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    Wolf Hall comment on a blog Archived Message

    Posted by Joan aka HazelP on June 10, 2011, 7:12 am

    http://smithereens.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/hilary-mantel-wolf-hall-2009/
    Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (2009)
    June 10, 2011

    I had a love affair with Thomas Cromwell for several weeks, nearly two months, and I’m sorry we had to part ways (Mr. Smithereens, you needn’t be afraid, everything will be revealed in a second). I lived with him and shared his most intimate moments:

    I was there when he was a humble boy, beaten black and blue by his drunk father. I was there when he came back from Antwerp with a fine knowledge of business and of the new faith developing throughout Christendom. I saw him with his family, in his daily errands for Cardinal Wolsey, in his grief over the death of his beloved daughters. I smelled his wet woolen coat in the rain, drank bad beer with spies in Calais, ordered fine food to dine and wine ambassadors, admired with him the beauty of a tapestry featuring queen Bathsheba under the guise of a woman he once knew. I was with him in disgrace when cardinal Wolsey was brought low, I followed every step of his seemingly limitless ascent until he was the most powerful man in England beside the King, or perhaps even more powerful than the king. 1535 London was as vivid, full of lights, smells, noises as 2011 Paris. It was an extraordinary experience.

    I must praise this book as high as the many reviewers before me. All the more as I rarely read historical novels. This is one of the best books I read in 2011 so far. No wonder it got prizes and praises everywhere.

    Wait, no! Everywhere in the English world, that is.

    The main problem of the book isn’t the book, it’s the reader. Me. And the French education system, in particular the history curriculum. The problem is that I know so little in real life about Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, that I feel cheated out of the pleasure of reading Wolf Hall to the fullest of its content.

    The extent of my knowledge of Henry VIII is the information on leaflets handed out to tourists visiting English monuments. That, and the first season of the TV series “The Tudors” with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, which has avowedly taken many liberties with the facts (even I got that impression). So it’s decisively not enough to judge if Mantel herself too liberties (the web says no), and how did the events turn out after the end of the book (we are left just after Thomas More’s execution, when Cromwell is at the top of his career… but what with the rest of his life? What with Boleyn? We see her accession to power, not her downfall – yes, I am aware she was beheaded eventually).

    Nowhere in my school years was Henry VIII presented (or only his name in a list of kings), nor Cromwell ever evoked. And that, neither in history class or in English class (we were too deep into irregular verbs to care about much else). I only started to know something (anything) about foreign countries’ histories from 1870 onwards. Before 1870, world events didn’t exist much (apparently, the rest of the world was very calm while we French were quite busy with our kings and revolutions). When something happened in a foreign country, it was exclusively as a consequence of or an origin to French events. And that, I notice, only where we French played a positive (blameless) role. I never really understood until well into my adulthood that the French revolution had some impact in other countries, and why Napoleon was very much hated and dreaded in some parts of the world. I wasn’t taught about the Reformation but for its consequences in France, and nowhere else. The world vision this official curriculum gives (gave?) to children is so French-centric it is ridiculous.

    Coming back to Cromwell and Wolf Hall, you’ll understand my frustration. I read reviews and discovered that Hilary Mantel had taken quite an unusual stand in showing Cromwell under a positive light, while making Thomas More a heartless religious fanatic. I wasn’t even conscious that her view is innovative, because I had no preconception whatsoever of More and Cromwell (except that Thomas More is played by Jeremy Northam in the series, and I love this actor – ok, this is fully subjective). I took everything at first degree, and I loved it.

    Now, I certainly would need to hit the books on English history… Mmh, at my age, my motivation for studying has considerably dropped (all the more kudos to Stephanie for her new degree!), so perhaps I’ll settle for the second season of the Tudors? Or perhaps, someone can please point out a good historical novel that would cover the following years (Wolf Hall 2, the sequel??)?

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