Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Review
Lovers of The Crown may remember its ancestor, both in production and story: the tale of Wolf Hall. The 2015 dramatic adaptation of King Henry VIII’s court itself originated from the work of Hilary Mantel, here read cover to cover in what has possibly been the most commitment-phobic relationship I’ve ever had in my life.
Peppered with wry humour, blood, guts, and God’s truth, Wolf Hall is a challenge yet not one without reward. The social media age has zapped our attention spans yet Mantel’s work requires a close reading, a keen-eyed concentration lest you fail to make sense of it all. It’s hard work. Her style isn’t friendly, it is learned and aged yet the longer you bear with her the more she provides you with the dopamine hits we so desperately seek.
Here she tells of the rise of Thomas Cromwell within the ranks of Henry’s court. We get to live inside the mind of the most trusted man in the country: to think his thoughts, to feel his grief and to chuckle ourselves at what too turns the corners of his mouth. We meet some complicated characters: Mantel unsparingly shows both the qualities and follies of each. Anne Boleyn, well-loved and mythologised now, is formidable: there is a wildness and an entrancing fear about her that not only compels readers but the court. Looking back at history through Mantel’s handcrafted lens makes me wonder as to the level of truth in characters’ emotions and reactions… It is a very well-researched work, of course, but research only takes us so far: it is exciting to hope that at least some of the thoughts and fancies, even the passages of extensive dialogue, were really what could be felt and heard and carried in London’s thick Tudor air.
At 650 pages and in Mantel’s singular prose, Wolf Hall was for me an intermittent companion, but one I’m glad I contended with to its end. Often, in dialogue, I had to check back to see who was speaking, and some less rousing passages failed to hold my attention. Though for any fans of historical fiction, particularly those wanting to see the Reformation through fresh eyes, it’s a worthwhile read.
Standouts
Out of so many beautiful passages I either highlighted or dog-eared, here are some favourites:
“He will remember his first sight of the open sea: a grey wrinkled vastness, like the residue of a dream.”
“Voices murmur. Sunlight outside. He feels he could almost sleep, but when he sleeps Liz Wykys comes back, cheerful and brisk, and when he wakes he has to learn the lack of her all over again.”
“The cardinal looks up. His hands fly to his heart. His right hand creeps down to the crucifix he wears. […] His thumb runs over the tortured body of God: over and over, as if it were any lump of metal.”
“Grace dies in his arms; she dies easily, as naturally as she was born. […] We cannot earn grace. We do not merit it.”
“He thinks book-reading an affectation altogether, and wishes there were less of it at court. His niece is always reading, Anne Boleyn, which is perhaps why she is unmarried at the age of twenty-eight.”
“A flock of starlings settles among the tight black buds of a bare tree. Then, like black buds unfolding, they open their wings; they flutter and sing, stirring everything into motion, air, wings, black notes in music. He becomes aware that he is watching them with pleasure […] in some spare, desperate way, he is looking forward to Easter, the end of Lenten fasting, the end of penitence. There is a world beyond this black world. There is a world of the possible. A world where Anne can be queen is a world where Cromwell can be Cromwell. He sees it; then he doesn’t. The moment is fleeting. But insight cannot be taken back. You cannot return to the moment you were in before.”
“Gardiner laughs: his deep bass chuckle, like laughter through a crack in the earth.”
“‘But he said, it is. He did not say, this is like my body, he said, it is. Can God lie? No. He is incapable of it.’”
“Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of ourselves for having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It’s not as if we had a choice.”
Rating
4/5 🌟
Pages
650.
Time it took me
A year and a month, read very intermittently. Someone more committed could probably complete it in a couple of weeks.
