Wolf Hall

hippiepooter

A recommendation doesn't come better.

YA

In the root all ills is intellectual mediocrity and ignorance of population.

Being realistic about it, means to accept that it is

1) not only socially but genetically determined
2) often declared as given, as something that can't or shouldn't be corrected, or even as a virtue
3) compensated in socium by low moral and injustice (exploitation of productive/creative population)
4) ALWAYS cynically used by manipulators

..poor schools and bad teachers, - one fixes that, one fixes everyhting.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Oh, Jesus, just what we needed - Thomas Cromwell as hero. Who next, Beria? (Incidentally, it figures that such an appalling travesty of history should feature More as a villain - after all, his and Fisher's conduct place everyone else's in their proper light. Nobody could possibly have treated More honestly or even with moderate decency without inevitably showing Cromwell as the monster he was. As for his iron will, read his final begging letters to the other monster who had made him and destroyed him: compared with him, the crawling of the abject Old Bolsheviks before Stalin are miracles of dignity and self-respect.)

anne allan

One scene in particular stands out for me. The description of an uncomfortable visit to Thomas More's house is beautifully contrasted with the idealised family portrait hanging on the wall. We all know the portrait; Hilary Mantel paints a very plausible picture of the reality behind those images. The edginess, fear and family rivalries behind that conversation piece are vividly brought to life.
Politicians' motives do not alter; the same types are still drawn into playing for power. All Speccie readers should read this book.

dearieme

It's a wonderful book; it also made me laugh rather a lot, so clever is some of the dialogue.

Augustus

Henry VIII's Reformation was a tremendous gamble. Cromwell's skill and industry, and the King's blustering could not have altered the fact that both men were skating on very thin ice. The country they ruled was a conservative one, as indeed was the whole world they lived in. In our own time, used to revolutions, changes in government policies, and new ideologies which sweep through entire social systems, it is difficult to envisage the shock of something like the Reformation which sought to change beliefs and habits unaltered for centuries past. It was one thing to change queens or to execute members of the London-based establishment. That had been a traditional royal prerogative. But it was another matter when the changes started seeping down into towns and villages to alter loyalties and patterns of behaviour that had seemed ordained by God and fixed for all time. It would have been easy for men to become uneasy, worried, and resentful, for Cromwell's administrative revolution brought not just the Church, but the whole country effectively under the thumb of royal authority. A rebellion, started in Yorkshire, and religious in inspiration demanding the restoration of the authority of the Pope was not successful. And the dissolution of the monastries and religious houses brought the
King lands and wealth more extensive than ever before with the royal authority emerging triumphant. He had carried England through one of the
great revolutions in her history.

Joe Strummer

Back then, The Blessed or Sainted Thomas More, or whatever The Vatican decides to call him this week, would have sold England and its people's freedoms down the river to the power crazed fanatics on the European continent without blinking. In fact, even today he'd feel very comfortable and amongst friends as part of our social and political elite in England who also wouldn't hesitate to do similar.

Roger Dodger

Bugger. I just order 6 books from Amazon. I will now have to buy this and pay for separate postage.

I am a miser so that hurts.

Thanks for the tip Melanie.

Fergus Pickering

But YA, if stupidity is in part gemnetically determined, as it surely is, then schools can't fix it. Don't buy into the Education trap. There are much more important things than schools and teachers have always been idle, short-sighted and (often) stupid. Not ALL teachers of course. But about the same percentage probably. Same at universities. At Oxford in the 1960s there were many idle etc etc teachers who delighted in giving lectures that nobody attended. And in the 1940s if Kingsley Amis is any judge. If education were down to the schools we would all have been doomed many years ago. Fortunately there are books and intelligent people to talk to. And intelligent ournalists like melanie. Oh, and My Bloody Efforts, don't you know.

Sarah

I bought a pile of novels the other day with an Xmas book token including this one - and now I'm looking forward to reading it even more. @ Fabio - wasn't More responsible for the deaths of many 'heretics'. And (apologies if this is too contrarian) I think Beria had his less awful moments - particularly if it's true that he poisoned Stalin. Melanie's final points (about Islamism) reminded me of a novel I have recently read by Shirley Mckay called Hue and Cry - this is a classy detective story set in 16th Century St Andrews and the depiction of life under the repressive Kirk invites interesting comparisons with, say, modern Iran. (The graphic novel Persepolis was another book in my big pile of recent purchases!)

lmda

Hilary Mantel's novels Eight Months on Gaza Street (set in modern, but pre 9/11, Saoudi Arabia) and A Place of Greater Safety (set in revolutionary France) are also memerising, terrifying and true (and even sometimes funny) and deserve to be more widely read.

