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Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars
I thought I would love this book. I was very wrong.
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2017Verified Purchase
When I first heard about Wolf Hall I thought it sounded right up my alley: historical, Tudor period, political intrigue, a new take on a previously maligned figure from history. Before purchasing it, I read through some reviews to get a variety of opinions on the novel from readers. The only consistently negative comment I saw was that the writing was "confusing" because Mantel calls everyone only by the pronoun "he." I bought the book and eagerly began reading, assuming (rather hubristically) that this would not be a problem for me, and probably would be easy to figure out quickly. I was SO WRONG. Here's an example of how this annoying choice of Mantel's plays out in a chapter: There is a conversation between THOMAS Cromwell, Cardinal THOMAS Wolsey, Sir THOMAS Boleyn, and they reference THOMAS Moore. AND SHE REFERS TO ALL THE MEN AS ONLY "HE" OR "THOMAS"! Sure, you might be thinking, "Oh, well I have a general understanding of these historical figures and their actions/positions in history, so I would probably know who was speaking" You might think that...and you would be wrong! Since the novel is truly fiction, nothing the men say could be obviously attributed to a specific historical figure; there is no way to use history as a context. Not only was this a consistent irritation, but I found Mantels use of third person present tense to be somehow more wearing. I felt like her writing was constantly telling, telling, telling, about individual encounters between characters. But I didn't feel particularly engaged or attached to any of them. Her writing, to me, felt almost sterile, foggy, and dry as a Tudor-period piece of parchment, all at the same time. I put this book down 26% of the way through (according to my Kindle) and I NEVER put books down. If you are thinking of reading this book: my suggestion would be to read part of it in a store, or borrow it from a friend, to see if you are/are not irritated by her writing style. Bafflingly, others seem to love this book very much, and I respect that. However, I just wanted to give my two cents, as a voracious, curious, and experienced reader that I quite literally couldn't stand reading this book.
doodle
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very confusing. I gave up.
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2018Verified Purchase
Who's talking when? Too many 'he's and 'she's. Very confusing. Plus, there are many Thomases and Annes and it's not always clear which Thomas or Anne you're reading about. I gave up about 1/3 of the way into the book.
Jameson Parker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies, Book and Film
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2015Verified Purchase
Movies based on books rarely live up to the magic of the book. That’s not a condemnation of movies or the movie industry, but rather a reflection of greatest source of magic of all—man’s imagination. No reality ever lives up to my best fantasies.
Normally, I read a book first and then—if a subsequent film production gets rave reviews—I’ll see the movie. Occasionally, the movie will live magnificently up to all my wildest expectations; To Kill a Mockingbird is a good example of movie-from-book perfection. And occasionally, rarely, a movie will surpass the book. I thought The Graduate a mediocre book, but the movie was and always will be a classic portrait of a particular time and place.
Which brings us to Wolf Hall. I’m not sure how and why I missed the book. It won a Man-Booker Prize (Great Britain’s equivalent of the Pulitzer, though over there they might say the Pulitzer is America’s equivalent of the Booker) and then author Hilary Mantel turned right around and won another Man-Booker for the sequel to Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies. That is, I believe, the only time Booker prizes have ever been awarded to a novel and then its sequel.
Not only had I missed the book(s), but at first, when I saw the trailers on PBS for the film version, I wasn’t all that intrigued. Downton Abbey had just finished its last episode of the season and it was hard to imagine anything equaling that. So, a mini-series based on Henry VIII and his wretched excesses, told from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell, one of the king’s, ah, shall we say, less fastidious enablers… Ho, hum. I’ve read my history; I’ve seen A Man for All Seasons; been there, done that. But a Close Relative By Marriage insisted we watch, and after the first ten minutes you could have set fire to my chair and I wouldn’t have left. That’s how good the production was, and Mark Rylance, the British actor who stars as Thomas Cromwell, gave one of the most compelling performances I have ever seen: quiet, understated, absolutely convincing, and absolutely electrifying. So consider this also a rave review for the PBS series.
