Wolf Hall: A Novel (Wolf Hall Trilogy #1) -

Hilary Mantel

Picador Paper

2021

640 páginas

21h 20m

ISBN-13: 9781250806710

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

Resenhas (2)

3 (Bom)

You can empathize with Thomas Cromwell?

In slow, detailed steps, "Wolf Hall" tells the story of life and historical events in which the statesman is involved. It is a very well written and historically based book, with the intention of demystifying a figure normally treated negatively in the various books and films about the Tudor period, telling the other side of the story. But the author is not entirely successful, at least at the beginning of the trilogy - at first I thought that the book would focus on the suffering childhood of the historical character, towards the social ascension in the court of Henry VIII, but only one chapter briefly tells the childhood of the protagonist - the author tries to make the reader empathize with Cromwel through his family relationships and his relationship with Cardinal Wolsey (* in general I managed to like this other historical character in this book, much more than the protagonist *), showing it in a very condescending way; the problem is that the author does not treat the character considering its contradictions and is quite severe with other characters that are normally immensely empathetic to us (* Ana Bolena and Thomas More *). Hilary Mantel should treat all characters considering their complexities, without "wiping" one of them. So much historical research to put Ana Boleyn almost like Salome practically asking for More's head on a tray?