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73 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Worthy but no need for it to be so confusing, 21 Oct 2009
Have finished this book and am sure it's very worthy of all the accolades but I really found this quite a hard slog and I'm quite a prolific reader. The story is really interesting but I am so glad to see other reviewers on here that had the same horrendous problem of trying to follow who was talking whenever there is any dialogue. Fair enough to refer to Cromwell as "he" if you're going to stick to that and use it exclusively, but when you use "he" for other people during the same conversation, it's really confusing and I found myself having to re-read paragraphs containing dialogue (as a result this took me so much longer to read than normal and I feel like I've read it 3 times). Obviously am not one to comment on such a good writer but it would have been so much more of a pleasure (rather than a chore) to read if it had been either written in first person or clearer reference used as to who is talking.
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316 of 370 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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139 of 172 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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