Ja, som ni vet är jag alltid sist med det första, men gode gud, vad bra hon är, Hilary Mantel. Nuförtiden vandrar jag genom livet i ständigt sällskap med hennes första tegelsten, och den andra ska snart sättas igång med. Stilen. Cromwell. Miljön. Stilen.

Och det är inte bara hennes böcker som är briljanta, också hennes personliga stil, attityd och essäer. Här citerar jag Lucy Mangan som formulerade det så här under rubriken Mantel of Greatness:

And behind it stands Mantel, overseeing everything, accepting the prizes and plaudits with grace and without self-deprecation or false modesty, turning out essay after beautiful essay, never boasting of or hiding the depths of her sinuous, subtle, extraordinary intelligence, effortlessly sidestepping every possible curse, temptation and bad habit of the modern age. It’s like a glorious love affair that has yet to go, as I believe the Tudors said, tits up. And still five more weeks of Mark Rylance, and one whole new book to come. Bliss.

Och det är inte precis som om hon bara skriver sina briljanta böcker, tar emot de dubbla Man Booker-pris med en nådig nick och lutar sig tillbaka för att hålla sig till sitt Tudor-galleri. Nej, hon skriver genast en novell där Margaret Thatcher avrättas och lyckas på något sätt, med benäget bistånd av rätt många idiotiska män, skapa kontrovers.

Kontroversen? Det osmakliga i att skriva ett litterärt, fiktivt verk där en verklig, om än död, människa dödas.

Bakgrunden är den här:
Daily Telegraph betalade en tämligen stor summa pengar för de exklusiva rättigheterna till novellen The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, som bland annat finns med i novellsamlingen med samma namn. Tyvärr visade sig idén vara lite för kontroversiell för dem, så The Guardian publicerade den istället. När BBC Radio 4 också valde ut novellsamlingen för deras program Book At Bedtime lät reaktionerna inte vänta på sig:

Reaktionerna:
Lord Tebbit: “It is a sick book from a sick mind and it’s being promoted by a sick broadcasting corporation.”

Lord Bell: “If somebody admits they want to assassinate somebody, surely the police should investigate. This is in unquestionably bad taste.”

Damien Barr försvarar dock henne och rätten till fiktiva berättelser:

Let us deal first with taste. Lord Bell’s client-list presently glitters with Rolf Harris and Cuadrilla, the UK fracking company. He has previously managed the reputations of General Pinochet and Asma al-Assad, wife of the Syrian president. ‘I’m not concerned with taste,’ said Mantel in my interview with her. Apparently neither is Lord Bell.

Låt oss heller inte glömma av Margaret Thatcher redan är, ja, död, så det eventuella brottet som Lord Bell vill ska utredas är oklart, förutom då den dåliga smaken.

Hilary Mantel själv om:

Kritiken mot hennes novell där Margaret Thatcher avrättas:

I recognise that this latest nonsense from the Mail [on Sunday] is not about me or my work; it’s a skirmish in a war with the BBC.

I do wonder about the journalists involved. The paper doesn’t write itself. Sooner or later, surely, they must start to feel ashamed of their paper’s attempt to bully and censor?

The story speaks for itself, and I stand behind it.

 och i intervjuer:

Last summer at the festival in Hay-on-Wye, I was asked to name a famous person and choose a book to give them. I hate the leaden repetitiveness of these little quizzes: who would be the guests at your ideal dinner party, what book has changed your life, which fictional character do you most resemble? I had to come up with an answer, however, so I chose Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, and I chose to give her a book published in 2006, by the cultural historian Caroline Weber; it’s called Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution.

Skrivandet av Wolf Hall: 

I woke one morning with some words in my head: ”So now get up.” It took a while to work out that this was not an order to get the day under way. It was the first sentence of my novel.

Om Kate Middleton, The Duchess of Cambridge (Royal Bodies, se ovan):

A plastic princess born to breed.

BBC-filmatiseringen av Wolf Hall:

People say to me, ‘Is it strange to see the people brought to life?’ I think, but when were they ever dead?

Om C.S Lewis’s A Grief Observed

What it does do is to make the reader live more consciously. Testimony from a sensitive and eloquent witness, it should be placed on a shelf that doesn’t exist, in the section called “The Human Condition”. It offers an interrogation of experience and a glimmer of hard-won hope. It allows one bewildered mind to reach out to another. Death is no barrier to that.

Om sorg i samma essä:

The pattern of all losses mirrors the pattern of the gravest losses. Disbelief is followed by numbness, numbness by distraction, despair, exhaustion. Your former life still seems to exist, but you can’t get back to it; there is a glimpse in dreams of those peacock lawns and fountains, but you’re fenced out, and each morning you wake up to the loss over again.