Books I've ready in 2010 3 - Wolf Hall

I started Wolf Hall as soon as I'd finished Breaking Dawn. As much as I loved the Twilight books I fancied a break from vampires and warewolves (OK shapeshifters).
So what could be more different than a fictionalization fo the life of Thomas Cromwell - Lord Chamberlian to Henry VIII. I started it and I have to say that I struggeled to start with - then it got to be 1st April and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest came out in paperback(see my previous post on Breaking Dawn about my need for books to match on the shelf) and as I'd invested in the first two books I really wanted to finish that trilogy so I stopped Wolf Hall at the end of the first part. I picked it up again though and I got really in to it once I'd started again.
Plenty has been written abou this book and it won the Booker Prize so it's obviously welll written. It took me a while to get used to the 2nd person narrarive and there are sometimes too many Thomases in a scene and it can get confusing.
My favourite parts were when Thomas Cromwell is with Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and Mary Boleyn. I have read "The Other Boylen Girl" by Phillipa Gregory and whilst both that and Wolf Hall are works of fiction I liked encountering characters who's story I already know and sort of getting to see a different side to the story.
The eponymous Wolf Hall doesn't reall apper in the book. Before I started the book I thought Wolf Hall was Cromwell's house - but it's not. Cromwell lived at Austin Friars (and yes of course I've looked up where Austin Friars is and I'll probably go and look at it one lunchtime - it's in that confusing bit of the City between the Bank of England and Tower 42). Wolf Hall is the home of the Seymours  - who don't feature as major characters. The action plays out before they were in the acendancy covering Cromwell's time with Cardinal Wolsely and his rise to be Henry VIII's right hand man.Whilst it covers the ups and downs of the King and Anne Bolyen's relationship she remains alive at the end.
I think books like this are made more poignant by the fact that thy are based in fact. No matter what is described we know that Anne Boleyn will be exectued, Jane Seymour will be queen and that in the end Thomas himself will eventually be executed by Henry VIII. I really liked it once I'd got in to it  - and it made me cry.

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