Review of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

This book is number one on a list of twelve literary fiction books that I want to read this year, and it was a fantastic beginning.  Usually I don’t like historical fiction that uses real historical people as its main characters because it’s so difficult for a modern author to get the characters’ psychology right.  But Mantel is so steeped in the historical details of her time period and is so skilled at depicting her characters’ motivations that she makes it all look effortless. 

But the subtle psychological details are only one small part of the beauty of Wolf Hall.  Mantel weaves in the details of daily living in a way that propel the story forward and illuminate the characters like the details in a 15^th century portrait.  As a consequence, you feel like you’re living in the period, and the details are never boring or a distraction to the narrative. 

But what I appreciated most is that Mantel understands politics at a level that’s difficult to find in historical fiction published in the US.  She captures both the political machinations at court and the toll that political scheming takes on her characters.  Take this example from an early scene in the novel when Thomas Cromwell witnesses the eviction of his mentor, Cardinal Woolsey, from his palace: “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…” (Page 49.) 

Or later in the novel, when Cromwell is discussing his own turbulent past with one of his rivals, the Spanish ambassador, Eustace Chapuys:  “But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain.  It is weak and anecdotal.  It is wise to conceal the past even if there’s nothing to conceal.  A man’s power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face.  It is the absence of facts that frightens people; the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.” (Page 294.) 

And so Mantel conveys a deep link between the way a man like Cromwell wields power, and the way a historian must sift through facts to try and get at the deep inner lives of her characters, which in the end always remain somewhat remote, vessels into which she—and, in turn, her readers—pour their fears, fantasies, and desires. 

Most of all, the author masterfully reveals how the world works, even today.  In the scene in which Cromwell must talk sense into Harry Percy and force him to give up his attachment to Anne Boleyn, he tries to make Percy understand that he might not fear the king, but he should fear his creditors:  “How can he explain it to him?  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 in 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.” (Page 309.) 

Which is, of course, the reason to study history and read historical novels:  because they remind us of lessons from the past that are still relevant today. 

But Mantel also understands the conflicts of that time period.  She’s been accused of doing what many historical novelists do:  imposing modern tastes on her main character.  Her depiction of Cromwell is of a man who treats women as human beings and not property, who is kind to children and animals, who’s skeptical about the existence of an all-powerful and all-knowing God.  But the final showdown between Cromwell and the inflexible Thomas More, who’s been imprisoned in the Tower of London, embodies the struggle of a rising middle class pulling Europe out of the religiously repressive Dark Ages and into a more secular, humanistic world.  The exchange begins with Cromwell: 

“I am glad I am not like you.” 

“Undoubtedly.  Or you would be sitting here.” 

“I mean, my mind fixed on the next world.  I realize you see no prospect of improving this one.” 

“And you do?” 

Almost a flippant question.  A handful of hail smacks itself against the window.  It startles them both; he gets up, restless.  He would rather know what’s outside, see the summer in its sad blowing wreckage, than cower behind the blind and wonder what the damage is.  “I once had every hope,” he says.  “The world corrupts me, I think.  Or perhaps it’s just the weather.  It pulls me down and makes me think like you, that one should shrink inside, down and down to a little point of light, preserving one’s solitary soul like a flame under glass…”  (Pages 519-520.) 

And this is what elevates Wolf Hall to the level of art; the fact that it works on so many levels makes it one of the best novels I’ve read in years.  I can’t remember reading a modern historical novel this good.