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finally finished WOLF HALL and have been walking around in a post-reading rapture; was excited to dive into the tag to find my favorite quotes and it's all photo sets of period costuming (fine) and absolutely unhinged takes on the book (fine but mind boggling lol)

#listen i was a definitely a huge anne boleyn stan as a kid #and you could argue the women in wolf hall don't always get as much complexity as mantel grants cromwell #but idk i think a lot of them DO #it's just that they aren't cast as heroines and their virtues rub up right alongside their vices #they aren't the CW or HBO versions of themselves #they are petty and scheming and bitter #but also brave and pious and loving and vibrant #they are doing and saying what they have to to keep power in a world that punishes the powerless swiftly and without mercy #and so is cromwell!#yes you can tell mantel loves him as a character but she doesn't make him a flawless or uncomplocated protagonist either #he is every bit as blood-drenched and scheming bc he knows the alternative: a boot to the head and his face in the dirt #he and henry are constantly trying to outrun their childhoods; to put down the ghosts that still haunt them #sometimes they suceed #usually they end up with more bodies #more ghosts #another tally against them when it's their turn on the gallows or at the pyre or in their sick bed #praying for absolution #i'm not sure anyone in mantel's world comes out looking innocent or heroic in a simple sense #maybe hero in the sense of an epic #the rise the fall the reversal of fortune #the end where you always realize no matter how high you climb #you can't outrun your past #but like thomas realizes #it's not the dead who are after us #it's us who won't leave the dead be #we resurrect them we put words in their mouths we remake them #and every retelling of history will have different heroes and different villains #mantel is zeroing in on one entry point into the story #the nature of that means that some other interpretations will be excluded

ghost owl

sometimes, i can feel the shadows of your wings brush the hair back from my eyes. sometimes, the ghost owl sneaks up unawares. sometimes, it drops a feather in my lap - a threat, a message, a sign? it reminds me that not all thoughts are mine. but i still feel the shadows of your wings hovering at my side, still hear the whisper of your wisdom, still fall asleep with your smile on my mind.

the ghost owl visits me in dreams.

i hear its screech, its knives-on-water wail, impaling itself on the walls of my consciousness and i claw back, crying for a creature made of soft; a creature made of gentle; a creature made of nurture and the good things of nature. the ghost owl screams profanities and prevails, wrapping me in cotton wool warnings until i can't see the sky; i can't see the sun or its rise or its fall and know that the dream should be done, so i call for miracles from my angel and hope that you have heard. words failed me, but will you, also?

the ghost owl disintegrates in the day, and i am free.

i wonder if you worry about me still, or if the lure of another life is too strong. if i was too loud to ignore so you caved and came when i called, or if the care you carried with you then still exists. and i dread the day you realise that i am just another mortal, quarrelling with her nocturnal ghosts at midnight.