Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall

by Mallory Ortberg · April 8, 2015

wolvesWOLF HALL 

HENRY VIII: who let all these dang wolves in my hall

WOLF IN TUDOR HAT: aaroo

***

THOMAS CROMWELL: Thomas More
you stand at risk of losing your head
do you or do you not affirm the Act of Succession, the coronation of Anne Boleyn, and the king’s right to annul his illegal marriage to his sister-in-law Catherine?

THOMAS MORE: bawoo

***

SIR THOMAS AUDLEY: what say you council members
how shall we deal with the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace?

COUNCIL MEMBERS: [exert crushing pressure of 1,500 psi with their jaws as they tear into a musk ox]

SIR THOMAS AUDLEY: gentlemen please
I must have an answer

COUNCIL MEMBERS: scrmmfllscrmscrm

***

THOMAS CROMWELL: if anyone can contract the king’s annulment from Lady Catherine
it is I, Thomas Cromwell
born the son of a blacksmith
now the Lord Privy Seal
keeper of the king’s confidences
able to detect the scent of prey upwind from three kilometers off

***

KING HENRY VIII: let us break with Rome
what say you to that, my lady

ANNE BOLEYN: rrrr

KING HENRY VIII: good girl
good Anne Boleyn

ANNE BOLEYN: rrr rrr rr

HENRY VIII: sh sh sh
there now
we’ll defy the Pope first thing in the morning

ANNE BOLEYN: rr

WOLF HALL

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54 Comments

  2. osutein +177

    Now I really want a Disney animated version of WOLF HALL in the style of their ROBIN HOOD, only instead of foxes, everyone is a wolf, except Thomas Cromwell, who is still a fox.

    1. meanchelled +62

      but for real where is the disney everyone-is-animals and sketchy-pencil-animation renaissance

  4. evieskye +99

    I keep calling it Wolf of Wolf Hall (ala Wind in the Willows) just to irritate my friend.

    1. Liz +48

      The idea of Wolf Ann Boleyn tearing Henry to pieces is (oddly) one of the better scenarios for everyone involved. And as a bonus: werewolf Elizabeth I.

      1. projectbeks +22

        Would absolutely watch the hell out of a werewolf version of both Elizabeth movies.

  6. damanoid +89

    This helps to explain the emphasis on submissive urination in More’s Utopia.

    Also the weird digression about genital locking, and the chapter about why ravens are jerks.

    1. RocktheDebit +14

      Don’t forget the bit where children are shamed into giving up shiny rocks by comparisons to magpies.

  8. thebellewitch +31

    I completely coincidentally picked up Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies right before all these miniseries and Broadway shows came out, so it’s like the whole internet/arts media is in my brain. I love it.

    Relevant (?): There’s a city park in my hometown that has captive/rescue wolves, and they periodically feed them whole road-killed deer. Now that is a sight.

  11. Es_Petal +11

    BTW, did anyone else really fancy Mark Rylance by the end of the series? Only in character, it turns out, I watched interviews with him afterwards and there was not a stirring.

    1. freshwaterpearl +31

      For myself I feel a great fondness for Mark Rylance that is based entirely on his Tony acceptance speeches. (He’s very good in what I’ve seen so far of the Wolf Hall series, but the fondness pre-dates that.) He’s won three Tonies and twice he just recited prose poems by a Minnesota poet named Louis Jenkins, who’s not really very famous at all, and the third time he reflected on how an American spearheaded the project to build the reconstructed Globe Theater in London, and as a Shakespearean actor he’s very grateful to America for its part in bringing that about. He just seems like someone who cares very, very much about acting and not at all about being a star.

    2. literarysara +22

      Yes, me too. Was it the sad collie eyes? The mumbled but joyous postcoital Italian ditty? The way he looks at the women he loves? I do not know.

      1. phlippin +7

        I was thinking more basset hound, but yes hella puppy dog eyes happening there.

    3. MissAndrie +14

      Never seen the series, but Mark Rylance is a PRO. I saw him in Richard III and an audience member fainted away during Act 1. He and the cast froze and took up exactly where they left off (about 30 minutes after the initial faint.) A total pro.

    5. calledbirdy +7

      I saw him on Broadway as Olivia in Twelfth Night. He disappears into his characters. By the end, he was and always had been a woman to me.

    6. amsfellowtraveler +3

      YES, I have been wanting to make out with Mark Rylance since I watched the first episode illegally on BBC website back in January. When I can’t sleep now I just put on an episode and listen to the spooky music and his raspy voice in my ear. arrooooo

  12. deleted182847 +56

    “He’s his own man….he’s his own wolf…….he’s his own wolf man.”

  13. latenac +29

    I almost wish I had a Kindle so I could somehow replace all the 3rd person singular pronouns in the books with wolf howls. I love the story in both books and find the characters compelling but 3rd person singular pronouns really trip Ms. Mantel up.

  16. damanoid +92

    HENRY VIII: Mirror, mirror, on the wall: who is the hairiest one of all?
    MIRROR: Your Majesty is hirsute, ’tis true; but your wife is furrier far than you.
    HENRY VIII: WHAT?!
    ANNE BOLEYN: ruh roh

  17. emmysuhweeks +8

    This + yesterday’s Natalie Dormer article = I will be binge watching the Tudors tonight until the end of time. Oh wait, I was going to do that tonight and every night until the end of time anyway. BAWOO!

    1. saraeanderson +5

      I recently decided that one of the pop-cultural tests for what generation you were part of is that millennials’ knowledge of literature is highly mediated by Wishbone. Okay, I was watching it in high school. A lot of episodes of it are on YouTube.

  19. mbculver +30

    Now I wish I had a reason to say to my husband, as we go to bed one night, “We’ll defy the Pope in the morning.” Maybe if one of us were a wolf…?

  20. damanoid +47

    You hear ’em howling around your kitchen door
    You better not let ’em in
    Duke of Suffolk got decapitated late last night
    Tudors of London again

  21. wingoyle +19

    Somebody should run an experiment: put together a series of text fragments in present tense where everyone is identified as “he” and the topic constantly reverts to the subject’s unappealing appearance and have the Man Booker judges figure out which were written by HM and which are transcripts of fourth graders’ conversations at recess.

  22. nikki

    Somebody should run an experiment: put together a series of text fragments in present tense where everyone is identified as "he" and the topic constantly reverts to the subject's unappealing appearance and have the Man Booker judges figure out which were written by HM and which are transcripts of fourth graders' conversations at recess.

      1. Helen Craig +2

        Some things should just not be forgotten! (Did @malleis bring you here? I saw this mentioned this morning and laughed again at “good girl, Anne Bolyn.”)

  25. OhRather

    I think this might actually be my favourite article in all of 2015? I cannot explain it but there it is.