Derek Pasquill

Another sobering sixteenth-century atrocity in the name of religion was the sack of Antwerp in 1576 and which became synonymous with the Spanish Fury.

In 1561 Antwerp hosted perhaps the greatest dramatic contest of this or any other age, when the region's dramatic societies gathered to compete for prizes. Commentators at the time thought it would usher in a new age of learning and progress.

However, a few years later Antwerp was a smoking ruin never to recover its former glory.

James Murphy

"Civilisation is only the thinnest of veneers." - 'Twas ever thus. Make no mistake - and at the risk of sounding a New Year gong of doom - the sorts who gawp at X-Factor and chant at sporting events even now constitute the modern recruiting lines for the mobs who laugh at the scaffold and the rack. Caused by the ground-shaking demagoguery of the age (Islamism, global warming, Marxism, etc), the mob is a terrifying inhuman wave that rises every generation or so to engulf culture, and once risen, like a tidal wave, cannot be turned back. The more deserving of all right-thinking individuals' support therefore is the courageous, ruthlessly articulate onslaught that thinkers such as Melanie mount on the demagogues. By exposing their idiocies to the sunlight of reason, she reveals the clandestine violence of their pseudo-philosophies, renders them repugnant and thus stop the ranks of the mob swelling. All power to her and the few others like her in this 'mob' age! PS, will now stagger out in the snow and buy the book...

Dave B

I was given a copy of this for Christmas. I seem to be in a group of one, but I found it dull.

Michael Sweeney

Joe Strummer says that 'Thomas More,would have sold England and its people's freedoms down the river to the power crazed fanatics on the European continent without blinking.' That other great catholic Henry V was quite happy with this arrangement - indeed Magna Carta and the common law had nothing to do with the Vatican. The past is a foreign country, etc etc

Nivaldo

Having watched "A Man for All Seasons" with such an impressive portrayal of Sir Thomas More character integrity, I am now wondering if I've made the same mistake that perhaps you are all making now...that we do not know how much fiction is mixed with reality but nevertheless go ahead and presume it to be true because the mixture is so well crafted...

PhilipH

I suppose it was inevitable that there would be a revisionist attempt to restore the image of T. Cromwell. I'm still more inclined to believe the image of him on The Tudors - a scheming opportunist ideologue who got his comeuppance in the end.

phil

I hope you are all reading or have read Stieg Larssons trilogy-"the girl with the etc" they are exceptional books which are truly hard to put down .For all those interested in Mossad ,Daniel Silva ,s works are riveting

Gerry C

I was given Wolf Hall as a Christmas gift and, like many, have found it to an engrossing novel and an outstanding piece of creative writing. Cromwell - like his later descendant - emerges as one whose will to power overcomes all else; but he does seem to have had a 'difficult' childhood, poor love. From everything else I've read on the Tudor period (as a Catholic I'm understandably fascinated by the period of the Reformation), Cromwell was a monster, using his not inconsiderable gifts to bully his way to as powerful a position as his lowly birth would allow. Sir Thomas More (canonised in 1935 and therefore St Thomas More since then - it doesn't change from one week to another, unlike political titles) was also a hugely complex character to which this novel, like Henry VIII, does less than justice.

Can't wait for Volume Two of the story!!

London Calling

Your slipping Melanie…must be the snow. This commentary is more appropriate in the Book section of the Spectator. I was waiting for your piece on Global Freezing and a photo of poor old Polar bear with a sun hat wearing thermal underwear…alas it was not to be. Instead you snuggled down under your duvet with a book on Thomas Cromwell instead…Hmmm.

Ross Kemp in Israel as posted already by Fraser today was an eye opener and very well documented. I wondered what you thought? Could peace ever be truly possible or will it just remain a whisper…some other time maybe :)

Ros

I disagree Phil. I've just finished the first of the Stieg Larsson trilogy. I found it pedestrian, overwritten, tedious and dull. It opened no doors and only emphasised that Swedes are into sado-masochism and like to bash their women.

Yet another case of hype. How clever of the publishers. I don't know if I can be bothered to read the other two. There's just not enough time. I've been recommended to the Daniel Silva though, so maybe I shall try him!

Sarah

@London Calling - weather and climate aren't the same thing. @Phil - very much enjoyed the first Larsson over Christmas (finally got round to buying it after an enthusiastic piece on Harry's Place) although it has possibly been a tad overhyped - the second one is waiting for me in the same pile as Wolf Hall. And I'm currently reading something you might enjoy - Val McDermid's 'Fever of the Bone'.

