Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel (audio book)
7/10
Without a doubt Hilary Mantel is one of the great British living writers. I think this because of Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, and also because of the range and richness of her other writings such as Fludd and Beyond Black. I'm not sure that the stories always completely satisfy me, but her writing and her imagination are superb.
This book is autobiographical. It is approached in a disjointed and unexpected way. She immerses us in her childhood and also in her illnesses and treatments and hospitalisations. I'm not sure I wanted to be depressed like this, but it is valuable for any of us (especially those who work in it) to understand the experience of illness and health 'care' and how wrong and distressing it can all be.
Because the book dragged me down in mood, I might have given it a lower mark. I gave it 7, though, because of one moment. I was listening to the book as I drove into work. I have (you'll be glad to know) one part of my brain on the traffic and the driving and one part on the book. Suddenly, because of Hilary Mantel's skill at evoking atmosphere, I was back in my childhood home, very young, sitting on the moquette settee feeling comfortable, smelling onions cooking for mum's cheese and onion pie, and watching the dust-motes floating in the sunlight streaming through the window. Hilary Mantel took me there - not to a memory of an event, or a memory of doing something, but to a moment of just being me, as a child. Wow! Absolute respect to this woman.
7/10
Without a doubt Hilary Mantel is one of the great British living writers. I think this because of Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, and also because of the range and richness of her other writings such as Fludd and Beyond Black. I'm not sure that the stories always completely satisfy me, but her writing and her imagination are superb.
This book is autobiographical. It is approached in a disjointed and unexpected way. She immerses us in her childhood and also in her illnesses and treatments and hospitalisations. I'm not sure I wanted to be depressed like this, but it is valuable for any of us (especially those who work in it) to understand the experience of illness and health 'care' and how wrong and distressing it can all be.
Because the book dragged me down in mood, I might have given it a lower mark. I gave it 7, though, because of one moment. I was listening to the book as I drove into work. I have (you'll be glad to know) one part of my brain on the traffic and the driving and one part on the book. Suddenly, because of Hilary Mantel's skill at evoking atmosphere, I was back in my childhood home, very young, sitting on the moquette settee feeling comfortable, smelling onions cooking for mum's cheese and onion pie, and watching the dust-motes floating in the sunlight streaming through the window. Hilary Mantel took me there - not to a memory of an event, or a memory of doing something, but to a moment of just being me, as a child. Wow! Absolute respect to this woman.
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