Finally at Wolf Hall - and it only took 4 months!

I am about to finish Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. 50 more pages and I'm free. However accomplished the book, it was weighing heavily on my conscience that I didn't seem to be able to finish it.

I do appreciate it for the achievement that it is - and I must admit that there were parts that I was reading with full attention, even engrossment - but I'm glad to be done with it. Because of its large size (the edition I'm reading has 650 pages) and the fact that it's hard to understand everything without some historical preparation, the book is much more of a commitment than I wanted to make. Even though I've been reading Starkey's Six Wives for some time now, I

don't think I would have comprehended one chapter if it wasn't for my recent and almost religious sessions with HBO's The Tudors. The fact that I watched the show in French didn't seem to matter - I got enough history out of it to

appreciate the Wolf Hall and what the author is trying to do.

Wolf Hall deals with a part of the Tudor history from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell, the Éminence grise of the Henry the Eight's reign, who orchestrated a lot of the king's actions between the times of Katherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves (that last one was his undoing, but that's not in the book). It's a sympathetic portrayal although the author does capitalize on the public perception of Cromwell at the time as the devil incarnate. Here is my favorite bit, from the chapter called "A Painter's Eye", dealing with Hans Holbein's portrait of Cromwell and Cromwell's response to it.

Gregory stands at his shoulder. His eyes rest on the portrait. He doesn't speak.

He is conscious that his son is taller than he is: not that it takes much.(...) He feels such tenderness for him he thinks he might cry.

He turns to the painting. 'I fear Mark was right.'

'Who is Mark?'

'A silly little boy who runs after George Boleyn. I once heard him say I looked like a murderer.'

Gregory says, 'Did you not know?' (527)

While reading the book, I tried to see Cromwell as he was in that painting.Instead, I kept getting the image of James Frain who portrayed Cromwell in the TV series. Amazing performance. I dare say he affected how Cromwell is perceived now more than Wolf Hall did.

Alright then. 50 pages to go. Only one beer left. Can I make it today? :)