"Wolf Hall", a novel

by Hilary Mantel

2009 Booker prize winner

Historical fiction, a story about Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith son, who raised from a commoner to be an adviser for the king Henry VIII. In the opening of the story he sails away from England and the story at the age of fifteen and returns in the next chapter as a lawyer in his forties. Although snippets of the time he spent abroad are dusted throughout the book, it is never clear how, when and where he became a lawyer. At first a clerk for the cardinal Wosley, he raises over the nobles of Henry's court to become king's right hand after Wosley falls from grace and subsequent death. He is quick-witted, sharp-tongued and skillfully plays through the politics of the time, king's marriage to Anne Boleyn, split with the Papal Roman-Catholic church and many intrigues of the court.

Although I'm a big fan of historical fiction, and plunged into Wolf Hall with great expectation, I am left disappointed. I could never quite get into the book, mostly because of the voice the author used. The book is written in third person from Cromwell's point of view. Unfortunately, Cromwell is always a he, even in the sentences when some other male character already claimed that pronoun, which makes for a very confusing read and forces the reader to re-read the paragraph few times in order to understand which part of action is attributed to Cromwell and which part to that other male character. Here's the perfect example:

His hand beats, weakly, at the clean tabletop; and when he leaves him, 'Martin, go in, give him some wine' - he is still crying out, shuddering, beating the table.

The person beating the table is Thomas More, the person leaving is Cromwell, both jammed together in this clumsy sentence. This style is persistent through 650 pages of arduous reading. How was it possible that the book was even nominated, let alone won the Booker prize, is beyond me! (2/5)