcript of TFC’s all-time most popular segment, featuring iconic author Ayn Rand. Let’s get it going!

[Lights come up. Lively music plays. TFC appears sitting at a desk with a distinguished looking older woman. She wears a severe expression and is dressed in a formless grey shroud. The woman’s skin seems both pearly and translucent.]

TFC: I’m happy to introduce our guest commentator this week. Please welcome novelist, pseudo-philosopher, and Tea Party inspiration Ayn Rand. Give her a hand folks!”

[Lively applause from the audience.]

RAND: Thanks, TFC. It’s great to be here.

TFC: It’s great to have you. So, I guess there’s an after-life after all. What’s it like?

[RAND fixes TFC with a cold, angry stare.]

RAND: Have you heard Aaron Rodgers is a big fan?

TFC: How nice for you. Moving right along. First game this week is …

TEAM BARBECUE at FUBOOZERS. What do you think, Ayn?

RAND: Adrian Peterson is a better running back than Maurice Jones-Drew, so Fuboozers will win.

TFC: Okay, I agree Peterson is better. But what about Kitna versus Brady? Brady’s the better quarterback, but Kitna has a good match-up versus Detroit. And the BBQs have a stronger team overall. Both these guys are living in the cellar, but I’d put my money on the Barbecues.

RAND: Peterson is a better running back than Jones-Drew, so Fuboozers will win.

TFC: Right, I heard that. But there are seven other players. I gave you reasons why I think the BBQs will win. Let’s have a conversation!

RAND: Peterson is a better running back than Jones-Drew, so Fuboozers will win. I am thinking and you are not.

TFC: You can’t ignore all the players except Peterson and Jones-Drew.

RAND: I am thinking and you are not.

TFC: Look, that’s not an argument. You told my producer you would offer startling insights and persuasively reasoned opinions. We flew you in Business Class from frickin’ Limbo. We put you up at the Four Seasons. You ate all the Chex Mix in the Green Room. We have the right to expect better.

RAND: I am thinking and you are not.

TFC: You’re not going to make me give up by being a mono-maniacal bitch about this.

RAND: I am thinking and you are not.

TFC: You make…

RAND: I am thinking and you are not.

TFC: Jesus! Okay, fine. Fuboozers will win. Happy?

RAND: Now you’re beginning to think!

TFC: Next up, we’ve got…

KICK-ASS FLOWER KIDS at THE MIGHTY MUSKRATS

RAND: The Flower Kids are naked hippies rolling around in the mud doomed to die with all the other naked hippies rolling around in the mud doomed to die. Naked hippies covered in mud doomed to die can never win a fantasy football game. Ever.

TFC: The Flower Kids won the AWFL Cup a few years ago.

RAND: I am thinking …

TFC: … and I am not. All righty. And the Muskrats have been scoring a million points lately, too. Now, let’s look at…

THE PEACH STATE REBELS at TEAM BIG GOVERNMENT

RAND: Bah! Government lawyer! Team Big Government is a moocher, parasite, looter, bloodsucker. He wants to enslave true, powerful, good, productive, and creative minds. He hates and envies those who can think because he cannot. He steals the wealth of corporations and their heroic chief executives. If he is not stopped, America will crash into ruins within the next six months. I do love his world-famous turkey burgers, though.

TFC: Let’s hear it for those turkey burgers. I take it you think the Rebels will win?

RAND: Duh.

TFC: How about we keep it moving, folks. Here’s one.

FOUR ACES at THE EVIL PETES 

RAND: Evil doesn’t exist. Evil is what the weak, the stupid, the venal, and the thieving call the achievements of society’s geniuses. Because The Petes are weak, stupid, venal, and thieving, they are Evil. Because they are Evil, they do not exist. It is impossible for a team that does not exist to win a fantasy football game. The Four Aces do exist. Therefore, they win by forfeit. You cannot fault by logic.

TFC: And we wouldn’t even try. Okay, our next game is …

ROLLING THUNDER at THE HANDSOME GUYS

Ah, the Handsome Guys. They remind me of Nathaniel Branden. Nice boy. Little slow on the up-take. It took a while for Nathaniel and his wife to see the logic of Natty becoming my lover. But once he did, mmm-mmm. Yes, they are much alike. I can’t wait to sample their succulent man-flesh. On your knees and get busy, bitches!

TFC: Are you talking to me or the Handsome Guys?

RAND: The Handsome Guys, of course. Who else?

TFC: Just checking. So we can assume the Handsome Guys are going to score a lot this week?

RAND: Oh yes!

