I certainly hope you’re not calling Hilary Mantel and Colson Whitehead’s work “trash.” Even if you’re not personally a fan, that is a ridiculously dismissive attitude.
edit: you may argue that the comment you replied to was simply disagreeing with the article, not explaining why. I would argue that you're simply disagreeing with a comment simply disagreeing with the article - which is a position already filled by the article, with adequate explanation.
> It helps no one to know that you are one additional person who likes a successful commercial product (unless someone is trying to buy you a birthday present, but we don't know you)
First of all, the rank condescension is really not ok. Second of all, it wasn’t that they were “commercially successful” (another argument dripping with condescension), it’s that they had unanimous critical approval, and that Wolf Hall in particular is widely regarded as among the best English-language novels since World War II. Many critics consider it the best historical novel ever written.
It would be like if I said “Citizen Kane is trash, only ignorant philistines like that movie” - it’s a very strong argument with no explanation, and whose dismissiveness and ignorance is self-evident. I don’t have to explain why the movie is good to criticize that comment.
For example it makes no effort to give a sense of the vocabulary or pattern of speech of its time.
So in which sense Wolf Hall is to be feated as great historical novel in a language which has a grand tradition of historical novels from the time of Walter Scott onwards is debatable.