The only astonished face after last night's news may well be that of Thomas Cromwell, dour servant of the crown, writes EILEEN BATTERSBY, Literary Correspondent
NO FAVOURITE has ever looked stronger, withstood every bookie’s moodswing, all the hype and ultimately succeeded in taking the prize.
Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hallwas last night awarded the Man Booker Prize and if no one looked astonished, it is because no one wasthe least surprised.
Long before its publication last April this big, bold, 650-page novel, based on the life of Thomas Cromwell, adviser to a petulant Henry VIII and remembered as an architect of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, was already being referred to as a Booker contender.
Traditional English fiction drawing on an exciting period of English history dominated by dark Machiavellian Tudor politics, all well manipulated by more than a little touch of Mantel's characteristic panache, makes Wolf Hallan engaging, readable narrative possessing popular as well as critical appeal.
As Henry VIII announces late in the novel, “I keep you Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents.” And this is a cunning yarn.
Set on a large stage with many players, several of them famous, each maintaining a close eye on their backs, it is a history novel, not a historical narrative – and there is a subtle difference.
Added to that is Mantel’s exuberant use of a breathless, continuous present tense. She makes no concessions to pastiche; the language is modern.
If the day was won by history, the honours were shared by storytelling and traditional English fiction. Not since the great JG Ballard stood poised to win the Booker in 1984 with Empire of the Sunhas a writer seemed more certain of victory. Yet Ballard sensationally lost out to Anita Brookner.
Mantel's achievement is considerable. Wolf Hallheld off the challenge of the gifted JM Coetzee, one of the finest writers alive and whose mercurial, offbeat fictionalised memoir, Summertime, is a wonder and among the books of the year.
Twice winner of the Booker Prize, Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize in 2003 and was the only non-British writer on this year’s shortlist.
Mantel's other major rival was another former Booker winner, AS Byatt, whose contender, the 614-page The Children's Book, also draws on a wealth of British culture and historical cross- references. Byatt brings an academic dimension to fiction and it was her Booker winner, Possession, an intellectual campus novel celebrating the pleasures of literary criticism, that defeated John McGahern's Amongst Womenin 1990.
From the publication of the longlist in late July, Mantel looked well placed with two major rivals, William Trevor and Coetzee, with Byatt always looking formidable for the sheer breadth of her intellect.
Yet it was also a longlist which raised serious questions about the absence of a more international dimension considering the omission of major works such as Amit Chaudhuri's The Immortals, Tash Aw's The Map of the Invisible Worldand Tasmanian Richard Flanagan's chillingly graceful Wanting.
Several of the novels on the longlist, including James Lever's spoof narrative Me Cheeta, which had been reviewed as non-fiction, left some questions needing to be answered.
Yet the strongest arguments were left until the shortlist was announced and loud was the protest at the shock exclusion of William Trevor's Love and Summer, the novel that seemed more than capable of winning.
Trevor and Coetzee share a defining quality that elevates them above most writers. They are artists and simply write finer, more graceful prose, and are superior artists to Mantel and Byatt.
The youngest of this year’s shortlist contenders, Adam Foulds, takes the tragic tale of poet John Clare and his collapse into insanity and makes something beautiful, if slight, out of it.
The Quickening Mazehas charm, atmosphere and 19th-century English historical fact, whereas Simon Mawer's eighth novel, The Glass Room, returns to the complex cultural and political tensions tearing Europe apart as the Nazis rise to power. Yet Mawer fails to convince because of the flatness of his prose and reliance in neat coincidence.
The Glass Roomdid make a surprise spurt over the last few days, but it could never have been a serious bid, more like a diversion to distract from Mantel's obvious security.
Welsh-born Sarah Waters earned her third Booker shortlisting for The Little Stranger, a crime novel with a hint of Gosford Parkmeets The Remains of the Day, but never seemed a likely contender.
There is no disputing that Mantel is a popular winner; this is her 11th novel. Since A Place of Greater Safety(1992), a dramatic and more obviously heavily researched narrative based on the lead-up to the French Revolution, its fury and aftermath – and at 872 pages a longer novel than Wolf Hall– she has proved that she is a serious writer.
Her best book to date, Beyond Black(2005), was expected to win the Orange Prize, yet didn't. Mantel had begun to seem a perennial bridesmaid, respected, though invariably overlooked by awards. This changed last night.
She won the 40th Booker Prize with a novel for everyone and the only surprised face may well be that of Thomas Cromwell, dour servant of the crown, asking, was my life reallylike that?