(By the way, for those of you interested in historical tidbits: any great English house with “abbey” as part of its name, as in Downton Abbey, is so named because when Henry VIII, aided by Thomas Cromwell, took the great monasteries from the Pope, he awarded some of those lands to favored courtiers who retained the appellation “abbey.”)
After the second episode I galloped to my desk and ordered copies of both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies for myself and just everybody I know, and as soon as they arrived, I dove in. Now I know why Hilary Mantel won the Man-Booker twice. She deserves it.
In case you’re even more of a troglodyte than I and you’ve never heard of Hilary Mantel or Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, yes, it’s Henry VIII and all his unfortunate wives and all those men and women who circled around the king and his court like flies around a corpse, but… But how much do you actually know about Thomas Cromwell? Ah. That’s the point. That’s part of Hilary Mantel’s genius: she has taken a famous and influential man about whom little is known and gone to town with him.
Thomas Cromwell is one of those mysterious figures in history who beggar the imagination. Acknowledged as arguably the single most influential minister (that’s minister in the political sense, not ecclesiastical) in all of English history, he seems to have sprung fully evolved out of his own imagining and will power. Even the authoritative Encyclopedia Britannica describes his origins and early life as “obscure.” Probably (no one knows for certain) born around 1485; probably (no one knows for certain) born in Putney, at that time a decidedly seedy suburb of London; probably (no one know for certain) born to a man who may have been named Cromwell, but who may have been named Smyth who was probably (no one knows for certain) a blacksmith, but who might have been a brewer or a cloth merchant or all of the above; Thomas Cromwell probably (no one knows for certain) and improbably somehow ended up in Italy early in his life; he probably (no one knows for certain) lived in the Low Countries (think Flanders, Holland, Belgium); and he was probably (no one knows for certain) somehow associated with the London Merchant Adventurers. His early history contains the qualifying words “seems,” “appears,” “might have,” and “probably” almost more than any others.
And yet, somehow, out of these inauspicious beginnings, Thomas Cromwell suddenly burst into history in 1520 as a solicitor (that’s “lawyer” to we simple-minded Americans) to the great and immensely powerful Cardinal Wolsey. How did a man from such meager beginnings in such a rigidly stratified society manage to catapult himself into the halls of power and the pages of history?
I stumbled across an interview on the internet with Hilary Mantel, and that question is pretty much what compelled her to start her journey. So that’s half the genius.
The other half is Mantel’s writing.
To quote Rudyard Kipling:
“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right.”
Doubtless very true, and who am I to question as great a writer as Rudyard Kipling? But some methods of construction are righter than others, and Hilary Mantel’s writing is breathtaking.
Of all the varied ways of constructing tribal lays, the one that appeals most to me is the kind where a master artist plays with his or her materials. Think Shakespeare. Think Faulkner. Think Cormac McCarthy. Think Hilary Mantel. The English language, so rich and varied, so ripe with multiple subtle meanings, lends itself to a kind of imaginative playfulness, verbal pyrotechnics, if you like, that amaze and delight. She writes in the present tense, third person singular, which lends an urgency to her tale, but she jumps back and forth in time, sometimes in a sentence, sometimes in a paragraph, sometimes in a section, using the mnemonic device of Cromwell’s memories to give us information about him and his past. But it is the oblique grace with which she tells her story that is so delightful. I will give you one example.
Bring Up the Bodies, the second volume of what will eventually become Mantel’s trilogy, opens with Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII out hawking. In Wolf Hall, Cromwell’s daughters have died, but he cannot allow himself the luxury of grief. He lives to serve the king, and as a minister to the king he cannot indulge in such distracting luxuries as grief or rage or love or hate. Whatever he might feel or want must be subsumed in service to the throne. So in “Falcons,” the opening chapter of Bring Up the Bodies, Cromwell and Henry are sitting their horses and watching their falcons, and a lesser, more pedestrian, writer might have opened the book with a paragraph such as:
“Cromwell watches his falcons plunging after their prey. He has named the birds after his daughters, and as he and the king watch from horseback, this one, Grace, takes her prey in silence, returning to his fist with only a slight rustling of feathers and a blood-streaked breast…”
And so on.
