226 of 258 people found the following review helpful:
A magnificent tale
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...
101 of 124 people found the following review helpful:
Couldn't get into it but its so worthy I blamed myself!
Its 500 years since Henry VIII came to the throne and a raft of books and documentaries have emerged accordingly. I am fascinated by the Tudor period and have briefly dipped into Hilary Mantel's work by reading the marvellous "An Experiment In Love".
However, despite getting to around page 87 and liking the angle (its told from Thomas Cromwell's point of...
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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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This the story of Thomas Cromwell famous for helping Henry VIII secure his divorce from Katherine of Aragon. It is one epic book that took me a while to read and in many ways turns the popular historical view I had of Cromwell on it's head as an exact rebuff toA Man for All Seasons (Methuen Theatre Classics) (Modern Classics) (also loved the portrayal of Sir Thomas More). This is not unusual for novels that use a history as a base (I now have a new recently acquired view of Mary Queen of Scots after reading Full Story Inside and found cause to read more on Elisabeth I after watching Elizabeth : Special Edition [1998] [DVD] , although will always dismiss The Tudors: Complete Series 1 And 2 [DVD] [2007] as frivolous nonsense )
Everyone with even a little knowledge of English history knows the story of Henry and his six wives, and the dissolution of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon but essentially Wolf Hall rewrites the history of England from 1527 to 1535 with Thomas Cromwell as the hero. The writing is so wonderfully descriptive that you get a perfect picture of every scene and are so drawn into events, and the characterisation is spot on (loved the scheming spoilt brat interpretation of Anne Boleyn).
Wolf Hall is a wonderful example of what a historical Novel should be and worthy winner of the Book Prize (also highly recommend A Place of Greater Safety
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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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Its 500 years since Henry VIII came to the throne and a raft of books and documentaries have emerged accordingly. I am fascinated by the Tudor period and have briefly dipped into Hilary Mantel's work by reading the marvellous "An Experiment In Love".
However, despite getting to around page 87 and liking the angle (its told from Thomas Cromwell's point of view), I just couldn't plough any further.
Its a clever book, and weighs the same as a brick, so I thought I was in for a treat, but despite the profound detail and incredible research, I just lost interest. Since its so intelligently written, I can't help feeling its my fault. However, I am not afraid of heavy going tomes being an English Graduate but this saw me off I'm afraid.
The scenes and transitions made it hard to follow and I often had to turn back a few pages to see who was who again. After about the fifth time, this irritated me despite my friendly intentions towards the book and I gave up.
You may have more luck then me, but it just didn't "flow".
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A quite extraordinary novel and reading experience. Diana Athill says there's no more completely imagined world since 'Middlemarch', but I'll (more modestly?) settle for Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children': the reader is not immersed in 'Wolf Hall'; the novel immerses the reader. Mantel marshals her characters and her history with astonishing confidence and fluidity. Previous reviewers who complain of shifting perspectives and (god help us) 'dangling pronouns' have simply (or difficultly) not read with due care and attention; the rewards for doing so, however, are extraordinary. This is not a beach book or 'blockbuster' historical fiction: it is a compelling and utterly relevant dissection of, among other things, national identity; faith; power and myth. It is sly and darkly humorous and wickedly, brilliantly confident: a bravura performance, as they say. It's also a devastating, underhand annihilation of 'Little England' mentality: as politically incendiary as English translations of the Bible. Wolf Hall is a MODERN classic.
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Of all England's monarchs, Henry VIII seems the most perennially fascinating, mostly, of course, because he presided over a kingdom in flux, where religious turbulence originating in Europe caused a radical reorganisation of the entire English body politic, as well as the deaths of a number of variously ambitious and/or naive Queens. Hilary Mantel's book tells the story from the point of view the man who made everything possible for the King, Thomas Cromwell. Where Thomas Wolsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, stumbled in obtaining the King's heart's desire, his factotum, Thomas Cromwell, picked up the pieces and succeeded. Much good it did him in the end, but for five years, Cromwell ruled the political roost.
