Kate Middleton 'Attacked' by Hilary Mantel: Booker Prize Author Calls Duchess 'Plastic with No Personality,' Critique too Harsh? [POLL]

First there were the scandalous "boob and butt" paparazzi pics, then the infamous "pregnant in a blue bikini" photos, and now Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton is being slammed as a "plastic, committee-designed mannequin with no personality." Harsh! Booker Prize-winning fiction author Hilary Mantel made the Kate Middleton verbal "attack" during a recent lecture for the London Review of Books, and her critical opinion on the beloved Duchess has since gone viral on the web. Several prestigious figures quickly leapt to Middleton's defense, calling Mantel's words "cruel" and "misguided."

English author Mantel, who won 2009's Booker Prize for fiction in the U.K. for her novel "Wolf Hall," launched into the attack on Middleton during a recent lecture for the London Review of Books titled "Undressing Anne Boleyn." According to the IB Times, 60-year-old Mantel compared the Duchess of Cambridge to Princess Diana and Marie Antoinette, deeming her a" vessel for breeding for the Royal family." Check it out:

"I saw Kate becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung. In those days she was a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore," says Mantel. "These days she is a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions. Once she gets over being sick, the press will find that she is radiant. They will find that this young woman's life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth...

Kate Middleton, as she was, appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished... Her eyes are dead and she wears the strained smile of a woman who really wants to tell the painter to bugger off."

Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character. She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture... Diana was capable of transforming herself from galumphing schoolgirl to ice queen, from wraith to Amazon. Kate seems capable of going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation."

Pretty harsh... and several Kate Middleton fans and cohorts were not so amused...

According to U.K.'s the Telegraph Mantel's attack was "cheap and cruel." Popular Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said, "Hilary Mantel's comments are ridiculous and say more about her than the Duchess."

As for Prime Minister David Cameron, he made this statement about Mantel's remarks during a recent visit to New Delhi, India:

"I think she writes great books, but I think what she's said about Kate Middleton is completely misguided and completely wrong," the Prime Minister told the BBC."What I've seen of Princess Kate at public events, at the Olympics and elsewhere is this is someone who's bright, who's engaging, who's a fantastic ambassador for Britain. We should be proud of that, rather than make these rather misguided remarks...

I can only speak of what I know, and having met the Duchess several times I find her to be engaging, natural and genuinely interested in the subject. You can tell a lot about someone from the questions they ask and she asks really good questions, the questions of someone who wants to learn. She is also an intelligent woman. Having her as Patron of the charity draws attention to the cause of addiction as a whole, which is not always an easy subject. She is doing an enormous amount to reduce the stigma of addiction and increase understanding of it."

Do Mstarz readers agree - was Mantel's critique on the pregnant Duchess a tad bit too harsh?

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