Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I love this. I can't say that it's a fair or neutral portrayal (I have the feeling that it isn't), but it's so gorgeous and poetic that I really reveled in it. I read the second book in this trilogy, Bring Up the Bodies, a few years ago (had bought it used without realizing it was second in a series), and I loved it then, so I'm looking forward to rereading it and seeing how much more I get out of it with the first one under my belt.

Some notes:

• This is essentially historical fanfiction, so you need to know at least a little bit about the world and its characters in order to understand and appreciate the story. That's not a criticism (I love fanfiction), but I did spend a lot of time Googling random Tudor nobles to get a bit of context.
• Replacement father figures are a MAJOR theme. Cromwell (in this imagining) had a terrible relationship with his own abusive father, so he's filially devoted to Cardinal Wolsey (who's become his mentor) and a bit too permissive to his own son, Gregory (who thus has a much more comfortable life than Cromwell did, but is also much less capable). He also becomes a surrogate father to every child and young person who comes into his house, so he ends up with lots of children.
• Mantel may have meant to set Cromwell up as a contrary example to Henry VIII. Though Cromwell lost both his daughters, and he has only one biological son, Mantel's Cromwell is a father figure to all the young people around him (nieces, nephews, apprentices, servants, colleagues' sons, etc.), and so he has many more children than the ones he personally fathered. By contrast, Henry, though he has two daughters and at least one biological son, is too self-centered and childish to truly care about anyone buy himself, so he's unable to be a real father even to his own biological children.
• I had the thought that the framing of Cromwell's personal losses was significant: Cromwell loses his wife, his daughter, his mentors, and his remaining sister almost all at once, so it might be that he throws himself into serving Henry with such energy after Wolsey's death because it gives something to do instead of facing his grief. For this reason, he also may be deliberately blinding himself to some of Henry's faults...
• Cromwell's eventual fall is heavily foreshadowed throughout the book: we see how paranoid and suspicious Henry is and how quickly he can turn on someone when he's angry, and at one point Cromwell's mother- or sister-in-law observes that Henry seems to be afraid of him.
• Though Cromwell starts out extremely canny and prudent and connected to his man-of-the-world upbringing, you gradually see him building walls around himself and his family and his fabulous mansion, separating himself from his roots and native social class, and as a result cutting himself off from his community. You also see him growing bolder in his actions and making lots of enemies...
• Anne Boleyn is a ruthless cold-bloooded reptilian in this book, which I think is a bit one-dimensional. That might be one of the bigger weaknesses for me.
• Cromwell's dead haunt him like ghosts throughout the book, sometimes seeming to collect around him physically.
• Of course this book is only "a way it could be": it's startling to realize how thin a foundation of historical documents the novel is actually built on. I really liked this theory of Cromwell's head, though, especially the idea that a big part of his ruthlessness was the cold and methodical need to avenge all his old wrongs.