He also used to say, it doesn't really matter what the title of the office is. Let any colleague on the council turn his back, he would turn again to find that I was doing his job.
This book is a masterpiece and the author is a genius. This is the ideal novel, the prose is slick, the story is amazing, and the author makes you work for it. There is a sense of accomplishment in finishing this - many people give up.
In our protagonist - Thomas Cromwell, Mantel has created a very admirable character, a fictionalized version of a real man who came from nothing and rose to control the court of England, he could wield the kings divine power as he saw fit. The conflict at the novel’s heart is straightforward; the king needs a male heir, and his wife cannot have more children and he cannot get a divorce because Catholic pope in Rome will not let him. Enter Thomas Cromwell, the right hand man to the kings current right hand man - the Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Cromwell spent his younger years in continental Europe, where he fought in French wars, worked in Florentine and Venetian banking houses, made a fortune trading fabrics in Antwerp, and trained as a lawyer in London. More shrewd, prudent, and experienced than the usual up-jumps who surround the king, Cromwell’s ignoble origins earn him the ire and jealousy of the court, who feel that they should be closer to Henry. The novel’s plot follows Cromwell’s meteoritic rise from the Cardinal’s office to the king’s inner council in the attempt to serve the king what he desires - his divorce from Katherine of Aragon and a new marriage to Anne Boleyn. We see the turn of events which lead England to break from the church and start its own church, with the English monarch as its head. Not to say that its not a very interesting time (the protestants were being burned at the stake everywhere across the channel) but this book made me realize that a good storyteller can make anything interesting.
Many readers give this one up because of the confusion caused by Mantel’s decision to use the pronoun ‘he’ instead of Cromwell’s name when invoking his character. The style takes a little while to get accustomed to, and at first, it is confusing who is talking - is it Cromwell, or is it someone else? There are instances where all the men are named Thomas, and you have to do a little detective work to figure out who’s saying what. If it isn’t apparent who ‘he’ is referring to, then it’s a safe bet to assume it is Cromwell; I learned that little trick around 200 pages in. It is an excellent choice stylistically, his low birth makes in invisible to the court, he can be in a room and will only exist when his services are needed. He only speaks when he is spoken to, unassuming, like a fly on the walls. Nobility does not see him as a man worthy of respect; you get a sense of that through the prose.
Mantel creatively uses devices such as dream sequences, fables, and flashbacks to enrich the story and provide motivations. She is also very liberal with her use of semicolons. I’ve never read anything with more semicolons, but she does it very well and in a manner that makes you appreciate her skill. She really pushes the upper bounds of using grammar to craft a voice. During the fall of the Cardinal (Thomas’s old master) from the king’s grace, Cromwell is hurt by the insults against Wolsey and vows a revenge. You don’t realize it, but I have not seen a finer tale of revenge. We do not historically know many things about the divorce, least of all the real Cromwell’s intentions and ambitions, but the vengeance for his friend and mentor is permanently etched into my brain. You just have to read it (and the sequel). As for the character of the English king Henry Tudor, in the beginning, when Cromwell is still working for Wolsey, the king’s mention evokes awe and splendour, but near the midpoint where the closer Cromwell gets to him, the more you see Henry is a man child who beheads people when he thinks they’re being mean to him.
Historically, the real Cromwell was instrumental in crowning the Prince as the head of the Church in England. Under Henry’s reign, the monasteries were dissolved, and their revenues were rerouted to the Crown. Cromwell was a progressive, he supported the translation of the bible into English, loved his daughters, and was generous to his friends. The Crown was busy burning people alive for heresy.
I read this novel many years ago, and it made me realize that a text’s subject matter does not matter, only how it is written. The plot was interesting, but it seemed like it was moving at a snail’s pace. It seemed as though events took forever to occur, and when they did, they panned out very slowly, and towards the end of the book, I wasn’t sure what the central climax was - Henry’s wedding or Thomas More’s execution. It was the journey rather than the destination with this book. Reading about the ins and outs of Cromwell’s daily life, his conversations with his family, friends, coworkers, household staff, and noblemen made a fully-fledged character that seems like an old friend.
The writing in this book is sublime. That scene in Amadeus, when Salieri reads Mozart’s music and loses his mind at how amazing it is, the scene in American Pyscho where Patrick loses his mind over the business cards, reading this book is like that but for 30 hours. It takes a level of talent, skill, and discipline to write something as fresh and memorable as this. This book makes you work - you have to pay attention. I feel like most books and shows and movies assume the audience is stupid, Mantel does not. The stupid ones stop reading and complain that it was too hard for them and write a bad Goodreads review and then go read something else. True literature lovers soldier on to experience a story from one of the greatest story tellers that humanity has produced. Of all the Hilary’s, Mantel is my favourite.