Wolf Hall: A Novel (Man Booker Prize)
by Hilary Mantel
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Book Summary Information
Author: Hilary MantelEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-10-13
ISBN: 0805080686
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780805080681
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Wolf Hall: A Novel (Man Booker Prize)
Book Review: Ironic masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Wolf Hall's excellence lies in Mantel's ingenious manipulation of irony. The title is ironic. Some reviewers cannot fathom why the title is Wolf Hall, given that the Seymours, whose estate it is, play so little part in the story. But this is precisely the point of the title: although Thomas Cromwell doesn't yet know it, they will soon be the key players in the next chapter of his life. As the book ends, he is contemplating a 5-day stay at Wolf Hall as part of the king's forthcoming itinerary. This is dramatic irony at its most potent: Cromwell imagines a vacation from statesmanship in the company of Jane Seymour, but we know, and Mantel knows we know, that only a year later Jane will replace Anne Boleyn as queen, and further, that all of Cromwell's machinations to achieve Henry's matrimonial goals have actually failed, not succeeded as he thinks. And again: Mantel leaves Cromwell at his desk where thoughts of More's recent execution keep intruding on his work: he is at the height of his power (it was enormous) but we know very well that within a mere 5 years he too will go to the block. Mantel never doubts--indeed she counts on--our knowledge of the subsequent history of this man.
Of course irony that results from hindsight is inherent and inevitable in all historical fiction that deals with historical characters (rather than imagined characters living in a historical setting). It must be so. The challenge for the historical novelist is how to work with this, and Mantel chooses to exploit it to the full. The dramatic irony of history is her banner (the title). It is method and meaning fused. Cromwell, like any powerful statesman, is both a maker of history and victim or the onrush of events, ignorant of future outcomes. The unstoppable, unpredictable flow of events is surely intended as part of the meaning of the book.
Mantel is sparing with narrative and structures the book as a series of conversations in a series of places: Austin Friars, Westminster, Hampton Court, and others--in effect characters speaking in settings, which suggests drama as a metaphor for history.* Little encounters between great (and not so great) men result in the great events we know as history. In this book we are present for the little encounters; the great events are referred to as having happened, happening elsewhere, or going to happen. Mantel stays with Cromwell and we come to appreciate the acuity of his thinking and the complexities of his character. We share his memories and understand his profound sympathies and antipathies. Some conversations are internal--Cromwell thinking to himself; most are encounters with family members, colleagues in government, adversaries and rivals, his king, courtiers, and others.
It is a brilliant and fascinating characterization, a portrait largely consistent with what is attested historical fact. By opening with an episode of vicious life-threatening abuse at the hands of his father, she establishes Cromwell's prime motivation: he is a survivor. As a youth he wanders, adapts, courts danger, and above all accumulates a vast store of practical knowledge, especially in statesmanship, finance, and trade. We see him tender, gentle, and loving with children, family, and animals. We glimpse him in moments of intransigence, ruthlessness, and implacable anger with political opponents. His liberal and pragmatic outlook--his is open-minded rather than doctrinaire in his views--seems modern and appealing. He practices moderation, or tries to, and often pleads for mercy where others cry for blood. He is generous, opening his house to sundry orphans and homeless people. He is the consummate wheeler-dealer, calculating, contriving, financing, always in Henry's interest. What marks him from the outset and recommends him to Henry is his loyalty; he remains loyal to Wolsey even as Wolsey falls. But his loyalties are not totally self-serving for he truly esteems both cardinal and king and is genuinely grateful for their attention, kindness, and preferment. He is intelligent, self-educated, worldly, and acts always in perfect compliance with required social forms. He is without the class prejudice that marks the times, and also without scruples when it comes to serving the king. He is always surrounded by people but suffers from loneliness.
The intimacy of the portrait feeds the irony, for the closer we come to Cromwell (privy to his thoughts, plans, hopes, feelings), the stranger and sharper seems the disparity between his everyday life experience and our long-range view that necessarily includes what we know is to come. And we know so much more than he does. Beyond what is noted above (first paragraph): Henry breaks with the Papacy but remains an adamant Catholic who persecutes Protestants; the son Henry desperately wants will come, not from Anne but from Jane, and will rule but briefly and weakly; Princess Mary, declared a bastard with Cromwell's help, will in fact become queen; Elizabeth, whom Cromwell sees as a squalling infant, will also become queen--one in whose reign Britain achieves unprecedented heights of wealth, power, and glory.
The ironical effect here has an underside, a kind of double irony. The chief irony is that we know what Cromwell doesn't know. But the reverse is also true. Cromwell was a real person as were all the characters in this book (as far as I know). They know--or knew--as we can never know, the actual words, thoughts, motivations, the scenery, the daily life--they were there; we were not. When we read Mantel's imagined recreation of Cromwell's inner life, we are intrigued largely because we know he really did live and think. In a sense, the real Cromwell himself authorizes this reenactment, which from his perspective is ironic because not true (only realistically imagined) and we feel the irony on his behalf. Is it meaningful to call on his perspective if he is dead? I believe it is justifed here and in any historical novel that purports to be a reenactment, provided the author is skillful in bringing the character to life. We are simultaneously aware of our superior knowledge of events after 1535 AND of our unalterable ignorance of what actually occurred in the mind of Thomas Cromwell.
Mantel's brilliant deployment of these ironies gives the book its power to move. It is wry, insightful, sad, sophisticated, enjoyable, and immensely thought-provoking. At the least we come away newly appreciating the formidable complexity of what we take as history and inclined to greater open-mindedness and compassion for our forebears.
A final point in recommendation: Wolf Hall is a healthy corrective for those whose views of Cromwell and of More have been shaped by the likes of R.W. Chambers's biography Thomas More and the play/film "A Man for All Seasons." An excellent professional review of Wolf Hall, by Christopher Benfey, is available online in the New York Times Book Review.
*Mantel uses the same technique in A Place of Greater Safety where, in my opinion, her shifting point of view among 3 protagonists creates unjustifiable confusion for the reader; they are indistinguishable in their witty repartee, at least until the last 100 pages or so. Nonetheless, this too is a great read, which rewards the effort needed to sort out the characters.
Summary of Wolf Hall: A Novel (Man Booker Prize)
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII?s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king?s favor and ascend to the heights of political power
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king?s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.
Amazon Best of the Month, October 2009: No character in the canon has been writ larger than Henry VIII, but that didn't stop Hilary Mantel. She strides through centuries, past acres of novels, histories, biographies, and plays--even past Henry himself--confident in the knowledge that to recast history's most mercurial sovereign, it's not the King she needs to see, but one of the King's most mysterious agents. Enter Thomas Cromwell, a self-made man and remarkable polymath who ascends to the King's right hand. Rigorously pragmatic and forward-thinking, Cromwell has little interest in what motivates his Majesty, and although he makes way for Henry's marriage to the infamous Anne Boleyn, it's the future of a free England that he honors above all else and hopes to secure. Mantel plots with a sleight of hand, making full use of her masterful grasp on the facts without weighing down her prose. The opening cast of characters and family trees may give initial pause to some readers, but persevere: the witty, whip-smart lines volleying the action forward may convince you a short stay in the Tower of London might not be so bad... provided you could bring a copy of Wolf Hall along. --Anne Bartholomew
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