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Wolf Hall

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Wolf Hall

By: Hilary Mantel
Narrated by: Simon Slater
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In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage.

With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2009 Hilary Mantel (P)2009 Macmillan Audio Biographical Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Renaissance Series Essentials Heartfelt Inspiring

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I had already read and enjoyed Wolf Hall, but wanted to experience it through a narrator as well. I am so glad that I did! This is hands down, one of the best audiobooks in my library. Simon Slater is a marvelous narrator. Although it took me a little while to get used to his 'Cromwell' voice, it made me feel as if I actually was getting to know the man. For those unfamiliar with the story, Cromwell is the protagonist and it shows him as a man who is caught between beliefs and the king and with a huge desire to protect his family, pay back the nobles who brought down his beloved master Cardinal Woolsey and to advance and safeguard his country. In most histories, Cromwell is shown as a scheming, grasping man and Thomas Moore, despite the atrocities he committed in the name of his religious beliefs is almost always shown as a saintly character.

Not so here- Moore is a sanctimonious academic snob who bullies his household. Cardinal Woolsey is a wealthy and satisfied prince of the church before his downfall, but also kind and wise. Simon Slater's voices for ALL of his characters are wonderful, but he outdoes himself with Moore and Woolsey.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough if you are interested in history, religion and politics and learning the many different viewpoints of this time period, as well as a wonderful slice of how life was lived in the 1500s in England. Simon Slater is such an excellent narrator- I will be seeking out his work on other books. His voice, coupled with the excellent writing made me fall just a little in love with ugly Thomas Cromwell!

One of the finest audiobooks I have heard

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I am a fan of all things Tudor, so had consumed many fiction (e.g. Phillipa Gregory) and non-fiction (e.g. Jane Dunn) about Henry VIII and his offspring. This book is different from any I have read before. This is not just another bodice-ripping period piece like Showtime's The Tudors, it is actually beautifully written literature. A warning though, it may be difficult to keep track of the many characters without already being familiar with King Henry's court during the time of his separation from Katherine and marriage to Anne Boleyn. Excellent book all around!

A unique perspective of history

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One of the best stories in history should have been riveting. Although well researched and historically accurate, Mantel's insistence on using personal pronouns without a referent requires constant rereading (rewinding) once the reader figures out who she's talking about. Rather than a stylistic innovation it only comes across as literary affectation that detracts from the readers ability to become engrossed in the narrative. Should have been five stars with a good editor putting her foot down with the author.

Authorial hubris

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Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (2009) is a brilliant historical novel, an absorbing account of the first eight or so years of Thomas Cromwell's career during the 1520s and early 1530s, first as the lawyer man of business for Bishop Wolsey and then as an increasingly indispensable and close advisor to King Henry VIII. It is a time of seismic change for England, with Henry trying to annul his twenty-year marriage to Catherine of Aragorn so he can marry a younger Anne Boleyn to get the male heir Catherine hasn't produced, which involves bribing, cajoling, and threatening the Pope to get his sanction and then when that proves difficult, thinking about making Henry the head of a Church of England. Despite the fact that most people know generally what happened with Henry, his wives, and the church, etc., Mantel's story-telling skills, extensive research, keen eye for detail, and deep empathy for her very human characters make the history/story fresh and compelling.

From the very first chapter, in which boy Cromwell is savagely beaten and kicked by his alcoholic blacksmith father Walter ("By the blood of creeping Christ, stand on your feet!"), Mantel makes us care for the man who is usually the chief Machiavellian villain of 16th-century British history. Mantel works into her main narrative pieces of Cromwell's colorful past (running away as a young teen to become a mercenary fighting for France, living by his wits in Italy, becoming an international merchant and lawyer, and finally returning after twelve years to England due to a dice roll). In addition to looking "like a man who knows how to cut up a carcass" and possessing a body solid as a sea wall and a stare "the equivalent of a kick," Mantel's Cromwell has a retentive memory, facility with languages, practical business sense, unaffected manner, fine organizational and managerial skills, loyalty to his friends and masters, sympathy for children, women, and the poor, and knack for being in the right place at the right time with the right solution. He is also curious about everything from mundane matters like the making of French wafers to arcane ones like the making of a memory machine. As the Duke of Norfolk says, "Damn it all, Cromwell, why do you have to be such . . . a person?"

Mantel also depicts a new and complex Thomas More, here no Man for all Seasons idealistic and integrity-filled martyr for conscience! This More embeds spies into people's households and tortures and burns “heretics” (whereas Cromwell is sympathetic with free-thinking people), and is a hair-shirt wearing, pleasure avoiding, misogynistic domestic tyrant (whereas Cromwell loves good food and well-made things and his wife and daughters).

Mantel writes a potent, graceful, and pleasurable prose. Here are some of my favorite examples.

The sea: "He will remember his first sight of the open sea, a gray wrinkled vastness, like the residue of a dream."

The Duke of Norfolk: "Flint-faced and keen-eyed, he is as lean as a gnawed bone and as cold as an ax head. His joints seem knitted together of supple chain links, and indeed he rattles a little as he moves, for his clothes conceal relics: in tiny jeweled cases he has shavings of skin and snippets of hair, and set into medallions he wears splinters of martyrs' bones."

A numinous world: “The rocking of the boat beneath them is imperceptible. The flags are limp; it is a still morning, misty and dappled, and where the light touches flesh or linen or fresh leaves, there is a sheen like the sheen on an eggshell: the whole world luminous, its angles softened, its scent watery and green.”

Laws: “When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world and like spells they only work if people believe in them.”

Silence: "A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shriveled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts."

