Hilary Mantel makes a good point

[juneau]

She shouldn't have said it, since it's bitchy and uncalled for (and I actually find HM rather odd, if I'm honest), but after a good couple of years in the media spotlight I struggle to think of one thing the Duchess of Cambridge thinks or believes in. She never gives an opinion, she barely speaks, she just looks pretty and smiles.

Not a bad idea.

I've read the article and think it's an interesting piece. My interpretation is that it's a commentary on how the royals are perceived and the role they are expected (and we expect them) to fulfil; particularly women.

I expect that Kate Middleton's public non-image is deliberate; in a sense she's a bland canvas on to which people can project what they like.

As for people wondering if Hilary Mantel thought about the effect she was going to have - do you really have to ask that question? I think the answer is self evident.

I'm following this story with fascination. As many have said, HM has been misquoted by the Daily Hate and many other publications. (Kate isn't even the focus of the lecture.) She is actually asking for kindness to Kate. The real Kate, not the paper doll. In her final paragraph, she says, if we leave Kate alone, she and William might yet have a happy ending.

Please, please, please read the essay!

I mean the essay, not the article! Slapped wrist time :)

Goodness, is it wine-based-debate o'clock already?

Based on some of the AIBU threads, it seems that wine-based-debate o'clock started many hours ago. I am only trying to keep up.

What is interesting is that whatever Kate's constructed persona, she is a university educated graduate well able to understand the points of HM's argument and articulate her own opinions on the issues in response, just as journalists like Hadley Freeman have done. Now wouldn't that be interesting, from the perspective of being inside the construct.

She won't of course and partly because I don't think we can entirely blame the press for the construct, as well as being an intelligent woman she is one who well understands the power of marketing, it is as much a part of the Middleton skill set as the social climbing. I am quite sure this construct is a brand carefully developed and groomed to meet the needs of the market and press by the whole Middleton clan and not a move is made without reference to it, being an intelligent woman with opinions and a personality of her own who occasionally goes out looking like a dog's dinner, or gets a bit tipsy, would most certainly not fit with the brand. Look at how rarely one of them has put a foot wrong, it really isn't normal .

Well, whatever she thinks, I'm sure she won't say it. Because she 'never puts a foot wrong', which appears to be the highest praise a woman can get . (Not a dig at Coptahll's post, but I have noticed how often Kate-lovers in the media say this)

Possibly William will be Jolly Cross on her behalf again though...

TOSN Was it not clear I was writing from a viewpoint of cynicism, not least being a marketer myself who well understand the draining effect on your soul of devoting your intellect to something so banal and meaningless.

No-one with intelligence or personality would put up with this superimposed image crap. There's strong evidence to suggest that Kate is in possession of neither.

Copthall yes it was, but I typed the phrase and then it caught my eye just above in yours, so I thought that I should be clear I wasn't responding to that, if that makes sense....

Wow anything Kate related really brings out the snobbery in people doesn't it.

How do you mean, petite?

I thought this paragraph was more representative of the opinions expressed in the talk (to a small gathering, and then published on a website that I would imagine has a niche readership), than the screechings of the Daily Mail to a rather wider audience.

"I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn?t have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren?t they interesting? Aren?t they nice to look at? Some people find them endearing; some pity them for their precarious situation; everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it?s still a cage."

I wouldn't want to trouble the DM by adding to their website hits, but I imagine they paid little attention to this paragraph:

"We are happy to allow monarchy to be an entertainment, in the same way that we license strip joints and lap-dancing clubs. Adulation can swing to persecution, within hours, within the same press report: this is what happened to Prince Harry recently."

Because if they thought about it for a moment, they might feel a quite bad about themselves.

Anyway I don't think this will harm Hilary Mantel - those who are offended by her misquoted comments would be unlikely to read her books anyway and will have forgotten who she is by next week. On the other hand, the LRB website might get a few more hits which is good for them.

The more worrying question is (and I apologise for the caps, but it needs to be shouted)

WHAT ON EARTH WERE THE LEADERS OF THE TWO MAIN PARTIES DOING WASTING THEIR TIME COMMENTING ON THIS???????

Yellowtip You think not? I know any dimbo used to be able to get into Marlborough but I would have thought you needed the odd brain cell to get a degree at St Andrew's, even if it is History of Art and even if as Margaret Mountford might say, it isn't what it used to be? Poor Diana was clearly intellectually challenged as well as mad as a box of frogs but I do think that the only way you could sustain that Kate brand is if it were an act of conscious construction and manipulation, and it's success was a sort of fulfillment.

Otherwise you have to conclude the Middletons actually also believe in that crap in the party pieces catalogue and Pippa's book

why kate wanted to join the royal family is beyond me

i would hate all this being in the spotlight crap, even if it made me really rich.

she wants to be a stay at home type, so what let her get on with it, she has the choice

Copthall Pippa's book launch interviews and Kate's recent interviews have confirmed all I need to know. They could both be sublimely talented actresses I suppose, though I fear not - no-one could be that good, surely ....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Mantel

Please read the health section of this Wiki link mariebee1. It fully details HM's mental health problems and her physical health problems. She has been completely open about these issues and has written about them extensively.

Oh Jesus mariebee is she a personal friend of yours?

The 5000 word essay by HM is very well written. I don't think whatever problems she might have had relating to health is relevant.

I find the mother of the Middletons a better role model than the daughter. It is very unusual for a successful business woman to produce "clothes horse " Stepford Wife daughters. It just tends not to happen. May be in their formative years she as cabin staff on the airline though which might account for the disparity. Catherine will never be rich - they get things paid for but she will not have anything like the personal property registered in her sole name that her mother will have. Even on divorce it is not a huge amount because the wealth of the spouse is not their personal wealth in most cases, not that you need money to be happy. One hopes she married for love and is and will be happy and they seem to be managing a reasonable life so far and keeping connections to and holidays with her family which should help a lot.

Seeing the middletons on free holidays/ Wimbledon finals/ book launches does not help Kate at all. Its almost as if wills has married into the middletons rather than the other way around. MA Middleton deserves some respect for being successful but sadly she has not raised her daughters with the same work ethic at all.

mariebee1 If we dismissed the work and thinking of all those people who "swing from highs to lows" the world would be a very much less rich place. Virginia Woolf, Blake, Byron, Emily Dickinson, TS Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Graeme Greene, Tennessee Williams.... I could go on endlessly. I find your post deeply ignorant and filled with unhealthy prejudice.

Hilary Mantel has been very open about her health problems but they certainly do not stop her from being incredibly intelligent and having insight and empathy (something you clearly lack). And, you know, writing books that win prizes and are enjoyed by millions.

Just to say having read H M' s autobiography as well as her books I agree with you 100% Copthall and was disturbed/appalled at the apparent prejudices underlying the post you were responding to.