Wolf Hall

I am an avid book reader and I had to force myself to finish this book. I have read many books about medieval British history including but not limited to the Tudors so I already knew the story. This book does not flow well. Mantel switches points of view seemingly mid thought and asks you to follow along. She uses titles as if you know who they are without a back story. She assumes you know that Edward Stafford is also the Duke of Buckingham for example. I won't even get into the fact that she uses "he" and you MUST interpret that it is from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell. I almost bought the other 2 books in the series and I am so glad I waited. I hate giving a 2 star and wanted to give a 1 but just couldn't do that.

Hilary Mantel has deserved to win the Booker with this magnificent novel. For someone interested in the history of Henry VIII and the ill fated Anne Boleyn, this is an absolute treat - a meticulously researched and written novel which portrays their era with colour and wit. But of course the true star of the book is Thomas Cromwell, son of a violent blacksmith, and his meteoric rise to fame. The book commences with Cromwell's early life, receiving a vicious beating at the hands of his brutal father, and fleeing his family to find fame and fortune overseas. This part of his life is not addressed in any detail, but it is this experience in France and Italy that made Cromwell the urbane man that he became, and the story really commences with his service to Cardinal Wolsey, forever destined to be the man who couldn't delivery what Henry really wanted - a divorce from Katherine and the opportunity to marry again. It was Cromwell who delivered this and changed the face of the Western world forever. The magic in this novel is that it is quintisentially English, and extraordinarily effective in painting the landscape. Anyone who knows England, even that modern country that exists today will recognise the characters and geography. You can taste the food that is offered, smell the odours from the river and visualise the grey velvet that Cromwell wears. It shows him as a human character, who had loved and lost not only his benefactor, but friends and family as well. As someone who knew Cromwell from his stern Hans Holbein portait and other historical books, this portrayal has been a revelation - I have suddenly seen him as he was - a husband, father and son, as well as a brilliant and ambitious man who lived in extraordinary times. It is a thoroughly engrossing and entertaining novel and I cannot recommend this highly enough.

I have to say that I love all things Tudor, and Wolf Hall is no exception, but it is exceptional. In most of the novels about Henry VIII's England, Cromwell plays a role, but he's never been the main character. Writers most often leave the famous wives of Henry VIII (divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived) to play that role. In reality, not a lot is known about this person, but Hilary Mantel has woven her tale not only around Cromwell, but through him. In Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel takes a slice of Tudor history and allows the reader to view it through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, who rose through life from his origins as the son of a blacksmith to become the chief minister of King Henry VIII. From his humble origins, he manages to become an important advisor to the ill-fated Cardinal Wolsey, who, as everyone knows, started his downhill slide because of his inability to provide Henry VIII with a Church-sanctioned divorce from Katherine of Aragon. It is, ironically, Wolsey's fall that begins Cromwell's rise. Cromwell survives by his own maxim: "inch by inch forward. Never mind if he calls you an eel or a worm or a snake. Head down, don't provoke him." (4) His fortune is on the ascendant throughout the story, but as everyone also knows, fortune is fleeting, and especially in this time largely at the whim of the king. Mantel gives Cromwell, who is often vilified in many Tudor history accounts, a human face. While he's busy rewriting life at court to suit his majesty and most often, to suit himself and his own desires for reform, Cromwell also is shown to be a family man and a man with a heart who cares about those less fortunate than himself. Cromwell's present is largely defined through his past, and it is through Cromwell's eyes that the reader watches the Tudor world unfold. Mantel's characterization is excellent -- Anne Boleyn comes off as a cold, calculating queen wanna-be who will stop at nothing to get her way. Mary Boleyn, the queen's former mistress, is a bit Ophelia-like, capturing Cromwell's sympathy. Mantel's Henry (via Cromwell) is a monarch more concerned about the lack of an heir rather than the tyrant or the woman chaser that many books make him out to be. The side players are also well characterized: aside from Cromwell's family and friends, the various dukes, courtiers, and people of the French Court become very human, often with the veneer of royalty and nobility stripped off to reveal crudity, greed, ambition jealousy and fear. Even some of the "common" people, the subjects of Henry VIII, are portrayed here. Wolf Hall is simply a masterpiece. Even though it comes in at about 651 pages, it goes quickly as the reader gets caught up in the world Mantel so eloquently creates. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in Henry VIII and that time period. Readers looking for something along the lines of "The Other Boleyn Girl" won't find it here...this is fiction at its finest.

