Product Description

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2009 'Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,' says Thomas More, 'and when you come back that night he'll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks' tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27 in Books
• Published on: 2010-03-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Features

• New
• Mint Condition
• Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
• Guaranteed packaging
• No quibbles returns

About the Author
Hilary Mantel is one of our most important living writers. She is the author of eleven books, including 'A Place of Greater Safety', 'Giving Up the Ghost' and 'Beyond Black', which was shortlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize.

Customer Reviews

Worthy but no need for it to be so confusing
Have finished this book and am sure it's very worthy of all the accolades but I really found this quite a hard slog and I'm quite a prolific reader. The story is really interesting but I am so glad to see other reviewers on here that had the same horrendous problem of trying to follow who was talking whenever there is any dialogue. Fair enough to refer to Cromwell as "he" if you're going to stick to that and use it exclusively, but when you use "he" for other people during the same conversation, it's really confusing and I found myself having to re-read paragraphs containing dialogue (as a result this took me so much longer to read than normal and I feel like I've read it 3 times). Obviously am not one to comment on such a good writer but it would have been so much more of a pleasure (rather than a chore) to read if it had been either written in first person or clearer reference used as to who is talking.

A magnificent tale
Anyone who paid attention in history classes at school will need little background to the events of Wolf Hall. The key events of the story take place over just less than a ten year period from the 1520s to the 1530s. Mantel has taken what is, supposedly, Britain's best loved history topic, Henry VIII and his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, marriage to Anne Boleyn and the resulting split with Rome and has melded it into a compelling story.

She has obviously had some of her work done for her - the key dramatic events, characters, plots and intrigue are fairly heavily based in fact, but what Mantel has done is to breathe life and substance into the historial figures to make them loveable, hateable, complex characters. At the centre of her book stands Thomas Cromwell, a man from humble origins who rose to unprecedented power in England as Henry's chief minister. Cromwell is beautifully portrayed and his personal relationships, be they loving, tragic or political are fascinating reading. The relationships with Wolsey and More in particular are executed wonderfully (no pun intended in the latter case).

My only grumble with the book were that some events are included, but skated over in short passages and other events are included, but drag a little. This is probably an inevitable part of a historical novel covering such a long period of time; you can't simply leap forward 2 years and avoid the need to understand certain intervening events. However, whilst this slows the pace of the book in places, I enjoyed the book so much that it didn't particularly spoil it for me (indeed, those who prefer a fast paced novel are probably not going to enjoy Wolf Hall).

The book ends shortly after the death of Thomas More, and I can't be only one who wonders (and hopes) whether we might yet see a second, "decline and fall" book. I'd certainly love to read it.

Overhyped
This work clearly demonstrates the enormous research, and care, which went into writing it. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a tediously written, and overlong oeuvre, at 650 mind-numbing pages. The annoying habit of using "he" when describing Cromwell's thoughts and actions, but also when others speak in the same paragraph, has been noted by many other readers. There is a plethora of characters, many very peripheral to the main story, and entirely two-dimensional. Numerous tedious discussions, of a philosophical or religious nature, and mundane daily conversations, add to the ennui induced. A book for the pretentious intellectual, and "literati". The final irritation is that the title is allegorical.
Makes me think that the Man Booker prize is the literary equivalent of the Turner prize for modern "art".