Now, consider this, Señorita; consider how Hilary Mantel handles the opening.
“His children are falling from the sky. He watches from horseback, acres of England stretching behind him; they drop, gilt-winged, each with a blood-filled gaze. Grace Cromwell hovers in thin air. She is silent when she takes her prey, silent as she glides to his fist. But the sounds she makes then, the rustle of feathers and the creak, the sigh and riffle of pinion, the small cluck-cluck from her throat, these are sounds of recognition, intimate, daughterly, almost disapproving. Her breast is gore-streaked and flesh clings to her claws.”
If you don’t like that, you don’t like chocolate cake.
Normally, I read a book first and then—if a subsequent film production gets rave reviews—I’ll see the movie. Occasionally, the movie will live magnificently up to all my wildest expectations; To Kill a Mockingbird is a good example of movie-from-book perfection. And occasionally, rarely, a movie will surpass the book. I thought The Graduate a mediocre book, but the movie was and always will be a classic portrait of a particular time and place.
Which brings us to Wolf Hall. I’m not sure how and why I missed the book. It won a Man-Booker Prize (Great Britain’s equivalent of the Pulitzer, though over there they might say the Pulitzer is America’s equivalent of the Booker) and then author Hilary Mantel turned right around and won another Man-Booker for the sequel to Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies. That is, I believe, the only time Booker prizes have ever been awarded to a novel and then its sequel.
Not only had I missed the book(s), but at first, when I saw the trailers on PBS for the film version, I wasn’t all that intrigued. Downton Abbey had just finished its last episode of the season and it was hard to imagine anything equaling that. So, a mini-series based on Henry VIII and his wretched excesses, told from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell, one of the king’s, ah, shall we say, less fastidious enablers… Ho, hum. I’ve read my history; I’ve seen A Man for All Seasons; been there, done that. But a Close Relative By Marriage insisted we watch, and after the first ten minutes you could have set fire to my chair and I wouldn’t have left. That’s how good the production was, and Mark Rylance, the British actor who stars as Thomas Cromwell, gave one of the most compelling performances I have ever seen: quiet, understated, absolutely convincing, and absolutely electrifying. So consider this also a rave review for the PBS series.
(By the way, for those of you interested in historical tidbits: any great English house with “abbey” as part of its name, as in Downton Abbey, is so named because when Henry VIII, aided by Thomas Cromwell, took the great monasteries from the Pope, he awarded some of those lands to favored courtiers who retained the appellation “abbey.”)
After the second episode I galloped to my desk and ordered copies of both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies for myself and just everybody I know, and as soon as they arrived, I dove in. Now I know why Hilary Mantel won the Man-Booker twice. She deserves it.
In case you’re even more of a troglodyte than I and you’ve never heard of Hilary Mantel or Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, yes, it’s Henry VIII and all his unfortunate wives and all those men and women who circled around the king and his court like flies around a corpse, but… But how much do you actually know about Thomas Cromwell? Ah. That’s the point. That’s part of Hilary Mantel’s genius: she has taken a famous and influential man about whom little is known and gone to town with him.
Thomas Cromwell is one of those mysterious figures in history who beggar the imagination. Acknowledged as arguably the single most influential minister (that’s minister in the political sense, not ecclesiastical) in all of English history, he seems to have sprung fully evolved out of his own imagining and will power. Even the authoritative Encyclopedia Britannica describes his origins and early life as “obscure.” Probably (no one knows for certain) born around 1485; probably (no one knows for certain) born in Putney, at that time a decidedly seedy suburb of London; probably (no one know for certain) born to a man who may have been named Cromwell, but who may have been named Smyth who was probably (no one knows for certain) a blacksmith, but who might have been a brewer or a cloth merchant or all of the above; Thomas Cromwell probably (no one knows for certain) and improbably somehow ended up in Italy early in his life; he probably (no one knows for certain) lived in the Low Countries (think Flanders, Holland, Belgium); and he was probably (no one knows for certain) somehow associated with the London Merchant Adventurers. His early history contains the qualifying words “seems,” “appears,” “might have,” and “probably” almost more than any others.