TFC: Good luck to the Handsome Guys with that. Here is our game of the week:

RED HOT CHILLY WILLYS at DARTH VADER RAIDERS

RAND: This is what happens when you put the good of others above your own happiness! Anakin Skywalker was a genius. He could have been John Galt’s son. What did those socialist Jedi do to him? They made him feel guilty for wanting to be himself. The result? The universe plunged into tyranny and darkness! Billions dead. Mindless Bolshevik clones running everything! If I could get my hands on that little green freak, Yoda…

TFC: Woah, hey, calm down. Fiction. Completely made up. No relationship to reality at all. Just a story.

RAND: It is? Really?

TFC: Yes, I promise. Do you think The Willys have any chance this week?

RAND: With the way The Raiders have been playing? Honestly, no.

TFC: Let’s finish with …

THE CHIP CHOMPERS at THE LONE STAR WRANGLERS

RAND: Excuse me. I have to take this. Alan Greenspan is asking me a question on his Ouija board.

[For several minutes, RAND stares straight ahead and mutters. Some phrases are audible, including “Deny everything” and “Issue counter-accusations” and “On your knees, bitches!”]

RAND: I’m back. Sorry to make you wait. Old friend.

TFC: No problem. What do you think about the Chompers?

RAND: This is a tough game, but I think the Chompers will pull it out. You have to like Rodgers over Schaub the way Houston is playing. I think Ricky Williams will have a better game than predicted with no one at quarterback in Miami to throw the ball. The Wranglers have got Cowboys and I see a let-down coming after their big win against the Giants last week. You know, football is a funny game. You can look at all the numbers, but still … any given Sunday. Well, I’m picking the Chompers.

TFC: Hey, you know, that was pretty good. I’m going with the Chompers too.

RAND: Thanks TFC. This has been fun. Can I come back next week?

TFC: No.

More great fantasy football humor can be found at “The Football Circus” blog!

Holy cow, he’s rich and handsome. Holy crap, he makes me horny. Holy Moses, he’s got a sex dungeon. Holy f*ck, he can f*ck. Holy sh*t, I have to sign this contract? Holy crap, he’s mysterious and tortured. Ouch! he’s spanking me. Oh, I like it. Holy cow, he loves me for me? Hey! he tied me up. Huh, I like it. Holy crap, I’m meeting his mother. Holy f*ck, he can f*ck. Holy sh*t, shocking personal revelations! Glider. IHOP. Flogger. Handcuffs. Holy crap, he plays the piano too. Such a nice boy. Holy cow, the love of a brave woman should fix any broken man. Ah … aah … aaahh … aaaahhh! … aaaaahhhh!! … AAAAAAHHHHH!! 

In Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel continues her brilliant speculation on the life of Thomas Cromwell – Master Secretary and all-around fixer for King Henry VIII of England – which she began in her Man Booker Prize-winning novel, Wolf Hall.

A major reason Mantel is enjoying success with these novels is because she persuades us to take the side of a man who – looked at objectively – enriches himself working as a merciless administrator of state-sanctioned murder.

This is a pretty neat trick and I think there are several reasons Mantel pulls it off. Here they are:

Thomas Cromwell as Compromised Corporate “Warrior” but Man of Private Virtue

One reason readers sympathize with Thomas Cromwell is because he is an idealized version of modern business professionals, who are sometimes required by corporate structures or profit pressures to compromise their principles, but who work hard to retain their personal integrity.

Consider: Thomas Cromwell is a man of ambition and ability who wants to enjoy career success and earn a good living for his family. But the institutions in which Cromwell can gain this success are all corrupt. Worse, they are run by self-dealing, dangerous, and arbitrary men. And the most dangerous of all is Cromwell’s boss: King Henry VIII.

Cromwell thrives by focusing only on getting Henry what he wants and making Henry believe that what he wants is right and proper. Cromwell doesn’t think about whether what he does is moral, partially because ultimate responsibility for his actions lies with the king – Henry decides what will happen, Cromwell only figures out how – and partially because arguing with or failing Henry will cost Cromwell his job, if not his head.

In the areas of his life he can control, Thomas Cromwell acts with integrity. He has not come to wealth from greed although he has accumulated great wealth. He does not strike from malice, although he will defend himself and he will avenge his friends. He nurtures talented young men of low birth and gives them chances to advance. He loves his family and cares for his household.

This is how men and women who have succeeded in today’s capitalist societies see themselves (many times correctly), and these men and women are a large part of Hilary Mantel’s readership. So it’s not a surprise they like Thomas Cromwell.

