Wolf Hall

My fascination with the Tudor dynasty began in my early university days and for reasons I cannot fully explaing it has never really let me go. From Henry VII's victory over Richard III at Bosworth Field to the death of Elizabeth I, England was ruled by a strange and volatile family that dragged it kicking and screaming out of its violent, feudal backwardness and made it into an early modern imperialist nation state. I recall reading eagerly the course text (I cannot for the life of me remember the author but I can very vividly picture the book's cover; accursed aging!) and took copious notes during lectures. I got A's on my essays, and flatter myself that I impressed the professor with my depth of reading.

And it was in this reading that I first encountered Thomas Cromwell. History generally hasn't been kind to him, and in both history and literature he has been portrayed as the villain (more correctly, the villain) of the Tudor period due to his work on Henry VIII's behalf in disposing of Catherine of Aragon, securing the marriage to (and subsequent beheading of) Anne Boleyn, the dissolution of the monasteries, and, of course, the Protestant Reformation in England. As a high school English teacher I reinforced this perception of him through teaching the play A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, which adds a few additional layers to his reputation: not only was he bad to Henry's assorted wives, but he was also a vindictive, jealous, petty bully who manipulated Henry into executing Sir Thomas More, one of the leading intellectuals of Europe and a man renowned for his faith. Bolt's play, and the subsequent 1966 movie adaptation starring Leo McKern as Cromwell, is probably the reason most people think of Cromwell so negatively, and its influence is clearly felt throughout the novel.

Mantel clearly set out to take advantage of the huge resurgence in interest in Tudor history that began in the 1990s with novels (Antonia Fraser, Phillippa Gregory), histories (Alison Weir, Peter Ackroyd, Tracy Borman) and even TV series (most notably The Tudors). But, she must have wondered, what's my angle? What would be a fresh, interesting perspective on this wildly erratic period of history? And her answer, of course, was to centre Cromwell and retell the story through his eyes. Is he really the bad guy history has made him out to be? What were his motivations? His desires? His objectives?

Mantel seeks to answer these questions and more as she provides Cromwell with an origin story that evokes pity and admiration. In her telling, Cromwell was the son of a violent, abusive blacksmith from the slums of Putney who left home at 15 and sold himself as a soldier to the French. Tough, smart, and highly adept at learning languages, he reinvented himself multiple times as an accountant, lawyer, merchant, businessman and banker all before he entered into the service of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York. Under Wolsey he blossomed further to become first advisor, then privy councillor, then personal secretary to Henry VIII on the strength of a) his uncompromising willingness to speak truth to power and b) his effectiveness in disposing of Henry's problems. A nobleman getting out of line? Send Cromwell to have a little talk. Debts mounting and revenues faltering? Cromwell will balance the books again. Marriage inconvenient? Get Cromwell to draft some new laws. Hassles with the Pope? Cromwell will sever relations.

Cromwell here is a kind and loving husband and father who reads bedtime stories with his youngest daughter and crafts homemade angel wings for her to wear in the family's Christmas pageant. He graciously takes in the sons of prominent houses to train them in the law, business, accounting, mercantile trading, and (more subtly) espionage. He's glib and witty, bordering on insolent with his superiors (Norfolk: ‘I spoke to the king for you and he is also content. You will take his instructions in the Commons. And mine.' Cromwell: ‘Will they be the same, my lord?'). He adores Wolsey and demonstrates unwavering loyalty, telling an aggrieved Henry who's badmouthing him “I have never had anything from the cardinal other than kindness.” So he's courageous too, standing in the wind that Henry blows, and refusing to cower before him.

