Guest Review: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Back in March 2014, we published what has turned out to be our most popular post ever: Top 10 historical fiction of all time. Read guest Kavity's review of #3 on this list - Hilary Mantel's Booker winning Wolf Hall.

Kavity is a popular blogger on Namesake: Making the most of all that comes where she writes about books, politics, work, life, the universe and everything in between. She has also penned multiple quirky short stories and thought- provoking poetry... What a talented blogger indeed!





Tudor history, particularly that of the notorious Henry VIII who had a total of six wives and accomplished the break-away of the Church of England from Rome, must be one of the most researched, written about and filmed stories in the history of historical fiction. And, there-in lies Mantel’s challenge.

Perhaps that’s the reason she picked Thomas Cromwell as her protagonist, rather than one of the King’s wives, or Thomas More or Thomas Wolsey or one of the Seymours (the novel is after all named after the Seymour family seat*).

Or, perhaps, she wanted to give Cromwell, the underdog, a chance, as a practical, smart, opportunistic courtier rather than as the scheming, cunning, self-centered villain he has always been made out to be.

The novel starts off unflatteringly, with a broken-bodied and bloodied 15-year old Thomas Cromwell curled up outside his sister’s house, after having endured an almost-to-death beating at the hands of his father, Walter Cromwell. And, you are left wondering whether you would have to endure 100 pages of Cromwell’s working-class life before he evolves into one of the most important people in the Court of England.

Thankfully, we are soon transported to the history that matters. Cromwell, through business acumen and sheer hard-work, and by ensuring that he is in the right places at the right times, becomes Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s right-hand man; and, despite the Cardinal’s fall-out from favor with the King and his eventual death, slowly rises in Court to become the King’s Secretary and most trusted advisor, facilitating the annulment of his first marriage with Catherine of Aragon, and his eventual marriage to Anne Boleyn.

The beauty of this book really lies in that Cromwell doesn’t have a single face but is an amalgamation of ambition, loyalty, revenge, sympathy and a weird sense of principles. Cromwell, who “arranges his face” and never lets his emotions be seen by anyone; Cromwell, who knows that he may face the same fate his Lord Cardinal did, at the hands of his irrational King; Cromwell, who hopes that Anne Boleyn, the King’s most-infamous mistress, and second wife, would use the silver forks he presented her for New Year’s for eating and not for sticking into people; Cromwell, who wants to bring about the ruin of the Courtiers who decimated his Lord Cardinal.

But, it is not all about Cromwell. Where she paints Cromwell grey, Mantel takes a clear black-and-white stand on the spoilt, wavering, adamant, stubborn King Henry VIII.

While reading this book, I have sometimes wondered how interesting it would be if we could have stories from that time written from each of these characters’ perspective – how dramatically different each one would paint this story. Perhaps, someone will try to tell this story through Henry VIII’s eyes. That would be interesting.

Wolf Hall is a brilliant book. But, there is a flip side to it. Mantel’s writing technique can be tedious to any reader at first. She uses “he” liberally without proper nouns, when referring to one of two people in a conversation, and you are left wondering who she is referring to. It takes time to get adjusted to her writing technique, to identify the “he” to be Cromwell in most cases. The lack of quotation marks in the dialogues doesn’t help the cause much. Perhaps, that’s her way of bringing abstraction into history, to remind the reader time and again that no matter how well-researched her piece might be, history can never be accurate. For, history is written by the victor, and he writes it the way he wants to write it.

I am inherently wary of award winning books, even if they are historical novels, for they tend to be painfully long and laborious, endlessly descriptive, stretching issues that can be spoken about in ten words to at least ten pages.

But, fortunately, Wolf Hall overcomes has none of those shortcomings, because Mantel ensures there is humour in those pages, some not-so-subtle philosophical nuggets, a new tone of characterization to every person she talks about, a reason to look forward to more of the book even though the story is known to all.

In fact, Wolf Hall is a book you will regret for having finished, for then it suddenly ends, and you are left with nothing more to look forward to. And, so you would pick up and finish Bring up the Bodies. And then, you would wait with bated breath for the last in the series, The Mirror and the Light, just like I am waiting.

* Mantel has said, in an interview to the Guardian in 2012, “The title arrived before a word was written: Wolf Hall, besides being the home of the Seymour family, seemed an apt name for wherever Henry's court resided.”