Ploughing through Wolf Hall

[Mushroomwithaview]

It's extremely good. Probably one of the best books I've ever read. But by golly it's long and complicated. I tend to read at the end of the day when I'm tired and I often only manage a few pages at a time so it's not exactly zipping along.

Can anyone recommend a similar book telling the story from More’s side? I’ve read Philippa Gregory’s books but I don’t know how accurate she is.

More comes across as such a sadistic bastard in Wolf Hall that I’d like to see the opposite view.

I can't think of a fiction one (apart from A Man For All Seasons) but Peter Ackroyd wrote a very detailed and sympathetic biography. Haven't read it for a while so can't recall if it's a warts and all picture.

Thanks, @MrsDanversGlidesAgain! Just found it on my library audiobook app so I’ve reserved it.

I've reread both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies so often that I could probably reproduce sections from memory, but I haven't reread TMatL since reading it when it came out. I think it's the least brilliant of the three by some way (though Mantel's 'least good' outstrips most writers' peak by a long way in most cases).

I think in part for me it was purely that part of the charm of the first two books was the fizz of following a character who is simply so good at his job/s. The man is on fire, managing to juggle everything, make himself obeyed, master great tracts of learning, keep ahead of court politics, learn several languages, keep on eye on what's going on in the kitchen, be a concerned and loving father and family man, be endlessly loyal to Wolsey etc etc.

Whereas so much literary fiction deals with failure, powerlessness and disappointed hopes, when Cromwell starts to slide, to be aware that his power is failing, he's falling out of favour, there are meetings happening without him etc -- it's a much more familiar narrative. And of course you know what's coming.

I also thought Mark Rylance (who I think is an astonishing actor) was totally miscast (as was the brilliant Ben Miles in the RSC dramatisation). Cromwell needs to look like a bruiser. You need someone who looks more like Ray Winstone.

I just loved all three books, though I think it helps to have a grasp of Tudor history already as there are such machinations. And so many called Thomas. I really liked Cromwell as Mantel portrayed him although everything else I know about him tells me he was a ruthless, although brilliant, thug.

I finished!!

It was just so beautifully written. Every once in a while I'd read a bit out to teenage dd and we'd marvel at the brilliance of the writing.

I still think that I didn't really have the energy and focus to entirely do it justice. I've got a lot on my plate at the moment and I'm shattered. Perhaps I'll reread next year?

I've got other things in my tbr pile now - definitely need something light and easy next, and once I'm ready, I might see if anyone is keen for a read-along for Bringing Up the Bodies.

OP you really should get on to Wolf Crawl on Substack as a pp mentioned! As a group we are not far behind you and will finish WH in the next couple of weeks then move on to BUTB, so you would have space for a break. They are really good posts every week and really explain / illuminate the background. I’m very much enjoying the read along. The idea is to finish the Trilogy before the end of the year and watch the BBC version over Christmas. Join in!

I have signed up for this, looking forward to it. Thanks.

I've been reading Tudor historical literature for a while and think that Hilary Mantel's portrayal of Cromwell has had a lot of influence on recent works.

Like PP, I also love the paintings of Holbein the Younger. There's a few in the Louvre that you can always get to look at on your own.

That's interesting -- could you say whose work?

Sean Bean is playing Cromwell in the Disney adaption of the CJ Sansom Shardlake books - I reckon that's good call.

That explains a lot! I saw a poster & thought that Sean Bean must be playing Shardlake since he was the focus of it, but it wasn’t at all how I’d imagined him. Cromwell, yes.

Shardlake looks a lot younger than I ever imagined him.

Well, SB is looking increasingly rough in recent years, but he still seems a bit of a stretch as murderous-looking, piggy-eyed, dough-faced Cromwell! Though, in fairness, a much better piece of physical casting then slender, scholarly-looking Mark Rylance in TC in the TV adaptation of Wolf Hall, who didn't look like he was good with his fists.

I’m listening to The Mirror & The Light at the moment & it occurred to me that if there was ever a Muppet version, Norfolk & Suffolk would have to be played by Waldorf and Statler. Although there’s no way Kermit could play Cromwell.

I have to agree, much as I like Mark Rylance in general. I think his presence is too quiet and sort of delicate.

Sean Bean plays him in the new series Shardlake, based on CJ Sansom's novels. I'm not a big Bean fan, but I think that's excellent casting.

My people ! I have all three books near me and sometimes just pick up a chapter. Saw the play MandtL , right after Covid restrictions lifted . Found MandtL a tough read compared to the other two . Hard to believe Hilary Mantel will never write another book. 💔

Finished WH with the read along this week. Excited to start ButB but sad to think this is the start of the slide… Love Manyel’s Cromwell - a man before his time - and don’t want to see him currupted or defeated.

Also been reflecting that Cromwell takes up so much narrative space as a character (naturally as we are inside his head) that you don’t really notice the psychopath (Henry) lurking in the background. Or maybe that’s the point. Aside from the practical angle that Mantel wanted to focus on Cromwell and bring him out of the shadows, perhaps Cromwell himself never saw Henry coming.

Someone helpfully recommended a sympathetic biography of Thomas More, so that’s next on my list.

@DanceMove I'm thinking Amy License and the latest Alison Weir book about Henry VIII.

I agree, and I suspect that's what Mantel means to show. It's a sort of Shakespearean or Ancient Greek tragic irony; Cromwell is so good for so long at seeing danger on the horizon, but when it comes to his own destiny he is fatally blind. And by that point a bit drunk on power.

I could ever get into any of Hilary Mantel's books.I have tried many times

I do think the Wolf Hall trilogy is a masterpiece. It's difficult to know which works will be classics 100 years into the future. Many writers who were revered in their own day are now forgotten, and others, who were barely recognized, are now part of the canon (William Blake, John Keats, Sylvia Plath, the Brontes, and even Jane Austen all died pretty obscure). I doubt Sally Rooney or Zadie Smith will stand the test of time. But the Wolf Hall trilogy will.

It’s just instantly apparent this is masterpiece level. I sat down to it thinking I don’t get how people are raving about someone writing about Thomas Cromwell. Seconds later I was ‘wow’

I think it's impossible to predict what people will read in the future. Historical fiction is hard though, it talks to its present and once that has gone its depiction of the past can date. What we love about Wolf Hall, the modernity of her presentation of Thomas Cromwell, an intelligent self made man making it to the top of a class ridden society, may not talk to the future the way it talks to us. The strangeness of Beyond Black may appeal for longer.