But recasting Cromwell as the (for want of a better term) tragic hero of the piece means seeing everyone else through his eyes. Henry VIII, long portrayed as blustering, bellicose and belligerent, is presented here as insecure, impulsive, immature and highly malleable, haunted by the ghost of his brother Arthur, who, had he lived, would have been king after Henry VII, keenly aware that he was never intended to rule. He's as horny as a teenager (and, apparently, about as effective), fragile, and clever with a prodigious capacity for compartmentalizing his life. Sir Thomas More is angry, bitter, vicious and cruel, almost gleefully torturing and burning Protestant heretics. He's also self-righteous, condescending, resentful and dismissive toward Cromwell who does his level best to protect More from himself and prevent his execution. Catherine of Aragon is whiny, sickly and vacillating, sometimes The Queen, sometimes the victim, sometimes the desperate petitioner for the King's mercy. Anne Boleyn (to whom he is deeply attracted along with her sister Mary) is manipulative and sly, sexually dominant (and, despite her claims of virginity, probably highly experienced), and ruthless. Wolsey is generous in spirit, slavishly devoted to Henry, and though corrupted by his wealth and years in office, immensely likeable. He teaches Cromwell statecraft, how to work the king, how to get around the nobles who swarm on Henry for favour like flies after honey and, most importantly, how to be true to himself.

What is most engaging about this novel is not the palace intrigues or political machinations: no, it's the way Mantel carefully structures each scene in such a way to make Cromwell emerge the winner. He seems to do everything exactly right, say everything exactly right, know everything exactly right, and, as a result, come up with exactly the right outcomes. Things we shrink from, like the execution of More, seem to emerge logically and naturally, certainly not the fault of Cromwell who did everything he could to save him. If More died, it was due to his own stubbornness and sinful desire to be a martyr. What else could a good and reasonable man like Cromwelll have done? If Catherine was set aside and Henry made supreme head of the church in England, was it not due to the intransigence of the Pope and the Spanish crown who held the gun to his head? Clearly they didn't understand the pressures, the threat of a return of civil war. What choice did they leave Henry? And those monasteries? Dens of iniquity (‘May I suggest to Your Majesty that, if you wish to see a parade of the seven deadly sins, you do not organise a masque at court but call without notice at a monastery?'). Break them up, confiscate their wealth for the good of the realm. The monks will actually be grateful.

It doesn't matter that (or if) this is revisionist history. It doesn't matter that this Cromwell is probably not any closer to the real one than Bolt's eye-rolling, moustachio twirler. What matters is that Mantel has a firm grasp on history, a good ear for dialogue, and a sharp sense of how to recast the ambiguous in certitude with a little clever characterization. Cromwell is her Macbeth, and we are, with this first part of the trilogy, witnessing his rise and catching mere glimpses of the flaws that will eventually (spoiler alert) result in his fall from grace and death. It's a hell of a ride, and worth every moment.

DNF at 30%. This book has won awards and the author sadly recently passed away so I thought I'd finally give it a crack. It's historical fiction about Thomas Cromwell (dude that was around the time of the infamous Henry the Eighth). Unfortunately with the writing style and the lack of background it was really hard to follow. Maybe if you are more familiar with the time period it will be easier..

Read 60% of this book. I got to the point where I had enough of royal intrigue. Maybe when I have a lot more peace I will finish it.

What to say about Wolf Hall?

I enjoyed the book. Ms Mantel is a talented writer who has achieved something quite fantastic by weiving together history and fiction to give us quite a handsome portrait of Cromwell, albeit apparently untrue.

It is a challenging read. The style of prose is quite difficult and can be somewhat confusing; however, once you realise that whenever the author uses “he”, it almost always refers to Cromwell, you start to settle in. I think I would have given it five stars had it been a bit easier to read. But then again, I am a simple man.

I must confess I was not entirely aware of the intricacies of Henry VIII's court. I did not fully understand how his marriages and subsequent annulments played out. However, this adaptation is a great entry point into understanding the whole affair. While I know this is not a historical biography, the author's meticulous attention to detail should be praised.

Most of Cromwell's biographers paint him as a callous, cruel, and calculating man, far from Wolf Hall's portrait. This might be true, but nonetheless, it is exciting, and once you get into it, you can't put it down.

I listened to and read this book. I must also praise Simon Slater's reading on Audible. It is fantastic, and his use of accents to differentiate the characters made it all the more enjoyable.

I will read the sequels and then pick up a history of the Tudors to piece it all together.

