Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I usually turn up my nose at historical novels.  Why not just read an historical account? Or a rash of biographies of the period?  But when the main character leaves only his accounting books and a few hundred enemies in his wake, I'm a patsy.  In this case, it was Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel's British tome, Wolf Hall. Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2009, the novel uses rich, compelling language and gives the reader a keen sense of place.  Mantel paints the famous characters of Henry VIII's court in realistic colors--most of them not very pretty but always witty.  It's a brilliant attempt to get under the skin of the infamous Cromwell, solicitor and personal friend of Cardinal Wolsey.  Instead of going down in ruin with his master when Anne Boleyn made it her business to destroy Wolsey, Cromwell sidled up to Henry, finally making it possible for the king to set aside Katherine and wed Anne.  And you know where it went from there: monasteries looted, nuns begging on the roads, and the king getting richer every year.  Thomas too.

Cromwell was a butcher's son, of no title and no lands, who ran away to France at 15 to escape his father's horrific beatings.  The gentry hated him for having Henry's ear because Thomas had no pedigree, but he became a brilliant attorney and master of languages.  He had worked in France and Italy, becoming fluent in French, Italian, German and Latin.  With a prodigious memory and a smooth tongue (lawyers!), he became one of the wealthiest men in England, thanks to Henry.  He outlived two wives and two beloved daughters.  But the reason Mantel's book (532 fascinating pages) is so interesting is the picture she paints of the private man and daily life in the 1500s.  I'd always thought Cromwell unprincipled and power hungry.  His son tells him he looks like a criminal, which was part of his problem--men assumed he was up to no good even when he was relaxing by his own fire.  The Cromwell I met was shrewd, wily, and tough, but he was also scrupulous in his accounts and never faltered in his belief in the protestant reformation.  The harsh picture of Thomas More that Mantel paints makes it clear that Martin Luther was more than welcome as the one adult in a room of debauched ecclesiastics, self-styled martyrs, and charlatans.  The book is a love letter to the Church of England--from Cromwell's point of view.

Mantel's writing is sure-footed when it comes to the historical facts that are available from Cromwell's accounts, and she never talks down to the reader.  I had a rough few first pages with faulty pronoun references until I realized that "he/him" nearly always referred to Cromwell--a grammar "misuse" that made the lead character seem omniscient and and omnipresent.  A neat trick.  For anyone who loves history, England, or the Tudors, this was a great read.  Oh, and the title?  The last page of the book has King Henry and Queen Anne (with love already gone sour) going "on progress" through the countryside.  Cromwell is planning the trip for them all and is looking forward to a 5-day stay at Wolf Hall--ancestral home of the Seymours.  I can only hope the author is working on a sequel.