Bit harsh from Hilary Mantel?

Good heavens! Don't hold back, Hilary!

What a pity she uses her ability with words to such damning effect. Free speech and all that, but for what purpose? Oh, I get it - to promote her book!

Shame she can't express her feelings about the duchess in her face, which appears to be equally bland! That'll be the botox - miaow!

What an unbecoming attack on a young woman who is not in a position to defend herself.
Women don't need men around to put them down when the likes of Mantel are given the floor do they?

Looking at the two photos, it's the one on the left that looks plastic and man made. What a bitch!

Sorry. I meant 'machine made'

At first I thought this might just have been an off the cuff comment and I was sort of thinking.....a bit silly to say something like that in public - silly woman! But, gosh its quite an unpleasant article - shame an apparently well educated woman can feel she has a right to make such comments about a blamless person under the guise of historical context.
I think most of us make snap judgements about people....we see someone on the Telly and think....'Nasty jacket, hair do is a bit naff, etc etc. Usually with me its more in annoyance that folks with lots of money are buying things that just dont suit!! Usually the thought has gone in a trice or we might just blurt it out to OH.....but thats it......its gone.
A lovely friend of mine says that if we think something nasty about someone or something we should try and then think up several nice things to sort of 'cleanse our souls' or we are storing up bitterness and bile that will only do us harm in the future. Its not a bad idea.

Well that's her dame-hood up the Swannee.

Oh I've really gone off her - and I was so looking forward to reading how Cromwell's story ended!

Yes. Here is an exercise that is good for you. My son and I spent some time at it, after an unwarranted attack of bitchiness:
Think nice kind thoughts about Nigella.

They are so much better for you than the other kind Ms Mantel.

Nigella?

If you have never seen her on TV merlot you have missed a phenomenon. She is very beautiful and voluptuous and does cooking programmes and writes books about cooking. Daughter of Nigel Lawson.

I've just read the article and enjoyed it. Highly entertaining, I thought. She didn't say Kate has dead eyes; she says the eyes in the first official portrait are dead. I agree. I think Kate has sparkly eyes, but she wears too much make-up. The rather 'close to the bone' comments about thinness and royals having bodies to be looked at are true, if close to the bone. Yes, a cutting to the quick sort of writing. I liked it.

Its effect on Kate? Pish! If I were Kate, I wouldn't care. Why should I, with everything going for me? Hilary Mantel? Who's she?

Might read one of her books now.

jess, chuckled about your comment re thinking nice thoughts about
Nigella. Actually, expressing anger is supposed to be good for health too. Within reason of course.

JessM Why should we thinking nice thoughts about Nigella? I don't really think about Nigella at all and can't really be bothered to start. Wasn't the article about the Duchess of Cambridge so what has Nigella go to do with it?

Sorry it was a digression in response to hildaw's pertinent comment. We were confined to base at the time DS and me, in NZ, and the only bearable TV was UK food progs. it is easy to get in the habit of being bitchy about the presenters.
You have to be pretty saintly not do do this from time to time. So this was we did to try not to.
I guess Mantel thought she was making an intellectual point about royal women through the ages but it was very ill judged.
Anne Boleyn certainly influenced the course of history (by refusing to go to bed with Henry v111 and by giving birth the elizabeth) but she was a victim not an admirable feminist icon.

Agree,*JessM*. Elizabeth, maybe. But Anne and all Henry's other wives were subject to family ambitions and married where they were told. Like all women born into powerful families until very recently.

Mantel's comments would only be ill-judged if she were to be beheaded for it. And if that were the case, we grans would be defending her right to say provocative stuff without being slammed into irons for it.

I think she has judged well. She's got people talking, hasn't she? Bang on, I'd say .

An unkind and unnecessary remark. What good does it serve except to publicise her books, which don't need that sort of publicity as they are excellent.

Anne Boleyn may have been clever but she wasn't clever enough to avoid decapitation.

I have just read the whole of the original article in the LRB and I think it is a fascinating example of how the press distorts what was actually said. You can only say that it completely proves the point that Mantel is making, which was not a personal attack on Kate, but more about how press and public objectify and characterise royal wives and mothers. I hope Kate reads the article rather than the headlines.

Here is the article.
www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

What a bitch. She obviously thinks she should be writing history as well as writing about it. Has it not occurred to her that William married her because he fell in love with her?

Still, I suppose she needed a speech and any old gossiping drivel would do.

Having now read the full article, I agree with you, Mamie. It's a rather dispassionate appraisal of the present royal family, not just Kate, and the 'dead eyes and plastic smile' echoed some of our own comments on the recent portrait.

I rather liked Hilary Mantel's assertion that she's 'too snobbish' to have read a Barbara Cartland novel!