Fabio P.Barbieri

The last word about this age of filth was said by Cobbett long ago. To say that the scum Cromwell and his monstrous master have anything to do with liberty means to live in a world of lies. As I said, it is like saying that Stalin and Beria were champions of Russian freedom. Even Dickens, who was no historian, knew better than that. But then, we all know that truth is relative and that anyone is free to choose the "narrative" that suits them best. So please do go on on your relativistic, self-centred path of rewriting. Have fun. Only please avoid any further polemic against post-modernism, revisionism and pseudo-history. Anyone who treats Cromwell as anything but a monster and a gutless thug has no right to complain about others rewriting history.

McKenzie

It's just gone to the top of my wish list, thank you. You should do this more often.

Derek

Dave B I found it stodgy.

Kennybhoy

"What did I know about Thomas Cromwell before I read it? Nothing that I could remember of any great significance."

Aye and you will learn nothing about him and his times from Hilary Mantel’s grotesque fantasy.

phil

Sarah
January 11th, 2010 6:47pm thanks i will have a word with amazon

phil

Ros -it just shows how we all have different tastes .it is a good thing though ,otherwise we would all be reading the same book -so I will try again and suggest "winter in madrid " by hj samsom .a book that will enlighten and grip you with its insight into the Spanish civil war ,and change one,s views of who were good and who were bad -it has a good story line too .For what its worth the left were just as evil as the right and the position of the church will probably shock you -try it .

phil

Sarah
January 11th, 2010 6:47pm took you at your word and ordered fever of the bone :)-I am still plowing through stieg L ,s third -I DO TOO MUCH WRITING HERE SO I AM SLOW :);):)-ITS COMPULSIVE

Sarah

@Phil - it's part of a series but I really don't think (in this case - some series are different)it will matter too much at all that you haven't read the earlier ones. If you like it - give Mark Billingham a go.

phil

Sarah
January 12th, 2010 7:21pm I have so much to read and with my amount of blogging life cannot be long enough to cover all these books but thanks :)

caged vole

After his long stretch as an untouchable hero and saint (courtesy of hagiographer R Bolt) it was about time that creep More was taken off his pedestal.
Otherwise I don't agree with the stupid idea of history being taught by fiction-writers.
Bolt's partisan tosh should have been enough of a warning

Ros

@phil: I've read 'Winter in Madrid' and liked it very much. I agree with you that we can't all like the same literature. I even disliked 'Brooklyn' by Coim Toibin that was nominated for all kinds of prizes. Thought it a very lazy book! The problem these days is that so many writers write with a view to their works being made into film/tv.

Michael Ryan

Am greatly disappointed by what you wrote regarding St Thomas More. You are evaluating a very well-written novel. You acknowledge that you do not know how much of it is "historical fact and how much derives from the imagination" of the author. You are a great writer. My family and I greatly admire your writings on a wide range of topics. Your eyes should be opened in relation to More and other great men of history only by reliable historical accounts - not by a fictional portrayal. There is a wealth of historical documentation available regarding St Thomas More. You should be well aware of it.

Roy Greenslade

I rarely find myself nodding in agreement with every word of a Melanie Phillips article, but I agree wholeheartedly with her views of Mantel's brilliant novel Wolf Hall. I also agree that barbarity is kept in check in modern times by only the thinnest veneer of civilisation.

digbydolben

Anyone who thinks that a modern conservative view of Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell should be representative of what a true conservative should think about them should read what Benjamin Disraeli wrote about the English Reformation. It was a revolution, indeed, but one like the Bolshevik revolution. More was right to oppose it with every means he could.

Jonathan Palmer

Joe Strummer says that 'Thomas More,would have sold England and its people's freedoms down the river to the power crazed fanatics on the European continent without blinking.

Henry VIII wrote in defence of the Sacraments for which he got Fid Def. More advised him that the document implied full papal supremacy in England and Henry overruled him. Who was selling whom down the river?

Original Tony

Some dictionaries define politics as 'the art of deception'.

What's new under the sun?

John thomas

Some commenters refer to robert Bolt's Thomas More, in Man For All Seasons - surely Bolt was simply using the story of More, etc., to make various observations about power, corruption, deceit, coercion, and their opposites - which he did brilliantly, with almost Shakespearen intensity, and power of larnguage (and brilliant performances by Paul Scofield and Robert Shaw (often overlooked, this last - but surely Shaw created THE definitive celluloid Henry VIII))- but, surely, surely, no one thinks that Bolt set out to produce a historical reality, when depicting More, and surely none of his audiences seriously took his More as historic?