Wolf Hall – Book Review

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (London: Fourth Estate, 2009)

The term ‘historical novel’ covers a broad range of writing. If it is not actually an oxymoron, it nevertheless contains a certain amount of tension between fidelity to the historical context on the one hand, and the demands of pure fiction on the other. This tension leaves open the possibility for varying degrees of truthfulness in both historiographical and fictional narratives (as previously discussed in this blog).

Mantel resolves this potential problem by opting for character, dialogue, and atmosphere, rather than plot. Character, because her story is told entirely from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell; dialogue, in a variety of registers from the familiar to the formal (and occasionally in smatterings of French, German, Spanish, Latin, and Italian – as befits the context); and from atmospheric intrigues at court to light-hearted situations at home. The tone of these scenes varies from the cynical to the comical, and from the heart-warming to the gut-wrenching.

Given the nature of her subject, Henry VIII and his ‘great matter’, the plot is involved and always changing. Yet due to its relative familiarity and recent treatment on the stage, screen, and page (not least in the HBO television series ‘The Tudors’), it holds few surprises. The more familiar the reader is with the English Reformation, the more characters, quotations, and allusions he or she will recognise. Mantel’s hints and Cromwell’s premonitions grow clearer and more blatant as the tale progresses. The book ends, deftly but predictibly, with a chapter entitled ‘To Wolf Hall’.

So it is character that carries this novel, and Mantel has chosen an interesting and unusual one. Her account of Cromwell is analysed very capably in Colin Burrow’s article, ‘How to Twist a Knife’ (London Review of Books, Vol. 31 No. 8 (30 April 2009), pp. 3-5). Burrow suggests that Wolf Hall is ‘less a historical novel than an alternative history novel. It constructs a story about the inner life of Cromwell which runs in parallel to scenes and pictures that we thought we knew’.

And so it does. Cromwell comes across as a well-rounded character with desires, ambitions, memories, and a conscience. He is capable of political ruthlessness, but also of compassion. Mantel offers imaginative insights into the inner workings of the mind of a powerful man, whether of the sixteenth or of the twenty-first century. The only criticism I would raise is that Cromwell’s cynicism – especially about religious questions – occasionally seems closer to the twenty-first than to the sixteenth century. The greatest pitfall in both history and historical fiction is anachronism.

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