Wolf Hall (2009)

I was bored stiff with this book. ( )

Never enjoyed a historical novel more. Looking forward to the second and third volumes. ( )

Spectacular!!
This is an extraordinary fictionalized account of Thomas Cromwell’s service at the court of Henry VIII, the Tudor king who claimed his twenty-year marriage was cursed by God – and who shook the foundations of the Holy Roman Empire when he disobeyed the pope and divorced his wife.
Cromwell is by turns brilliant and witty, a schemer, a bully, and a man of deep character, who must navigate his way carefully through Henry’s mercurial reign – and that of his new wife, the tiny but fierce Anne Boleyn.
And Anne almost always gets her way. ( )

Not sure why this book is so lauded. A mediocre read in my opinion. ( )

A coworker of mine was raving about this book so I figured, why not? I do love myself some Tudor historical fiction.

All of what I've read up til now has been from the point of view of someone related to the royal family--The Lady in the Tower; Mary, Bloody Mary; Beware, Princess Elizabeth; Elizabeth I: Red Rose of the House of Tudor, England; and The Other Boleyn Girl, to name those that come most readily to mind--so this was a refreshing break. I only wish I remembered more about how Thomas Cromwell was presented in those books so I could compare them!

Cromwell is a mystery to many of the people he meets. His first employer in the book, Cardinal Wolsey, makes up scandalous pasts that turn into urban legends that follow Cromwell for the rest of his life. My pet theory is that the unusual, pervasive use of "he" rather than "Thomas" or "Cromwell" is done in part to reflect the fact that he keeps his past such a mystery--the confusion of identity that can come when the (many, many, many) male characters are speaking to each other reflects everyone's confusion over Cromwell's identity. I might say, "maybe even Cromwell's," but he's actually a remarkably introspective and self-assured man; quite a refreshing change from everyone in The Other Boleyn Girl.

I don't know my English history well enough to know if he was truly the first to come from such humble origins and rise so far through his own intelligence and ambition, but he was certainly unusual for the time. Cromwell's ability to fit in among tradesmen, merchants, courtiers, and kings is reflected with the pronoun sleight-of-hand. When you can't tell whether the person speaking is Cromwell or any one of those others, you really underscore his versatility and wide-ranging intelligence (book smarts and street smarts).

Also possibly related to his strange social position is the way the Duke of Norfolk can think of no better word to describe Cromwell than "you person"--as though this is an insult (p175, quote below). Anne Boleyn also has this word thrown her way. While this seems almost nice in an egalitarian kind of way to me, and I think Cromwell the character appreciates it, I think the attempted insult lies in that Norfolk is saying Cromwell is no better than anybody else. "Person" almost seems to tie to "peasant" for Cromwell, though for Anne perhaps it's more "English, the usual" as opposed to "the foreign princess we expect."

One thing that occurred to me for the first time as I read this book was that, well, for all King Henry was in many ways a horrible human being, he never forced himself on Anne. The fact amazed me in contrast to the treatment that her sister, Mary Boleyn, receives at his hands--being denied a husband so that Henry can keep her around the court for amusement while his new wife is pregnant. Needless to say, this one instance of decent human behavior on Henry's part did not make me warm to him at all. If anything, it only made me disrespect him more. It's strange, but the only book I can think of that played Henry as a straight-up villain was Mary, Bloody Mary--and the reason behind his villainy there is fairly obvious.

It seems remarkable (and a sign of our times) that while Henry can receive sympathy and admiration even in books where his indifference and cruelty are striking, Anne Boleyn almost always comes across as a scheming bitch. I use the word because I'm reminded of the "Brett-the-bitch" school of thought about the only female character in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Critics in this school interpret everything Brett does through the idea that she's manipulative, cruel, and selfish, denying her any feeling or humanity. I feel like that's often the case with Anne, though I did get flashes of sympathy for her from Cromwell's perspective.

I suppose I'll get a better idea of her handling in the sequel, when we'll see Anne's fall from favor. It still shocks me that Henry could execute Anne after three years when he spent seven fighting to marry her--I'll be interested to see how Mantel and her Cromwell handle it.

Quote Roundup

(8) What is clear is his thought about Walter: I've had enough of this. If he gets after me again I'm going to kill him, and if I kill him they'll hang me, and if they're going to hang me I want a better reason.

(36) He never sees More [...] without wanting to ask him, what's wrong with you? Or what's wrong with me? Why does everything you know, everything you learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more. With every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world: and the next world too. Show me where it says, in the Bible, "Purgatory." Show me where it says "relics, monks, nuns." Show me where it says "Pope."

(54) Christ, he thinks, by my age I ought to know. You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.

