Reader’s Recommendation: Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall is the historic adventure book which raps you upside the head and drags you along with it. Like The Count of Monte Cristo, or Anna Karenina, every casual indifference is displayed right beside tragedy, unclear where a thought begins, or a scathing judgement heard.

I don’t fully understand how, but many great writers share this alchemy of weaving empathy and engagement from a wide-open world, families and peoples beside the cruel, political and tragic. An uncaring world which will carry on, with guaranteed peculiarity few comment upon or notice. People rarely admit it in life, but a book shows you relatable moments, where yes, most don’t give a damn. Yes, you can go where you please. Yes, your mad dreams may work. I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt a cold night not knowing where the hell I will walk but down a road, and a story that weaves a tatty, tenacious mind into intrigue half comes from the human spirit, and half from the soul. It is not so much the Tudor time in Mantel’s books that makes Thomas Cromwell fantastic; Thomas is written as the man that would drag all sorts to him no matter where he stumbled.

It's a dense, intricate novel written with consummate skill. Ignore how big they are, the door stopper pulls you in and won’t let go. There are small books that take months, and ones like this that you’ll read as fast as you can read a book, I imagine the literary equivalent of ‘binge watching’ a series. The odd style, a playfulness with dialogue does make it a puzzle, but I suspect Mantel wanted to be different in the format of her novel, and this be a novel way to stress age without reverting entirely to Early Modern English. It’s fascinating that a book both invokes modern ideas of wittiness, reminds us of the past, yet keeps the evident differences right before our eyes.

The feeling of this story, its pervasive human atmosphere of memory, symbolism and the subconscious reminds me of the mindscapes within Silent Hill, and the poetry of Robert Frost. While certainly detailing rich meals, royalty, largess and culture, as with life it is intrinsically linked with miserliness, loneliness, fretfulness and making something of the mundane or risky.

The richness of scene is like nothing else, it breathes this period of history like nothing else, whether because of the level of research or Mantel’s consummate skill. And I will associate the reality with this literature forevermore. When I say rich, I mean in the sense of place, time and object. It would be a disservice to mention how inventive it becomes, the exact nature of vellum, a prayer book, a ring or the halls of royalty which can be gifted or ripped away at whim. The clog of blood or the curtesy of truly noble ladies, it is all here and like the Sherlock Holmes stories such energy and cognition is fired into the brain that you want to read faster, write faster, contemplate how you act with those you have a passion for, which enemies in your midst can be dodged or tackled.

Wolf Hall is a labyrinthine novel, befitting the mazes and libraries of source material, period setting, and gears of a mysterious and ingenious protagonist’s mind.

I have never read a book that conveyed bereavement and loss so realistically, the nature of love. True, familial love. All the things most elusive, what truly matters. Not what we profess to love, but actually love. It lingered with me so strongly I felt my heart ache getting through certain sections, and resolved to think very hard and with a sense of solace that it’s articulated how connections linger with us and remain in so many immortal ways.

A modern classic, I am very pleased with Wolf Hall; and I believe any reader interested in Tudor England, a sharp wit, or enjoying a bullish, brute character who melds refinement into his conniving character would never be at a loss with this book. To date it is the deepest novel I have ever written, a literary tapestry that will be studied for centuries to come.

Reference:

Mantel, H. Wolf Hall. 4th Estate, London. 2019.