And yet, somehow, out of these inauspicious beginnings, Thomas Cromwell suddenly burst into history in 1520 as a solicitor (that’s “lawyer” to we simple-minded Americans) to the great and immensely powerful Cardinal Wolsey. How did a man from such meager beginnings in such a rigidly stratified society manage to catapult himself into the halls of power and the pages of history?
I stumbled across an interview on the internet with Hilary Mantel, and that question is pretty much what compelled her to start her journey. So that’s half the genius.
The other half is Mantel’s writing.
To quote Rudyard Kipling:
“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right.”
Doubtless very true, and who am I to question as great a writer as Rudyard Kipling? But some methods of construction are righter than others, and Hilary Mantel’s writing is breathtaking.
Of all the varied ways of constructing tribal lays, the one that appeals most to me is the kind where a master artist plays with his or her materials. Think Shakespeare. Think Faulkner. Think Cormac McCarthy. Think Hilary Mantel. The English language, so rich and varied, so ripe with multiple subtle meanings, lends itself to a kind of imaginative playfulness, verbal pyrotechnics, if you like, that amaze and delight. She writes in the present tense, third person singular, which lends an urgency to her tale, but she jumps back and forth in time, sometimes in a sentence, sometimes in a paragraph, sometimes in a section, using the mnemonic device of Cromwell’s memories to give us information about him and his past. But it is the oblique grace with which she tells her story that is so delightful. I will give you one example.
Bring Up the Bodies, the second volume of what will eventually become Mantel’s trilogy, opens with Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII out hawking. In Wolf Hall, Cromwell’s daughters have died, but he cannot allow himself the luxury of grief. He lives to serve the king, and as a minister to the king he cannot indulge in such distracting luxuries as grief or rage or love or hate. Whatever he might feel or want must be subsumed in service to the throne. So in “Falcons,” the opening chapter of Bring Up the Bodies, Cromwell and Henry are sitting their horses and watching their falcons, and a lesser, more pedestrian, writer might have opened the book with a paragraph such as:
“Cromwell watches his falcons plunging after their prey. He has named the birds after his daughters, and as he and the king watch from horseback, this one, Grace, takes her prey in silence, returning to his fist with only a slight rustling of feathers and a blood-streaked breast…”
And so on.
Now, consider this, Señorita; consider how Hilary Mantel handles the opening.
“His children are falling from the sky. He watches from horseback, acres of England stretching behind him; they drop, gilt-winged, each with a blood-filled gaze. Grace Cromwell hovers in thin air. She is silent when she takes her prey, silent as she glides to his fist. But the sounds she makes then, the rustle of feathers and the creak, the sigh and riffle of pinion, the small cluck-cluck from her throat, these are sounds of recognition, intimate, daughterly, almost disapproving. Her breast is gore-streaked and flesh clings to her claws.”
If you don’t like that, you don’t like chocolate cake.
James Williams, Ph.D.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Impenetrable
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2020Verified Purchase
I've tried three times to get past page 60 in this book . . . and failed. It appears to be written for someone who is an expert in English history, so for anyone who isn't, nothing in those first 60 pages makes sense. The characters are introduced by name but without any background information. We learn that Thomas Cromwell had a brutal father, but we don't know why. We know that Cromwell left home and went to Europe, but we aren't told what he did there. Instead, the book jumps ahead to his adult life and his apparent, but unexplained, work for "the cardinal," but the author never identifies which one––a problem given that England had TWO at that time. What a horrible mess, and I made the mistake of buying the first two volumes. Some of the worst writing EVER!
Top reviews from other countries
ND
1.0 out of 5 stars
It's awful.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 21, 2019Verified Purchase
This book has sold a huge number of copies and been made into a big budget TV series. The story looks great but honestly this is one of the worst written books I've ever attempted to wade through. I bought all three at once but gave up about a quarter of the way through book one.