Thomas Cromwell as a Horatio Alger’s Hero

Thomas Cromwell’s life story is a classic “up by your bootstraps” narrative. He is the son of a physically abusive blacksmith who ran away from home as a young man, survived as a common soldier on foreign battlefields, succeeded by virtue of his talents, and came home to be the “local boy who made it big”.

This story appeals to modern capitalists everywhere, and it should. The fact that Cromwell rises in a world where success is almost always determined by noble birth makes it even more appealing.

Thomas Cromwell as a “Particular but Persuasive” First-Person Narrator

First-person storytelling naturally encourages readers to side with the narrator (unless he is astonishingly and relentlessly loathsome), but Cromwell’s first-person earns benefits beyond the normal advantage. And the key is that Cromwell uses the word “he” instead of “I” when he talks about himself.

Some reviews have regarded this as a tick or affectation on Mantel’s part. But I think it’s astute. First, Cromwell is the ultimate dispassionate observer, and thus manipulator, of Henry and the court. He never allows vanity or greed or hatred or fear or revenge to interfere with his judgment or make him act before he’s ready and before he’s certain. The “he” fits Cromwell.

More importantly, the “he” in Cromwell’s narration makes you feel that Cromwell is showing you the objective truth, not giving you his version of events. Cromwell is not selling you a line. He’s not trying to talk you over into his point of view. He’s giving you the facts, Mantel is saying, and Cromwell in those facts looks pretty good.

In The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara tells the story of the Battle of Gettysburg during its three most consequential days: July 1 -3, 1863.

Although the novel features a large cast of Union and Confederate officers, The Killer Angels belongs to Robert E. Lee, who is about to make a fatal blunder by ordering Pickett’s Charge, and James Longstreet, Lee’s second in command, who sees the blunder coming but cannot persuade the Old Man to stop it.

Shaara is critical of the romanticism of the South’s gentleman warriors, yet engages in romanticism himself. He takes us into the minds of the commanders who act decisively, but ignores those who hesitate or stumble. Officers die quickly and neatly, or discretely off-stage, while the enlisted soldiers just die in masses, except for the occasional unnamed man who screams as blood and entrails pour from his wound.

Still, Shaara recreates the Battle of Gettysburg with clarity and economy, and with insight into the thoughts and emotions of successful fighting commanders. The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies makes a tremendous first impression. It may actually be impossible to think of two works of imagination with less in common than a Jane Austen novel and a zombie movie. Putting them together is a stroke of comic inspiration.

The cover is a pitch-perfect spoof of paperback editions of literary classics. It features a painting of a pretty young woman in an empire-waist dress who would make a plausible Elizabeth Bennet if the flesh of the lower half of her face wasn’t ripped away and her clothes weren’t splattered with blood.

The idea is spectacular. The execution is flawless. That fact that the novel was actually published makes the whole thing funnier. But the book itself is a bore.

The problem is that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies contains one joke – that Elizabeth Bennet and other members of the English gentry are lethal zombie killers – and it tells this joke the same way each time. Further, Grahame-Smith doesn’t interact with Austen’s text most of the time. He just pastes in references to zombies where it’s convenient. As result, the humor of the book wears out the moment its novelty does.

This makes Pride and Prejudice and Zombies largely a wasted opportunity. So many of Austen’s characters might as well be zombies, as Grahame-Smith himself has noted, that it’s disappointing he didn’t take the final step and turn them into ones.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh would be perfect as the undead queen of England, but she is simply another deadly warrior in the novel. George Wickham would make an excellent vampire. He’s already a heartless, ruthless, selfish blood-sucker. “I should have finished you years ago!” Darcy could have cried, driving a stake into Wickham’s heart and saving Lydia from becoming nosferatu. Instead, we get pretty much the same story we already know.

If you read 20 or 30 pages of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you’ll get all the fun out of the book there is to be had. I recommend the last 30 pages, starting with the sword fight between Lizzy and Lady Catherine. The writing is less slapdash, which makes it more entertaining. For example, here is the passage in which Lizzy explains to Darcy why he first fell in love with her:

You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them. I knew the joy of standing over a vanquished foe; of painting my face and arms with their blood, yet warm, and screaming to the heavens—begging, nay, daring, God to send me more enemies to kill. The gentle ladies who so assiduously courted you knew nothing of this joy.

Also, don’t neglect to read the discussion guide. The questions are a hoot.

Although I can’t recommend reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t own it. As an object, it is still extremely funny. Keep it on your book shelf. Show it to friends at parties. Or better yet, place it in the guest bathroom along with a few recent copies of The New Yorker. You’ll look witty and urbane and eclectic (although I suppose, at this juncture, slightly behind the times). Those aren’t such bad things to be.