This book is gorgeous. The world of Henry, Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, and numerous others opens up before the reader with all of its excesses and privations, its events and its personalities with extraordinary ease. It brings the past alive with thrilling authenticity, building a whole world with the bricks of language - a book in which the pages come alive and you are there, in 1533, in Cromwell's world. Every aspect of that world is made lucid and plain, with sumptuous descriptions of clothes, houses, commerce and business, as well as, of course, the characters of the court. There is a family tree and a `cast-list' which helps us keep pace with the action. The atmosphere is provided by smaller moments; for example, Cromwell, alone, thoughtful, in his house:
"Standing in a wash of autumn sun, he holds an apple in his hand. He pares it with a thin blade, and the peel whispers away from the flesh and lies among his papers like the shadow of an apple, green on white paper and black ink."
I don't believe I've read a better historical novel, ever. Its pace is perfect, event following on from event seamlessly. This novel is also endlessly fascinating about the city of London and its people, and the dangerous and profligate court of King Henry himself. If you think you know this period of history, you may be surprised by the freshness and breadth of understanding this book brings to an old story. It is, quite simply brilliant, from the first page to the last.
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I've read most of Hilary Mantel's other books and generally enjoyed them but Wolf Hall is in a different class. I've just read it on holiday and was very glad to be able to give it hours at a time - the length might have defeated me in ordinary working time. The dialogue is outstanding, and HM deserves full credit for the instant transport of the reader into the period. Comparing this to genre historical fiction is missing the point, perhaps; Hilary Mantel has done something rather new, and very modern, as another reviewer said. I share the view that some of the use of pronouns means re-reading paragraphs - and that is a matter of editing as well as authorship. I've come across this problem in other new books recently. These things are minor, though. I cannot recommend Wolf Hall highly enough - and it would satisfy a very broad readership. Top-notch Chrismas present for any reading adult!
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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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Those who read Wolf Hall expecting a pacy historical thriller a la Ken Follett have obviously been disappointed and are inclined to insult both Mantel and her admirers. But she doesn't set out to write page turners in that sense. She has created a world for us to enter, based on an episode in the past, and it is completely mesmeric. The family, the court and the characters are all whole, all believable, most are a fabulous mixture of qualities good and bad, especially Cromwell himself - a rock of a man, charming yet single-minded to a terrifying degree. The brilliant characters and her detailed and domestic recreation of the history give us an insight into what might have been, a way of seeing those great names as real people.
Her style is not fast, but no words are wasted. It is crisp and often very funny. She uses language with a skill few can match these days. Maybe it's not a skill that will continue to be admired, but for me this was - for the few weeks I took to read it, reading slowly so as to enjoy every phrase and every sentence - sheer bliss. Thank goodness she won the Booker!
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Hilary Mantel has written a historical novel that is also a gripping psychological thriller. It is centred on Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief minister, as he navigates the murderous feuds around the court of this autocratic and ruthless monarch, out of which came England's breach with Rome, the protestant reformation, and (some say) the beginnings of a state bureaucracy. Cromwell was a skilful survivor, and many of his opponents and ex-friends met a sticky end, including Thomas More, renaissance scholar who refused to bow the knee to Henry, and the unfortunate Queen Anne Boleyn. Both are more famous than Cromwell, both were executed.
Hans Holbein painted Cromwell with "the face of a murderer". Mantel paints the blacksmith's son from Putney as a family man and a brisk, efficient man of business with the diplomatic charm needed to steer a course for his master at home and among the big beasts of Europe - Pope, Emperor and the French king Francis I. Henry was duly grateful and rewarded him with offices and power.
Because Mantel does her research meticulously, the characters leap out of the page, and the reader thinks "this is how it must have been". Wolf Hall is a supremely imaginative novel but it also provides a subtle and chilling dissection of human cruelty generated by the power struggles in an autocracy. Cromwell hardly qualifies as its hero, but we care about his fate. The book ends when he sets course for Wolf Hall, home of Henry's next queen. We know that Cromwell lived for five more years, and we know that it won't go well in the end. Has Mantel a sequel already on hard disk? Or has she made her point, that politics is a rough old game? As it stands, this is a richly textured story and second to none in creating a world where believable people wrestle with chaotic events.
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