It's nearly impossible to figure out what is happening or who is speaking. The prose is written in the present tense, which I find incredibly irritating for some reason and makes the book sound like a Peppa Pig or Charlie and Lola book. The most infuriating thing though is Mantel's habit of writing "he says" during a conversation between three, or possibly four, men meaning that you have no idea who is speaking. She also quite often uses speech without quote marks, e.g. "He says, don't be childish. George says, she is so a witch: the Duke of Norfolk says she is, and he's her uncle, he should know." I'm at a loss who the first "he" refers to. I thought it was Cavendish because that's the only name mentioned in the two pages before but then the following page tells us that "he would rather be drinking with Cavendish". The book is a complete mess and how this won the Man Booker Prize is a mystery to me, but it doesn't make me want to read any other winners.
Interestingly, I tweeted that I was reading a prize winning book that was impossible to follow but did not name the author. It took less than 2 minutes for 10 people to all correctly guess the author and book I was talking about so clearly I'm not the only person who feels this way.
It's nearly impossible to figure out what is happening or who is speaking. The prose is written in the present tense, which I find incredibly irritating for some reason and makes the book sound like a Peppa Pig or Charlie and Lola book. The most infuriating thing though is Mantel's habit of writing "he says" during a conversation between three, or possibly four, men meaning that you have no idea who is speaking. She also quite often uses speech without quote marks, e.g. "He says, don't be childish. George says, she is so a witch: the Duke of Norfolk says she is, and he's her uncle, he should know." I'm at a loss who the first "he" refers to. I thought it was Cavendish because that's the only name mentioned in the two pages before but then the following page tells us that "he would rather be drinking with Cavendish". The book is a complete mess and how this won the Man Booker Prize is a mystery to me, but it doesn't make me want to read any other winners.
Interestingly, I tweeted that I was reading a prize winning book that was impossible to follow but did not name the author. It took less than 2 minutes for 10 people to all correctly guess the author and book I was talking about so clearly I'm not the only person who feels this way.
Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dull and disappointing
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 1, 2020Verified Purchase
I must admit I do not understand all the great reviews for that book. I am not going to comment on the research work the author has probably done extensively. This book, by its topic and the age in which the story enfolds had everything to interest me.
The problem though is that it is incredibly poorly written. All the characters are lifeless, hard to tell apart from each other, the story is... uneventful at best. You hardly even know who the author is talking about, you always find the awful structure: "He, Cromwell, thought.." So clearly, the author is as confused as you are (and if it's voluntary for purpose of style, it's even worse). I hardly ever give up on a book after reading half of it. But I realised that when you put the book down to browse on your phone, you just have to face the fact. To me this book is a missed opportunity.
The problem though is that it is incredibly poorly written. All the characters are lifeless, hard to tell apart from each other, the story is... uneventful at best. You hardly even know who the author is talking about, you always find the awful structure: "He, Cromwell, thought.." So clearly, the author is as confused as you are (and if it's voluntary for purpose of style, it's even worse). I hardly ever give up on a book after reading half of it. But I realised that when you put the book down to browse on your phone, you just have to face the fact. To me this book is a missed opportunity.
Morgan
1.0 out of 5 stars
Almost unreadable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2018Verified Purchase
I love historical fiction and this book had excellent reviews so decided to give it a try. I’ve not read any of Hilary Mantel’s previous books so this may be an unfair judgement, but I found this book to be borderline unreadable.
The tempo is SO slow and the dialogue is lacking any real character, and so I gave up on it without even reaching 100 pages. Maybe it would have got better had I persevered with it, but I had lost my enthusiasm for it at that point. A real shame as it’s set in such an incredible point in British history.
The tempo is SO slow and the dialogue is lacking any real character, and so I gave up on it without even reaching 100 pages. Maybe it would have got better had I persevered with it, but I had lost my enthusiasm for it at that point. A real shame as it’s set in such an incredible point in British history.