An extremely interesting novel, with a twist on the traditional storyline: Cromwell (the traditional heavy or villain) is our sympathetic narrator. It also features a *nasty* portrait of Sir Thomas More.

An interesting question is if Cromwell here is an "unreliable narrator" or not.

Note: "He" is almost always Cromwell himself, but occasionally it's someone else, so do read carefully.

  For most of the books I read, how I feel about the book matches with the quality of its writing.  In other words I like well-written books and don't like poorly-written books.  But every now a book comes along that throw these two factors out of alignment.  Wolf Hall is one of those books.    Let's start with the good.  Wolf Hall is very well-researched and impeccably detailed.  Mantel clearly knows this era of history inside and out.  Through this knowledge she is able to make 1500s England come to life in a marvelous way.  This knowledge also allows her to make these historical figures feel totally alive.  This is not an easy task but Mantel accomplishes it spectacularly throughout Wolf Hall.    In addition to her historical chops, Mantel is a damn good writer and it shows.  Her characters pop, her descriptions are vivid and everything is quite well-paced (a major feat for a book that is over 500 pages).  There are a whole lot of words in this book and Mantel is able to make each one of them feel meaningful.  It is easy for a historical drama to get a bit superfluous but I feel like Mantel avoids that pitfall.    And yet despite all my praise... I just don't care.  This is a well-written, well-researched book that inspired exactly zero emotion out of me whatsoever.   I like to have emotions when I read and this book didn't give me them.  I feel like I should say more but it's hard to write about a book that didn't make me feel anything.  I will still read Wolf Hall's sequels as I have heard they are better, but I can't say I'm looking forward to them. 

There is no denying the achievement here, recreating an era nearly 500 years ago, through the eyes of one man at the centre of the maelstrom. Imaginary conversations and made up encounters all based on history and woven together into a tapestry of fact and fiction. It is really quite remarkable, as the central “character” Thomas Cromwell navigates the politics and interpersonal mean-spirited-ness of the court of Henry VIII, enduring personal tragedy and loss along the way. My reservation about this book is that I admired and was impressed by it more than I enjoyed it. Some of the detailed descriptions and conversations were there more for verisimilitude than to advance the telling of the story and I often went from being enthralled to being bored in the space of ten pages. I can understand why this won awards, but maybe I'm not a serious enough history buff to enjoy it as much as others clearly have. I don't think I'll be reading the other two books.

4,5 stars.

This was by no means an easy read. As a non-Brit, I was not really familiar with the history of Henry VIII. Of course, I knew bits and pieces, mainly that he just split the church because of a marriage, or a divorce if you like. But that's about it.

And if you are not familiar with this part of history, you need to do some work because Hilary Mantel is not going to make it easy for you. She starts the story and expects the reader to keep up; if you can't, too bad, she's not waiting for you. She provides some background information in the second or third chapter, but I found myself needing Wikipedia and family trees to get a contextual picture that made sense.

On top of that, everyone is called Thomas, which can be confusing. Sometimes she uses the person's titles (duke of Norfolk, or just Norfolk) and then all of a sudden she uses their real name (Thomas Howard, yes another Thomas...or even just Howard) and when you have found out, she turns back to Norfolk. And be aware, the “he” in the book is, in 90% of the cases, Thomas Cromwell, but not always. If you're lost, just assume the “he” is Cromwell and you'll probably be good.

So, having said that, this book is very rewarding if you're willing to put the effort in. Because of the somewhat unpersonal approach and writing style, you get the feeling that this is a real account of events, not a romanticized story. I can only recommend it to everyone. And, oh yes, read it in English if you can. I found the Dutch translation even more confusing at times; not the vocabulary, but copying the original writing style into the Dutch translation made it more unnatural than the original

I appreciated this book more the second time round. It's wonderfully written.

awoooga

A lot of the reviews for this book mention the difficulty of working out who is saying what to who. One answer is to go for the superbly narrated audio book. The production was superb and the story gripping, though I think a passing knowledge of England in the 16th Century would be a help.
I'm about to download the next in the series.

