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Rating: 
Summary: Another great book
Review: This is a hard book to comment on, as it is both excellent and incomplete. As all memoirs- to an extent- probably feel somewhat unfinished, "Giving Up the Ghost," is particularly hard to reflect on with any sense of conclusion. Whether this adds to or detracts from the book's strength changes from day to day after reading it, but the work, and its content, does keep you thinking for a long time afterwards.
It seems that, with the exception of "A Place of Greater Safety," this is a quality shared by her earlier fictional works and, here, her non-fiction. In a few cases, as in "An Experiment in Love," the ending feels abrupt rather than simply inconclusive. This is preceded by a good 200-odd pages of bulldozer honesty, however, and the force of the revelations are only never quite relieved. Her shorter books read most of the way through as if you are being pushed blindly towards a cliff, and are only pushed off in the last few pages. The final paragraphs, then, which seam up an ending, feel like the thoughts you are having on the way down. In theory, the novel would be incomplete, but while they don't feel settled, you never exactly complain that you haven't reached the bottom yet.
"Ghost" is more gradual, even measured. Her insights are both condemning and self-questioning, and the most beautiful writing finds itself where she returns to previous conclusions and reevaluates them. I am probably stupidly young to be applying a critical view to the majority of the book's described experience, but Mantel creates a familiarity with her characters, and herself, that is at once both painful and comforting in its imperfection. Any perceived fault in her writing is never in character development or settling you into their place, but in adhering to the arc defined as "fiction making sense". She seems to stick to a disarming incoherence, which follows and develops with each novel. If her shorter works feel incomplete in themselves, there is continuity between them as a whole. There are great truths, but nothing didactic upon which to hang an definitely instructive ending. This is true in "Ghost," where she gives an honest experience that cannot be constructed into a moral, so there is none made of it. What we do want at the end, though, is a connection between the experiences she presents us with. In "A Place of Greater Safety," the length allowed for a thorough examination of the incongruities within and between characters, which gives a shape to the irresolution. I recommend buying "Ghost", simply because it is a great book, but I found myself here again wishing Mantel's work had been longer.
Rating:
Summary: Another great book
Review: This is a hard book to comment on, as it is both excellent and incomplete. As all memoirs- to an extent- probably feel somewhat unfinished, "Giving Up the Ghost," is particularly hard to reflect on with any sense of conclusion. Whether this adds to or detracts from the book's strength changes from day to day after reading it, but the work, and its content, does keep you thinking for a long time afterwards. Having read all of Mantel's novels, it seems that, with the exception of "A Place of Greater Safety," this is a quality shared by her fictional works and, here, her non-fiction. In a few cases, as in "An Experiment in Love," the ending feels abrupt rather than simply inconclusive. This is preceded by a good 200-odd pages of bulldozer honesty, however, and the force of the revelations are only never quite relieved. Her shorter books read most of the way through as if you are being pushed blindly towards a cliff, and are only pushed off in the last few pages. The final paragraphs, then, which seam up an ending, feel like the thoughts you are having on the way down. In theory, the novel would be incomplete, but while they don't feel settled, you never exactly complain that you haven't reached the bottom yet. "Ghost" is more gradual, even measured. Her insights are both condemning and self-questioning, and the most beautiful writing finds itself where she returns to previous conclusions and reevaluates them. I am probably stupidly young to be applying a critical view to the majority of the book's described experience, but Mantel creates a familiarity with her characters, and herself, that is at once both painful and comforting in its imperfection. Any perceived fault in her writing is never in character development or settling you into their place, but in adhering to the arc defined as "fiction making sense". She seems to stick to a disarming incoherence, which follows and develops with each novel. If her shorter works feel incomplete in themselves, there is continuity between them as a whole. There are great truths, but nothing didactic upon which to hang an definitely instructive ending. This is true in "Ghost," where she gives an honest experience that cannot be constructed into a moral, so there is none made of it. What we do want at the end, though, is a connection between the experiences she presents us with. In "A Place of Greater Safety," the length allowed for a thorough examination of the incongruities within and between characters, which gives a shape to the irresolution. I recommend buying "Ghost", simply because it is a great book, but I found myself here again wishing Mantel's work had been longer.
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