Behind the Scenes

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
New York: Henry Holt, 2009

I was predisposed to like Wolf Hall for a few reasons: a) I like Tudor history; b) Man Booker Prize!; c) despite all references in the novel to Thomas Cromwell being an ugly, bulldoggish man, in my head he looks like this:


Anyway, I went on a treasure hunt just before Christmas trying to find it at the library, and got lucky (very lucky: at library #3, it was not shelved, but sitting randomly on a table. I looked around like a thief to see if someone had claimed it, then snatched it up and got it to the checkout desk as quickly as possible).

I watched The Other Boleyn Girl earlier this evening, and the experience made me really appreciate Wolf Hall even more than I already had. It (the novel) is textured and complicated, and really makes you feel the passage of time and the machinations that were involved in the dissolution of Henry's marriage. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was a pawn. Cromwell is a sympathetic character, but not entirely. He is conniving, and lucky, and flawed. But you like him well enough, so you root for him. Others have written (no links - too lazy) about how interesting it is that Mantel chose to make Sir Thomas More the great antagonist in the novel, and how this is a gutsy move. I have always found More to be a little obnoxiously holy, so this set up worked for me.

What I still don't understand is the title. Wolf Hall. A place you hear about, as Cromwell takes an interest in the pale and retiring young Jane Seymour (oh, dramatic irony!) but which only makes an appearance after the final pages of the novel. Of course, it's at Wolf Hall that everything changes. For Anne Boleyn though, not so much for Thomas Cromwell, the king's right hand man. Unless perhaps that's where the end begins for him as well...

To sum up, the story of the man who rose from nothing to become as powerful as any man in England is as thrilling as it can be, considering the story has been told again and again, and we all know how it ends. It becomes clear how the forces of popes and princes - making history - are both unstoppable and yet easily swayed by those behind the scenes. I, for one, would rather be a Cromwell.