When I first received my copy of this book, I was a little daunted by it. I'd hear it was "literary"--whatever that means--plus, it's written in the present tense, which I usually detest in a novel. But the more I read this book, the more I liked it. It's really hard to do this kind of expansive novel justice, so I'm going to try my best to describe why I liked it so much. Wolf Hall is the story of Thomas Cromwell, lawyer and diplomat, who spent many years in the service of Henry VIII, eventually helping the king secure his divorce from Katherine of Aragon. Everyone with even a passing knowledge of English history knows the story of Henry and his six wives, and the dissolution of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon; and countless novels have been written about him. For a long time I was all "Tudored" out, because all fiction about the period seemed to be derivative. Wolf Hall breaks the mold by not being another bodice-ripper/romance, and telling Henry's story from a different perspective. Its subject matter is a little more serious, but not so much that it drags the story down. It's a well-written novel; and though the politics of the time period are confusing, Mantel presents them in a way that would interest even the casual reader. I'd never known much about Cromwell, and it was intriguing to me to read a fictional account of him. I also found his sarcasm and cynicism wonderful--and amazing, for someone living and working with Henry (and I also loved Cromwell's nicknames for people; he calls the princess Mary "the talking shrimp" and Thomas Wriothsley ""Call me Risley"). It's a slow read; it took me the better part of a week to complete, but in the end the effort was worth it. For a novel that's focused on someone whose entire life focused on the king, the king appears surprisingly little. It's this unusual approach to the Tudors that makes this such an appealing novel. Mantel's excessive use of pronouns can be confusing, though you can probably assume that most of the time "he" refers to Cromwell himself. Also, I didn't really understand the significance of the title, since Wolf Hall doesn't play much of a role in this book. Still, this was the kind of book that I couldn't stop reading; the kind of book that really gets you engrossed in a time and place.

The scope and breadth of this novel is immense. Hilary Mantel sets out to describe a tumultuous period in English history, not by focusing on the main event- Henry and Anne- but by showing the struggle faced by those more behind the scenes. Thomas Cromwell says, late in the book, that worlds are not changed by kings and popes, but by two men sitting at a table, coming to an agreement, or by the exchange of thoughts and ideas across countries. And that is what Mantel seems to believe, too; thus, she does not focus her story on the huge proclamations or big meetings. She shows us Cromwell, alone at his desk, thinking and reminiscing. She details short, almost off-hand conversations between Cromwell and his wonderful family. And then, sometimes, she will give us fascinating debates between Cromwell and Sir Thomas More, the "man for all seasons" who was ruthless in his practices to rid England of heretics. Even the title of the book is more suggestive than straight-forward. Wolf Hall is the seat of the Seymour clan, but no scene in the book takes place there. The Seymours make cameos, and Cromwell takes note of them, but Wolf Hall is a distant building for most of the book. Instead, it represents Cromwell's forward thinking. He is grateful to the Boleyns for his rise in court and favor, but he does not allow himself to depend on them. He tells his son, "...it's all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it's no good at all if you don't have a plan for tomorrow." And Cromwell always, always has a plan for tomorrow. I am not sure if I fully believe in Mantel's reconstruction of Cromwell as a man who wanted only to reform England, and was so forward-thinking in his ideals. However, it's understandable; Cromwell was a blacksmith's son who rose to prominence at a time when everyone important was noble or royal. Of course he would want the same opportunities for his family and friends. Perhaps in the promised sequel, we'll get the hardened and more ruthless Cromwell that people remember. Mantel's writing style drew me in completely. This book reminded me a great deal of A Place of Greater Safety, in terms of writing style. I don't think I enjoyed it as much as that book, but that's probably because the French Revolution absorbs me far more than Tudor England does. Mantel writes so lyrically, so adeptly. She immerses herself in the period- the food, the clothes, the heat, the stench. She researched this book for years, and it's obvious in the product. But she does not get bogged down by her facts, or by history. Her flair for witty conversation brings her characters to life, giving them flesh and blood where history only gives them stark facts and wooden portraits. Yes, Cardinal Wolsey was able to tell a joke. Yes, Cromwell loved his wife. We don't see those things, 500 years later. The only parts of the writing that annoyed me, stylistically, were as follows: first, Mantel usually uses quotation marks to deno