Hilary Mantel, WOLF HALL

This is a bold and ambitious novel that took me 3 tries to read--but I'm glad I tried that third time. I've seen other reviews that mention how difficult it is to read. Part of the difficulty, I think, is that the book is written in the third person ("he") but focalized almost exclusively through Cromwell (as in, the camera is on his shoulder and the narrative voice is like Cromwell's speaking voice--wry and shrewdly observant, laced with zeugma and understatement). At times this creates some peculiar grammar. For example, Mantel uses the pronoun "he" to refer to both Cromwell and King Henry, or both Cromwell and Thomas More in the same sentence. But once I became used to having to reread paragraphs to figure out which "he" was saying or doing what, I was drawn wholly into the story. Mantel's world building is as complete and elaborate as (dare I say) Rowling's for Harry Potter--and Mantel's breadth of knowledge is awe-inspiring. Yet because Cromwell's subjectivity is so complete, and the events are always filtered through his sensibilities, I never felt I was being served a history lesson. If you've watched THE TUDORS, you'll find all the echoes of vengeance and desire and willfulness and conniving. I'll read the next.