Sympathy: "Comfort is often, he finds, imparted at the cost of a flea or two."

British History: "It all begins in slaughter."

I suspect that Mantel could make anything work in anything she writes. For instance, apart from Cromwell's flashbacks, she writes her epic history in the present tense. And her narrator always refers to Cromwell as "he," never as Thomas or Cromwell. It can be tricky to follow things when she refers to a male character by name or title in one sentence and then to Cromwell as "he" in the next, but after you learn "his" personality and point of view, it's not difficult to grasp the referent of most of Mantel's "hes."

Why Wolf Hall? Although Cromwell seems to care for Jane Seymour, whose family lives in Wolf Hall, Jane does not play a big role in the novel, and only on the last page is he planning to stay there for a few days. Perhaps Wolf Hall represents something of Cromwell's own will, private pleasure, and romantic heart, all of which must usually be restrained as he goes about the Cardinal and especially the King's business?

The audiobook reader, Simon Slater, does an excellent job with the different voices of the large cast of characters, making them--male and female, old and young, aristocratic and common, English and foreign--sound like different real people. Among my favorites are his Cromwell (tough, intelligent, witty), More (learned, snide, superior), Wosley (John Geilgud channeling Oscar Wilde), Catherine (strong, sharp, Spanish), Norfolk (proud, merciless, choleric), Anne Boleyn ("unforgiving, hard to please, easy to offend"), and Mary Boleyn (sad, flirtatious, mischievous).

I recommend Wolf Hall to anyone interested in British history or in fine literature full of complex characters and rich writing.

"Beneath everything, another history"

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Wolf Hall presents a wonderful and unique perspective of Thomas Cromwell. Yet, while I have a fair background in Tudor history, the narration was very diffucult to follow, mostly because the characters are not adequately identified in their conversations, (which is bascially the enitre book). Although the narrator makes a notable attempt to give each character its own voice, there are just too many voices to keep track of without some help from the text itself. (the exceptions being Wolsey and More)

Of course, I mostly listen to audiobooks while driving to and from work. This book was just a little to intricate for the road.

Good book, but not good for audio

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This is just a tremendous piece of historically well-briefed fiction and it makes me thirst for the sequel. If you have the slightest interest in the transition from the age of Chivalry to a more "modern," commerce- driven England, and especially if you have a specific interest in Henry VIII and the politics of his court and its gradual separation from Rome listen to this book now! But even if you think you have ZERO interest in either of these themes, STILL get this book; it is quite simply the best piece of writing in its genre that i've had the privelege of enjoying for some years.

Just Amazing

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The language of this novel is so rich and atmospheric it was wonderful to hear it read aloud. It's about the reign of Henry VIII and his courtship and marriage to Anne Boleyn from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell and is very, very well written and fascinating. There is apparently a sequel to which I am looking forward. The narration was very good, although I must admit I had already read the novel in book form before I got the audiobook. I can see that it would be hard to follow the families without the pages which give the relationships, which were found in the beginning of the printed text. Still, I very much enjoyed this production.

A Feast of a Historical Novel

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The literary cognoscenti weighed in on this book a few years ago. There's no point in my trying to say what they have already said so well.

This is certainly the best historical novel I have ever read. The narration is excellent. the next time I have the bandwidth to deeply immerse in a novel, it will be the next in the series.

Deeply absorbing

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What made the experience of listening to Wolf Hall the most enjoyable?

The narrator was spectacular, bringing the characters to life with well-developed voices and personas. Also, the constantly changing array of faces and the constant dance being undertaken by Cromwell in attempting to stay ahead in the world and serve his chosen prince.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

He's capable of doing everything; what will his fate be when he's finally asked to do the impossible?

Any additional comments?

There are two challenges here: (1) there's some movement forward and backward in time, with no guidance or warning, so you have to sort of roll with it and let the scene help you out (the narration helps much to keep track of the players) , (2) there are strangely short pauses between scenes/chapters, so that sometimes you don't get a moment to process the end of the scene before realizing that you're now hearing the chapter title/intro text for the next. (I mean, it can literally be in the pacing between character chat -- "oh, so you'd say" "Chapter 4") An extra beat or two would have helped a lot here.

Really, overall, this is a very complex kalidescope of scenes enwrapping both historical developments (e.g., the Reformation and attendant heresy accusations), political intrigues (who's currying favor with whom, who can get the king the wife he wants), and personal exchanges and developments (whose wife dies suddenly of a seasonal plague, who has sympathy for whom, expressed or not). The narration is so fantastic, that I imagine it makes the book much easier to sort out than the print version -- I sucked it down in a week. But it is a tangle, and some knowledge of the historical context/events is very helpful.

An epic of shifting alliances in dangerous waters

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Decide what kind of book you're interested in before choosing this one. I'm not a frequent writer of reviews, but I feel strongly that this book is under appreciated. If you're into flowery, catty romantic medieval tales by Phillipa Gregory- easy listening- you may not like Wolf Hall. Generally when I listen to audio books, I do so while balancing the checkbook, cooking dinner, even while holding a conversation with my poor husband. I found that you cannot do that with this book, it requires your whole attention, or you will be lost. It doesn't go from point A to point B. It goes from point D to point B, A to C. And back. It jumps very quickly. This can be a little annoying, however the authors voice in the writing is fabulous. The dry, easily overlooked humor of the characters tickles me. The history is solid, and for once the book isn't about Anne or Henry, but about Cromwell. I wish The Cardinal was in more of the book, he was a fun character. I'm rambling. Anyways, the book is not a medieval romance. If that's what you like, prepare to be disappointed.

Decide what kind of book...

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