Book Review - Wolf Hall and Bring up the bodies

 Book 1 - Wolf Hall

Book 2 - Bring Up the Bodies

Author - Hillary Mantel

Hillary Mantel won back to back Booker Prize for these two novels. This series is a trilogy but I have read only these two. The third one - Mirror and Light,  didn't won the Booker unfortunately.

The trilogy chronicles the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwall , a low-born, highly talented accountant who learns every skill of the trade, and because of his excellent diplomacy rises to the top and becomes Baron Cromwall. The trilogy is a historical fiction, it uses the real world events and then spins the world to make them unfold. The era is of King Henry VIII

The real world events are as bizzare as they can be. Take for example, Henry VIII married six times at a time when divorce was not a legal option. The first book begins with this - Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage with his first queen - Katherine because he has been smitten by Anne Boleyn. To make matters worse, Katherine has not given him any son, so no heir. Divorce in those times required permission from Pope and pope refuses to annul his marriage.  This puts England at odds with the Church and also other kingdoms of French etc.  There is a legal case to annul the marriage and the case does not go anywhere. What follows is a lot of political stratagems, many engineered by our protagonist Thomas Cromwall, to annul this marriage. By Book 1, this gets done and Anne becomes the queen. In the sequel book. Bring Up the bodies, the end result is known - the new queen has to be executed. How come the queen for whom all plots were created, for whom the king had moved heaven and earth to marry, ends up getting executed. Truth is bizzare. 

I have not seen or read anything about this Tudor history. I had no interest in this. Like all kings, they are mad whimsical beings, and with power comes corruption of mind. There is no joy in reading about them. But what piqued my interest about this series (besides the Booker awards :) ) was that the series is written from Thomas Cromwall's pov. Cromwall is the executor, his job is to make the madness happen. The more he makes it happen, the more he rises in the ranks, in the king's favor. One has to eliminate voices of reason to implement the king's wish. One has to conjure new rules, new laws, use money, force, trickery, to make it happen. One has to be really street smart, has to have the ambition, loyal folks around, and ofcourse a lot of luck to do the deeds.  This is the forte of Cromwall which favors him. 

Hillary manages to cover this in detail. This is why the book is amazing read. For someone like me who was completely unfamiliar with the history, it is just pure fiction, written with a magical prose. Hillary's imagination of the world is flawless. Characters are alive, their conversations are full of details, nuances, mannerisms. We are transposed to this world and while madness happens on the pages, it is convincing. It is well researched with some artistic licenses to imagine the rest. 

Like a lot of good prose, it takes time to get used to the writing. It is all Cromwall pov. Hillary is in full control here. She brings the past in as much detail as she brings the present. I liked Book one slightly better than book 2. More so, because of the originality there. Book 2, especially the second part, it just runs through. There are so many characters, all names Thomas, Henry and I got confused. Had to refer the list of characters often. Old ones die and new ones are introduced. 

One thing that I thought was not well handled was that this was also the era of lot of Catholic vs Protestant debate and England Catholic were at odds with Roman Catholic because the Pope had refused to annul the first marriage. Books touch some aspect of these but does not dwelve into this. Hillary's main goal is to cover the whole saga from Cromwall's pov. This helps from the book point but is not enough to understand the historical context. Also, I feel that it misses the bit on how much the religious context had influence on Cromwall's actions.

A note on history - For all the six marriages, Henry did not had a male heir and he was succeeded by Elizabeth I whose rein is considered to be a good era of English history. Elizabeth I was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, Henry's 2nd wife, who was executed. There is a history of succession here with some political maneuvering that follows here. 

The books had to be read for its writing and its imagination of historical events. They are brilliant.