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Man booker prize winner! I sometimes wonder if I actually read the same book as all those 5 star reviews. So you may ask what is really the problem with this book and why is it that you either love or hate? For me the writing is just inaccessible, it is impossilbe to tell often who is actually speaking which is only highlighted by the sparse use of punctuation. I am able to just about understand the main threads of the narrative: Henry hoping to persuade the Roman Catholic church to acknowledge his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his wedding to Anne Boleyn who he expects to be a virgin on the big day! It is hoped therefore that Anne will do as the king wishes and not lose her head (little play on words :)
Meanwhle Thomas Cromwell, lawyer, statesman and chief minister to Henry V111 is portrayed as bit of a wheeler dealer, ducking and diving, akin to a modern day Alistair Campbell. (Of course if you fell from popularity during the Blair government you merely were forced to resign, altogether different with dear Henry who had a fixation with head removal :) There are a number of close associates of the king and Cromwell who just suddenly appear in the narrative and soon depart before their role is fully explained or exploited. It is a very tense read, over complicated and a storyline so well hidden under so much dross it tests the stayability of the reader to the nth degree. I bravely stuck to my task until the half way point where just like a sinking ship I had to abandon.......
