Bit harsh from Hilary Mantel?

Yes, I'll go with the boldly artistic idea, B - yet I feel cynical about her motives and timing. Perhaps she was still riding the ego wave of receiving the Booker Prize.

She started it agapanthus!

If her point was "political rather than personal", why did she make it personal.

The article is rubbish. "Assuming she managed to lay her hands on a copy of the Daily Mail - required reading in the Middleton household, I'd imagine"

See what I mean?

They are all just milking it now. Like I said, fills newspapers.

I don't care how much Mantel or the analysts of her speech intellectualise what she said, she was cruel and did herself no favours, other than to publicise her latest work.

I feel cynical about her motives and timing too. But I'm enjoying the boldly artistic fun, and I don't think it will do Kate a scrap of harm. Maybe that's the divergence point – belief in Kate's rock solid self-confidence, not to mention popularity.

What "boldly artistic fun"? #ohnevermind

I think you hit the 'divergence point', jings. There's bound to be a range of views and interpretations, just as there are with paintings and poems and novels and films. I guess, on this issue, you're at one end and I'm at the other. #sowhat'snew?

I may be wrong, but I thought the speech was made at the Hay-on-Wye festival last June? The article was in the last LRB which got to us in France about two weeks ago. I still think people are reacting to the paper's reporting of what she said and wrote rather than the actual content. As I said, I read it and never imagined that the papers would turn it into a personal attack. Every time I read the article I am left with the fact that the attack is on the media and the public. Do people not find the bit about Prince Harry sympathetic in tone?
Why on earth would she need publicity for her book? Isn't the Booker prize enough publicity?

With you there, mamie. I too wonder how many people have actually read all of Mantel's speech rather than just the newspaper reports of what she said (we all know how accurate newspapers are).

I don't actually care if she is seeking publicity, if she is. Why shouldn't she? That's what writers do to increase their circulation. Also, why shouldn't she be cynical, if she is being cynical?

"Mantel, twice winner of the Man Booker prize for the first two instalments of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, made the speech, entitled Royal Bodies, at a London Review of Books event at the British Museum on 4 February 2013."

She just refers to the Hay-on-Wye Festival at the beginning of the speech to set the scene, so to speak.

Oh right, thanks Ana. I am still at a loss to know why you would choose the LRB event or the paper if you wanted publicity. A pretty obscure literary paper with a circulation of less than 57,000 doesn't seem an obvious choice! The article is, on the other hand quite typically LRB in tone and I would say that Hilary Mantel was speaking and writing for her target audience.
Can't help feeling that it has been cynically misinterpreted to sell newspapers?

I'm sure it has, Mamie!

I think she may be worried that future writers of historical fiction won't have anything to get their teeth into.

Not publicity.

You can't get away from the fact that she was writing directly about Kate. Either something is not quite right in her psyche or she is a bitch.

There is no "cynical" way to "interpret" her remarks.

I shall leave you lot to sort this out. I'm far too simple-minded to make an observation. Carry on... #allgoodstuff

Hilary Mantel only said - as one part of a thoughtful and detailed speech - what everybody knows already; that Kate Middleton has been employed by the Firm for the purposes of smiling in pub lic, wearing pretty dresses and producing more royal parasites.

I don't think she is writing directly about Kate, Jingle. She is writing about our media induced perception of Kate, which changes according to whether they want us to see Waity Katy, a beautiful bride, a woman taking slightly too long to provide an heir or a happy wife and mother.
I am interested about what you thought of what she said about Harry, which I thought was supportive of the difficulties he faces from the media. Also interested to know how people interpret the last paragraph of the article as anything other than sympathetic.

HM ---that is Hilary Mantel not the Queen ---( but on second thoughts maybe she thinks she is royalty) has always appeared very smug and sanctimonious to me.
I find it incredible that she did not realise what she said would cause such offence or maybe she didn't care. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would realise you can think whatever you choose but think twice before saying them in public.

Exactly PHM12. Didn't she all make some very nasty remarks about the McCann abduction?

Nick Cohen is good on free speech and on the right to say things that will upset someone somewhere. You have taken HM's McCann words out of context as well.

'As well'?

She wrote down some thoughts about the McCann abduction. Then she slept on it and "liked them again" in the morning. The intention was not to be nasty but to put into writing something(s) important, whether people liked it or not.

Same as with the royal women speech.

As well as not really understanding her aim with the royal women speech.

Apparently.

Interesting article on the LRB here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/feb/20/hilary-mantel-london-review-of-books
I mostly enjoy it, find it sometimes infuriating, obscure or difficult. It never fails to make me think. I love Alan Bennet's annual diary update. We have had a subscription for quite a few years now and wouldn't be without it.
Do people think that it is relevant or irrelevant where the original article appeared? Am genuinely interested to know.