Wolf Hall: A Novel

 

Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel

This is one of those books that I simply did not understand.  Not only did I not understand most of the plot itself, but I never understood the purpose. Ultimately, I simply can’t understand how this novel received so many positive reviews. I was simply baffled.  This is one of those books that challenges me to simply quit a book when I discover, after reading the first 100 pages or so, that I simply don’t like it.  For whatever reason, my instinct commands me to push through, and I did so on this on. I read all 600 lousy pages.  To be completely honest, I ended up skimming a great deal of this book.  Even so, it was a big waste.

Supposedly, this book is pushed as a “novel” of the Tudor dynasty. If you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s mainly the period of 16^th century England when King Henry VIII had all of those wives.  Such an account could easily be transcribed into a wonderful novel, as the details of Henry VIII were quite interesting (albeit depressing).  How many real-life events have there been about a King who wants to divorce his wife, and when the Pope refuses to annul the union, he leaves the church and starts his own religion?  And then, essentially commands all of his subjects to join?

Well, the biggest problem here is that the story we read keeps the “main characters” deep in the background.  We rarely read any of the interesting stuff that did, or could have, occurred during this tumultuous time with the important historical figures.  Instead, the author focuses the story on more of the common people that lived during the time.  So read an awful lot of common people, their common occupations, and their common interactions with other common people. It makes for an incredibly dull read.

True, some of these common people were major players in the Tudor reign (Thomas Cromwell, and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey get a decent amount of page space), but their day-to-day interactions with their associates and family simply don’t add any mystique to this poignant part of history.  So again, I ask myself “why”?

If someone wishes to learn more about this period in history, I would advise you against reading this thing. You’ll learn very little.  Plus, I would think you need to have a fairly good grasp of the history before you tackle this thing. Anyway, there are masses of true historic accounts and biographies out there that do the subject matter more justice and makes for much more enjoyable reading.

The only positive thing I can say after wasting so much time on this is that it was a “Kindle Unlimited” offering, so I didn’t have to pay for it.  Sadly, I DID pay for it with a lot of hours of my life.