Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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187 of 211 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A magnificent tale, 16 Jun 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Anyone who paid attention in history classes at school will need little background to the events of Wolf Hall. The key events of the story take place over just less than a ten year period from the 1520s to the 1530s. Mantel has taken what is, supposedly, Britain's best loved history topic, Henry VIII and his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, marriage to Anne Boleyn and the resulting split with Rome and has melded it into a compelling story.
She has obviously had some of her work done for her - the key dramatic events, characters, plots and intrigue are fairly heavily based in fact, but what Mantel has done is to breathe life and substance into the historial figures to make them loveable, hateable, complex characters. At the centre of her book stands Thomas Cromwell, a man from humble origins who rose to unprecedented power in England as Henry's chief minister. Cromwell is beautifully portrayed and his personal relationships, be they loving, tragic or political are fascinating reading. The relationships with Wolsey and More in particular are executed wonderfully (no pun intended in the latter case).
My only grumble with the book were that some events are included, but skated over in short passages and other events are included, but drag a little. This is probably an inevitable part of a historical novel covering such a long period of time; you can't simply leap forward 2 years and avoid the need to understand certain intervening events. However, whilst this slows the pace of the book in places, I enjoyed the book so much that it didn't particularly spoil it for me (indeed, those who prefer a fast paced novel are probably not going to enjoy Wolf Hall).
The book ends shortly after the death of Thomas More, and I can't be only one who wonders (and hopes) whether we might yet see a second, "decline and fall" book. I'd certainly love to read it.
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115 of 134 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Booker Prize Winner 2009 - an immensely enjoyable, but a long read, 15 April 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
The 500 anniversary of Henry VIII's birth has triggered a real flood of books on the Tudors and the whole period. This period of English history had always been my favourite. So I just love it.
However Thomas Cromwell, Henry's chief ministers and the architect of Reform, had always been a bit elusive. So I am very happy that Hilary Mantel has made him the subject of her monumental novel.
Hilary Mantel has immersed herself into the period and indeed managed to re-created this very time when society changed so much. It is convincing and engaging, but not in an easy manner. She does not tell the story in a very simplistic way. Instead she chooses to show the different layers and the complications and I feel thereby gets very close to the challenges of the time. That does not make necessarily an easy reading, but a rewarding one as one gains a better understanding of the time. Cromwell and his personality became for the first time alive for me. Historic novels are a great tool to show a period or personality as the author sees him or her without being too closely tied to historic evidence. I believe Hilary Mantel has done that to perfection. She has given us her take on Cromwell and the Tudor period. But maybe she is a bit too much taken by Cromwell and it gives it a bit of unbalanced perspective.
Wolf Hall, the seat of the Seymours, is for me a symbol for the future, the protestant future as here Queen Jane, mother of the first protestant King Edward VI, lived. And btw Cromwell's son and heir Gregory married Elisabeth Seymour, sister to Queen Jane and the Lord Protector The Duke of Somerset.
All in all, this is an enjoyable but long read (more than 650 pages).
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A big fat crunchy knockout of a book, 4 Sep 2009
Set during the 1520s to 1540s during Henry VIII's break with Rome, the story charts the rise of Thomas Cromwell, a clever, charismatic man from a terrible abusive childhood, who rises to a powerful position in Tudor politics. After the death of his beloved Wolsey, he becomes even closer to the King and tries to facilitate a divorce between Katharine of Aragon and Henry, so the King can marry Anne Boleyn and produce the longed for heir.
It's a big fat crunchy book, which amply demonstrates that people were completely different then, not just in the obvious way of dressing and living but how they thought. Many were prepared to endure a terrible death rather than betray their faith. In one telling scene, Cromwell deeply sympathises with a Lutheran scholar who has been sentenced to be burned at the stake, and he arranges for him to be transferred to another prison, bribing the guards and telling the prisoner 'it would be a terrible shame if you escaped as you could get across the river where you'd find a boat waiting for you'. But when the guards return, they find the prisoner standing calmly where he was left.
Two of the many things that stood out about this book. Firstly Thomas More does not come across as the gentle humanist of Robert Bolt's A Man for all Seasons. Instead he is a repellent torturer who is secretly in love with his own daughter Margaret and treats his wife with utter contempt. His famous speech: 'I do none harm, I think none harm. If this be not enough to keep a man alive . . ' is met with an aghast 'You DO none harm?' by Cromwell who has witnessed the sadistic pleasure More takes in torturing anyone who does not share his religious beliefs. Secondly, Henry VIII is not the obese buffoon of recent imaginings but instead, a thoughtful, deeply religious man, who Cromwell admires. The sheer fascination of Anne for Henry is deeply believable too - it was never just a matter of her refusing to sleep with him.
The only reason I didn't give the book a five out of five is it's slightly abrupt ending as More goes headlong towards his martyrdom. Anne has just given birth to Elizabeth but her swift decline from total power to being at the centre of a pornographic court plot which lead to her unjust trial and execution, has not yet begun. I feel almost certain a sequel is in the offing. I hope so. This was a meticulously researched and beautifully written book which made me realise how historical reputations can be built up (as with Thomas More) with no justification, or unfairly maligned (as with Cromwell himself)
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