Bring Up the Bodies

I enjoyed “Wolf Hall” and looked forward to this one. Unfortunately what was merely a minor irritant for me in WH, the author's continuous and indiscriminate use of the pronoun “he”, turned into major problem. It may be that “Bring Up The Bodies” is no more confusing than WH. It is written in the same style after all. Several times I reread parts of both novels and had to stop to do some analysis to make sure I was clear on who the “HE” was in various places. Halfway through Wolf Hall I decided it was no longer worth the effort. I didn't care anymore.

I think what made it worse was seeing the author had made a minor concession to the rabble by adding the protagonists name in some places to the effect “He, Cromwell...”. Not only did this barely make any difference in a seemingly endless sea of “He's”, but to me, the knowledge that the author was aware of the issue and could not bring herself to simply insert the male characters names instead of wearing out the pronoun really aggravated the HEll out of me!

Even while I'm complaining about the author's hang-up, it did bring out a hang up of my own. My mind kept rolling through the same thoughts over and over: how does someone with the talent, vision and insight to create such a novel foolishly compromise their work with a needless attachment to an odd quirk like that? I believe I've seen such use of the pronoun “he” used in a style of Irish matron in spoken mode, and it's mildly irritating in that case as well, but not so confusing. It does not belong in the written form. Hillary, please get over it!