I love Mantel’s Tudor novels but I feel Louise is right – even with the defence that Mantel characterises George Boleyn through the prism of Cromwell’s biased perspective, there’s no excuse for portraying George in one dimension: as a use-free fop. That goes against the grain of depicting Cromwell as a man with literary taste, for one thing; George’s excellent and innovative poetry alone would have given TC pause.

A guest post by Clare Cherry lauds George’s talent in this sphere:

http://www.theanneboleynfiles……-the-poet/

EDIT: Although perhaps Cromwell might dismiss poetry (in this particular context) to be a merely frivolous pastime of the gentlemen surrounding Henry – and, in this, Mantel has a point of sorts – someone with good literary taste would ignore the source and consider the poetry on its own merits.

Yes, good points again, Louise. And that was an excellent article of yours.

Hilary’s personal biases bleed through the text..even her religious biases. Me, I love Wolf Hall in particular for the moments in which Mantel allows the reader to step away from the story; interludes like those mentioned below (from an excerpt of a review I wrote):

‘…there are sublime moments when we step outside of the story’s main thrust – Shakespearean or, more accurately, Wellesian interludes when the reader can almost see the mist rising from the Thames, hear the cries of the boatmen, watch dandelion clocks at play as they’re borne on the summer breeze – while Mantel has Cromwell’s thoughts tell us home truths that the sheer distraction of this world’s ‘show business’ obscures:

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman’s sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.‘

Perhaps I should claim instead that she’s an effective writer, rather than a brilliant one; for example, I didn’t finish Beyond Black because it disturbed me so. Anyway, Wolf Hall is too much of a love letter to Cromwell to justify its inclusion amongst the truly great novels of the age.