Greyskull
2.0 out of 5 stars
Difficult to read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 13, 2017Verified Purchase
I have read a few historical novels set in this fascinating period in history, so was looking forward to immersing myself in another. However, as others have indicated, the strange narrative style makes this one very laborious and confusing in parts. I read for enjoyment, and don't expect to have to keep re-reading passages ad nauseum in order to clarify who said or did what and when! Most of it reads like a rough draft. Obviously a lot of people think that approach is fresh and vibrant. To me it seems inept, and I lost interest very quickly. Shame!
northernreader
5.0 out of 5 stars
Even better the second time !
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 6, 2017Verified Purchase
How do you review a book that has been around for so long, been staged and on tv? I have recently reread this book for another project, and been overwhelmed by just how good it is, and how reluctant I was to finish it. My previous comments on it revolve largely around how long it took me to read it, how tricky it was to follow, and such like moans. It is still a long book, an undertaking to read, and requires a new mind set to appreciate the new view it offers of a time, place and people. Diana Athill wrote “I can’t think of anything since Middlemarch which so convincingly creates a world.” As Middlemarch is a favourite of mine for its creation of a time, place and people, I can completely understand what she means.
Wolf Hall is a book about Thomas Cromwell. It is told from his point of view, but not in the first person. This creates a narrative in which we see the world through Thomas’ eyes, be where he is, know something of what he knows, but we can also pull back and see him, asking questions of himself as he sorts out the lives of others. Thomas in this version is a ‘fixer’, the supreme pragmatist who does what has to be done to whoever needs sorting out. His memory is a blessing in this work, but a curse as he copes with the loss of his wife and daughters. The loss of his family haunts this book, as does his awareness of ghosts of the past, those who lived in a house before him, and Cardinal Wolsey’s enormous personality. He copes with the women of the court, Anne, Katherine, Mary and the others that serve them with caution and sometimes confusion, seeing them as another problem to solve as well as possible actors in his scenarios. King Henry is sometimes a child to be placated, an impossible, querulous dictator. Cromwell has his measure in this book, but remains under no illusions that he must proceed with caution to avoid potentially fatal confrontations.
This is not a perfect book. It takes its time to get anywhere, and sometimes gets bogged down under the weight of its constant thinking, reaction and action, plotting and planning. Yet it is a human book in its diverse progress, the tangents and confusions that we can understand. Life in this period could be and often was short and brutal, and this book shows us how and why. Mantel has said that she was keen to look at the events of Henry’s reign through other eyes than the wives, the King himself, the minor functionaries of court. Thomas Cromwell was the supreme fixer of problems and situations. This book shows you how and why, as well as the human thought processes behind his survival and success in a dangerous time.
Wolf Hall is a book about Thomas Cromwell. It is told from his point of view, but not in the first person. This creates a narrative in which we see the world through Thomas’ eyes, be where he is, know something of what he knows, but we can also pull back and see him, asking questions of himself as he sorts out the lives of others. Thomas in this version is a ‘fixer’, the supreme pragmatist who does what has to be done to whoever needs sorting out. His memory is a blessing in this work, but a curse as he copes with the loss of his wife and daughters. The loss of his family haunts this book, as does his awareness of ghosts of the past, those who lived in a house before him, and Cardinal Wolsey’s enormous personality. He copes with the women of the court, Anne, Katherine, Mary and the others that serve them with caution and sometimes confusion, seeing them as another problem to solve as well as possible actors in his scenarios. King Henry is sometimes a child to be placated, an impossible, querulous dictator. Cromwell has his measure in this book, but remains under no illusions that he must proceed with caution to avoid potentially fatal confrontations.
This is not a perfect book. It takes its time to get anywhere, and sometimes gets bogged down under the weight of its constant thinking, reaction and action, plotting and planning. Yet it is a human book in its diverse progress, the tangents and confusions that we can understand. Life in this period could be and often was short and brutal, and this book shows us how and why. Mantel has said that she was keen to look at the events of Henry’s reign through other eyes than the wives, the King himself, the minor functionaries of court. Thomas Cromwell was the supreme fixer of problems and situations. This book shows you how and why, as well as the human thought processes behind his survival and success in a dangerous time.