(70) The trouble with England, he thinks, is that it's so poor in gesture. We shall have to develop a hand signal for "Back off, our prince is fucking this man's daughter." He is surprised the Italians have not done it. Though perhaps they have, and he just never caught on.

(85) "Men say," Liz reaches for her scissors, " 'I can't endure it when women cry'--just as people say, 'I can't endure this wet weather.' As if it were nothing to do with the men at all, the crying. Just one of those things that happen."

(109) There cannot be new things in England. There can be old things freshly presented, or new things that pretend to be old. To be trusted, new men must forge themselves an ancient pedigree, like Walter's, or enter into the service of ancient families. Don't try to go it alone, or they'll think you're pirates.

(175) The duke stabs a forefinger into his shoulder. "You...person," he says.

(216) "[Wriothesley/Call-Me-Risley] wants to know what he can learn from...whatever it is you call yourself, these days."
"A person," he says placidly. "The Duke of Norfolk says I'm a person."

(231) "Jo may go to bed."
"Oh, we are not going to bed. We are running Gregory's greyhounds up and down the hall and making a noise fit to wake the dead."
"I can see why you don't want to break off."
"Yes, it is excellent," Alice says. "We have the manners of scullery maids and no one will every want to marry us. If our aunt Mercy had behaved like us when she was a girl, she would have been knocked round the head till she bled from the ears."
"Then we live in happy times," he says.
When she has gone, and the door is closed behind her, Cranmer says, "The children are not whipped?"
"We try to teach them by example, as Erasmus suggests, though we all like to race the dogs up and down and make a noise, so we are not doing very well in that regard."

(255) "By why now?" Henry says, reasonable enough. "Why does he come back now? I have been king for twenty years."
He bites back the temptation to say, because you are forty and he is telling you to grow up.

(268) "He means to hunt out of Chertsey for a few days."
"With the woman," Mary says. "The person."

(269) "They say you had a trade as a blacksmith; is that correct?"
"It was my father's trade."
"I begin to understand you." She nods. "The blacksmith makes hs own tools."

(271) "I said, you give way to the king's requests. You open the way to his desires. That is what a courtier does. Now, understand this: it is impossible that Henry should require me or any other person to harm the queen. What is he, a monster? Even now he has affection for her; how could he not? And he has a soul he hopes may be saved. He confesses every day to one or another of his chaplains. Do you think the Emperor does so much, or King Francis? Henry's heart, I assure you, is a heart full of feeling; and Henry's soul, I swear, is the most scrutinized soul in Christendom."

(288) "You said the mirrors were the worst. Not to be able to look at yourself."
"Yes. Well, so I think. I hope I can always look myself in the face."

(306) One tradesman the same as the next? Not in the real world. Any many with a steady hand and a cleaver can call himself a butcher; but without the smith, where does he get that cleaver?

(323) "I believe any woman who can say no to the King of England and keep on saying it, has the wit to say no to any number of men, including you, including Harry Percy, including anyone else she may choose to torment for her own sport while she is arranging her career in the way it suits her."

(349) How can he explain? The world is not run from where he thinks. Not from his border fortresses, not even from Whitehall. The world is run from Antwerp, from Florence, from places he has never imagined; from Lisbon, from where the ships with sails of silk drift west and are burned up by the sun. Not from castle walls, but from countinghouses, not by the call of the bugle but by the click of the abacus, not by the grate and click of the mechanism of the gun but by the scrape of the pen on the page of the promissory note that pays for the gun and the gunsmith and the powder and shot.

(405) Henry calls down to them, from the walls, "Come up here, sir, see the prospect of my river."
"Do you wonder I shake?" the Frenchman says with passion. "Do you wonder I tremble before him? My river. My city. My salvation, cut out and embroidered just for me. My personally tailored English god."

(405) You could watch Henry every day for a decade and not see the same thing. Choose your prince: he admires Henry more and more. Sometimes he seems hapless, sometimes feckless, sometimes a child, sometimes a master of his trade. Sometimes he seems an artist, in the way his eye ranges over his work; sometimes his hand moves and he doesn't seem to see it move. If he had been called to a lower station in life, he could have been a traveling player, and leader of his troupe.

(474) He thinks, Gregory is all he should be. He is everything I have a right to hope for: his openness, his gentleness, the reserve and consideration with which he holds back his thoughts till he has framed them. He feels such tenderness for him he thinks he might cry.

(496) The gentlemen of England apply for places in his household now, for their sons and nephews and wards, thinking they will learn statecraft with him, how to write a secretary's hand and deal with translation from abroad, and what books one ought to read to be a courtier. He takes it seriously, the trust placed in him; he takes gently from the hands of these noisy young persons their daggers, their pens, and he talks to them, fining out what they are really worth, what they value and would value under duress. You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do. ( )