Summer Reading: Wolf Hall

I absolutely love historical fiction (the thicker the better!) so I was definitely looking forward to settling into Hilary Mantel's novel about the reign of King Henry VIII during the turbulent Reformation period. I have enjoyed other novels about this historical period (The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory is my favorite) and I thought telling the story from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, who rose from relative obscurity to become Henry VIII's most trusted advisor, was an interesting device. Alas, I have to admit that I struggled with Wolf Hall almost to the point of giving up several times. Honestly, did the judges for the Man Booker Prize read the same book that I did?  I actually have a theory that none of the judges understood what was going on and didn't want to admit it to each other so they declared it a masterpiece. I certainly did not view it as such! First, there is a bewildering number of characters and none of them have a distinct voice so it is extremely difficult to distinguish who is who.  This is further compounded by the fact that many characters have the same name (Mary Boleyn, Mary Shelton, Princess Mary) and by Mantel's frustrating use of the pronoun "he."  There were many times when I had to go back and reread passages just to figure out who was speaking. To me this is unnecessary obfuscation that could have been avoided by having Cromwell be a first-person narrator. Second, I had a difficult time following the chronology of the book because there are many flashbacks to Cromwell's boyhood with almost no transition. Again, I had to reread many passages.  Finally, nothing happens in this book!  It is all dialogue, dialogue, and more dialogue (which is not always a bad thing...if you know who is speaking). For a historical period full of sex, violence, and political intrigue I found Mantel's version to be absolutely boring. There is no drama, emotion, or suspense.  There is not even a climax at the end of the book because it just simply ends.  I think I continued to read because I was waiting for something, anything, to happen to tie together all of the disparate elements of this novel (I was thinking it would be the execution of Anne Boleyn or even Cromwell's own execution since he is not a first-person narrator) but it simply ends with Cromwell deciding to visit the Seymours at Wolf Hall. This novel was disappointing, to say the least, and I recommend that you read almost any other novel about the Tudors rather than this one.