I now understand historical and political reasons for the English Reformation. That's always something nice to take away from a great story.

This book sucked me in more and more as I read it, at least half of that was because I had to be sucked in to be able to keep track of all the Henry's and Mary's. I was constantly flicking back to the character list at the start to know who was who.

Written in a style I'm not sure what it is but it took a while to wrap my head around, it's all from the point of view of Cromwell but still in third person, it leaps around in time very casually and sometimes doesn't bother with dialogue but just keeps it in a “then they talked about this and then that” style of writing. I'm not sure why this is the style but hey, once I'd figured out that ‘he' was almost always relating to Cromwell I was able to keep up.

Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Well, I made it through this slugfest and the experience was very much like eavesdropping on a rambling old man in the next room who expounds on everything and, every once in great while, says something mildly witty. I'm assuming that this is a highly regarded piece of literature because Mantel puts some pretty sentences together. As for the entertainment factor? I didn't find much.
Two things drove me crazy. First, a statement is made and followed by “Thomas thought” but then the OTHER character responds as if they heard him say it. Second, the bit I was most interested in, the memory theater (created by Guido Camillo)....well, not much happens there.
I also enjoyed the Cardinal for awhile and mourned his death when I realized all of the humor in this story just died with him.
I'm just hoping against hope that the 3rd book doesn't end up on the Tournament of Books list, because I have no intention of revisiting this.

I didn't finish this book. After going through 150 pages.
I decided to quit. The story should serve me well but the writing style had devasted me.

Perhaps this book is too good for me.

This is such a tremendous and epic novel. I've long been intimidated to read it as this history is rather foreign to me and I've been told the cast of characters was large and difficult to follow. The same could be said of War & Peace and I loved that novel, so I'm not sure why I hesitated so long.

Mantel expertly brings history to fascinating life. This story seems so well researched and painstakingly sculpted. The events surrounding Thomas Cromwell were rendered with such care and attention to detail. I know so little about Cromwell–and I have my doubts he was as wonderful and generous as he is portrayed here–but Mantel certainly handles the subject with great care.

Diving into this a second time to prepare for the third and last installment that has just been published. It probably re-kindled my interest in historical novels as I see myself returning to the genre much more than I used to. And the best part is that, second time round, you are not furiously trying to commit to memory the bewildering number of characters.

This is the book I needed right now, an epic historical fiction that makes clear to me why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. The whys and hows that lurk behind the whats of history take center stage, and what was once a jumble of dusty facts and names becomes a vivid human drama. I'm smitten, captivated, swept off my feet by this book.

Note: as others have mentioned, the author uses “he” almost exclusively to mean Thomas Cromwell, even if the preceding sentences make it seem otherwise. Here's an imaginary example: ‘The king was displeased. He got up and walked over to the window.' In this example the “he” refers to Cromwell, not the king. It takes a handful of pages to get used to it, and then it's just second nature.

2.5 stars. As beautifully written and well researched as this is, it was not an enjoyable read. It really felt like a chore to pick up. Such a pity. I may not be in the correct headspace for this though (we are all filled with anxiety atm) I will probably continue series, but on audio at 1.5x speed.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is a historic novel based around the life of Thomas Cromwell. It shows Cromwell's rise in power in the royal court, the formation of the Anglican Church, and Anne Boleyn's rise to the Queen of England.
I'll start with the negative aspects of the book, which there are few of. These things did not bother me, but I'm just putting them out there so people who are considering reading the book will be aware of them. First of all, this book is quite dense and slow paced so if you're looking for a quick read this will definitely not be for you. Also, this book is better suited for people who have some background knowledge of 16th century Europe because it doesn't really give you explanations of every little conflict going on outside of England. For example, there are a lot of references to the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther and if you don't know what those things are it won't be explained to you and you will probably be very confused. Again, these aren't really ‘cons' but things I think future readers should be aware of. Lastly, it can be confusing as Mantel never uses Thomas Cromwell's name in the narrative, only the pronoun ‘he'. So if there's a scene involving Cromwell and another man you might be confused. It didn't bother me after the first couple of pages but I've read others saying it hindered their reading experience so I thought I'd mention it.
Okay, now I'll mention what I LOVED about this book. :-)
First of all, this book is written so beautifully!!!!!!!!!! The writing style was magnificent I can't wait to read more from this author! Secondly, she writes characters so well. They were all so well rounded and, unlike other historical novels I've read, the characters had their strong points AND their flaws not just one or the other. I really appreciated the way she made them seem like real people (I know they are real people but you know what I mean) and I cared about almost every one of them and what happened to them. As I said before, this book is slow paced but it worked so well for me, I was never bored and I was okay with taking longer than usual to finish it because the writing was so enjoyable and I didn't want to put it down.
I gave this book 5/5 stars because it's the best historical novel I've ever read and you can tell Hilary Mantel has a great understanding of these historic figures and it shows in the novel. This book reminded me of why I love history so much and made me want to learn even more about Tudor England and I'm so excited to read the sequel. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves English history and doesn't mind long, slow paced novels.

