I did a really shoddy job of reading this book the first time.

I didn't really realize that until now

It's not an accessible book, especially the first few chapters, where you're suddenly dumped into the middle of the story 27 years later

So it's on reread, when one is more familiar with the setting and not just grappling with new information, that it really shines

What I didn't catch the first time was how much wit and warmth there was in the interactions

that Cromwell isn't simply this hypercompetent person, but the people close to him actually like him, and he values them just as much

there's a line that's too often quoted by book reviews from the second chapter

"He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury."

But in retrospect this isn't even important anymore

it's what reviewers quote when they skim the beginning of the book when it sounds good, but it's the dialogue that really makes the character

In a way he's an improbably modern character, much too skeptical and enlightened for his time

like in his thoughts on Thomas More, the Man For All Seasons that this book has gotten a lot of flak for demolishing:

"What's wrong with you? Or what's wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you've learned, confirm you in what you believed before?

Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more."

I almost feel like it's too easy a ploy to get me to like him, but I'm falling for it anyway

Oddly enough a lot of the beginning is heartwarming, especially his interacts with his wife

and she has this amazingly sassy statement that all the women in England will hate Henvry VIII for trying to divorce Katherine, which Cromwell hasn't even considered

sometimes he can still be quite dense

I forgot how hilarious Mantel's writing is, especially in the beginning

the running gag of his son's letters from school always being a few sentences "and now no more, for lack of time"

but that is ok because "at least he isn't like I was, when I was his age; and when people say, what were you like? ...oh, I used to stick knives in people."

typical Mantel humor is always a little dark, some of the most witty parts of Cromwell's dialogue with Wolsey had to do with death threats after all

and I think I genuinely like Wolsey, when I hadn't been sure on first reading

he's a realist, very human, and takes care of his own

and knowing how everything in these first few chapters is going to be lost later on makes it rather melancholy in spite of the warmth

also Henry is an enormous ass from just what is told about him here. he will prove himself an even more enormous one later