Already, with this first book, I was out of my usual comfort zone of genre. I have a, possibly unjustified, distrust of historical fiction as I feel that I would just prefer to read a non-fiction account of events as in a dramatisation I don’t know what to trust as generally accepted fact versus imagined content. As I am not qualified to assess the historical accuracy, as a novel I thought it was a satisfactory tale. Through the writing I felt as though I was peering over Thomas Cromwell’s shoulder for the duration of the book with a sense of immediacy and intimacy with the events and characters. However, unfortunately I couldn’t help but wish that I hadn’t been at Cromwell’s side for the whole time as the events and characters were rather tedious. The linear style gave a sense of the pace of the time, however, the endless characters were difficult to identify, particularly during conversations as it was unclear as to who was speaking and what their role was.
I suppose that from my point of view historical fiction is fighting a losing battle as to remain faithful to the history, plotlines cannot be interfered with and therefore it has none of the advantages of fiction, of the editing process that allows the story to flow. The cast of characters is ready-made and imagined conversation is limited by the actual events which have been documented.
Thomas Cromwell as represented by Mantel was a compelling character and she introduced me to an unfamiliar genre about a man I know little about in a well-known context. However, as a whole it had limited success as a novel due to constraints of plot and characters. All in all I’m glad I read it but was equally glad when I had finished it! Although I would quite like to know what happened next…
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