Without a knowledge of English history around the time of crazy King Henry it's difficult to understand the characters and their interactions. Its definitely got some interesting parts and I think if I come back to it a second time I'll pick up a lot I missed. This is all due to my lack of background on the history of that country and that time.

Strange storytelling in this finnish translation. My reading did not really translate into understanding what was going on in the book. Maybe the book assumes that the reader already knows the centre pieces of this story from the history lessons. It does not really explain peoples motives and the characters are somehow loose.

It took me a bit to read this book but not because it was difficult or boring but rather because I decided to do the slow sip. It is [a:Hilary Mantel 58851 Hilary Mantel https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1334862633p2/58851.jpg] and every sentence and paragraph are worthy of being savored and digested with no rush. Its not as if this is a mystery. We all know of Henry VIII and his marital woes. For those who don't I'd suggest a primer on English history before delving into this book.What Ms. Mantel does so brilliantly here, as she did in [b:A Place of Greater Safety 12593941 A Place of Greater Safety Hilary Mantel https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1363862651s/12593941.jpg 1168385] is illuminate and bring focus on characters we think to know so well from countless history classes. In this case it is Thomas Cromwell a man who always seems to veer between an opaque cypher or Machiavellian villain in most historical accounts but in [b:Wolf Hall 6520929 Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1) Hilary Mantel https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1436162980s/6520929.jpg 6278354] he comes off as that modern day hero: the self made man who rises the heights of power despite of his less than auspicious beginning. Thankfully Ms. Mantel keeps him a man of his time, modern yes, but 1530's modern. As Cardinal Wolsey he chooses his prince, Henry, and serves him ushering in the new England divorced from Rome and all that ensued.I'm sure there are more eloquent reviews around so I'll just say that I found it brilliant: the writing, the story telling, the insight into human nature. I'll be starting [b:Bring Up the Bodies 13507212 Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2) Hilary Mantel https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1330649655s/13507212.jpg 14512257], the follow up ASAP.

I just couldn't finish it. I made it about 80 pages through but it didn't capture my attention at all.

I couldn't put it down, and am praying that the sequel is still on the shelf at the library where I saw it last week. The somewhat stream-of-consciousness writing can be confusing, but as another reviewer noted, if you keep in mind that “he” in most instances is Cromwell, you will be OK. Other reviewers have also noted the need for family trees and access to Wikipedia while reading, which is not a bad thing. I have never been able to wrap myself around the whole York/Lancaster genealogy, but I'm closer now, having read this book and subsequently (within a week!) two non-fiction books about the Wars of the Roses and the rise of the Tudors.

Not much of a review, is it? I'll repeat that I couldn't put it down, and a lot of that had to do with just how funny a lot of the book was, surprisingly. The Cromwell of this book may bear no resemblance to the historical Thomas Cromwell, but the book version is hilarious. I like that in a book, and will definitely read the sequel, and be looking at the author's other novels.

Not sure why this book is so lauded. A mediocre read in my opinion.