Mantel offers a detailed and fascinating fictional account of Henry VIII's long crusade to divorce his first wife, Katherine, and marry Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of the king's advisor Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell comes across as an intelligent and fairly modern man, willing to give more credence to the opinions of women and religious heretics than most of his counterparts. Something about him also reminds me a bit of a spider, delicately weaving a web of influence around him, and allowing him incredible power for a man who was born a son of an abusive blacksmith.
A couple problems I had with this book: First of all, most of the characters are men. This isn't a problem in itself, but when you have several of them in a single scene, and each is referred to variously by his title, nickname, surname, and first name, as well as "he" or "him," it becomes REALLY hard to figure out who's saying what. Eventually, it becomes obvious which "him" is Cromwell, but still... it's not easy to keep these conversations straight. My second beef is simply the same problem I have with most historical fiction that features real people: I just don't know where the historical ends and the fiction begins. I'd like for it to be clearer, though I realize I'm just going to have to accept the ambiguity if I'm reading realistic historical fiction. Which I probably will when I pick up Bring Up the Bodies. I just hope it doesn't take 7 weeks to read like this one did.
I had the same problem with trying to decipher who the pronouns referred to. It was even more confusing listening to the audiobook. The problem isn't as bad in the second book.
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