Hilary Mantel: maybe we should read the small print

 
19 February 2013

Hilary Mantel’s attack on the Duchess of Cambridge is arguably more nuanced than many of today’s papers would suggest.

Mantel does indeed say the Duchess is “a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung” in her essay Royal Bodies in the London Review of Books, which talks about Henry VIII as well as Kate. But reading to the end of the 5,000-word essay, one finds Mantel has presaged some headlines.

“It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational but that doesn’t mean when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty.... I’m not asking for censorship. I’m not asking for pious humbug and smarmy reverence. I’m asking us to back off and not be brutes.”

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