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#5 Platform: An Experiment in Love
Oct. 4th, 2012 12:30 amCan't say it was a tremendously successful one.
Book #36: An Experiment in Love
Author: Hilary Mantel
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
As reasons to try reading a book go, the fact that a quote from it was used as an epigraph in another book you liked (here, A Monster Calls) is a pretty weak one. And yet, it can be enough to set matters rolling, and I had sort of meant to read something by Mantel since she won the Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, and this book was relatively short and easy enough to try, and so here we are. So was it worth it? Well... yes and no.
This is a story of one Carmel McBain, narrated by an older and perhaps wiser version of the character as she gives an account of her school days in London, and her dealings primarily with two women she attended school with in her hometown, the rich and stylish Julianne and the working-class daughter of immigrants Karina. The book functions on two levels, really: the one dealing with the straightforward story of how each of the women adapts to life and the new circumstances and people it brings once they arrive in London, and the other looking at class issues in England in the late 60s, and at culture more generally. Carmel's parents are lower middle class and give her very little to live on at school, meaning she comes to find it hard even to survive on the funds she has; Julianne has enough money to essentially get whatever she wants, and fits into the culture of the dorm more cleanly; Karina has a different mindset from the other girls about money and the face needed to present to the world, what she wants from life, and what is fair play. Etc.
There's much backstory about the three leads' life before coming to London, and wistful or almost sardonic framing from the future, and definitely some glancing but still caustic blows at what is probably a realistic enough depiction of life for women during that period in England - how hard it was to be taken seriously at events and meetings, to lead a life you could carve out and want with the strictures in both place and mores. The class stuff is actually handled fairly deftly as well; it's not waved in your face much or anything, you have to think about it a little, and that's nice.
That said... yeah. The book didn't quite come together for me, perhaps because I found it hard to really get into understanding the character's mindsets, particularly Carmel's, or perhaps because sometimes the plotting really was too low-key for me. The style was generally good, and Carmel did have a clear voice, and yet it meant that the other characters didn't come in sharp enough sometimes. Also, the ending felt far too abrupt; there's a big event and no real denouement, just a sudden turn away from the page, from the feel of it. It doesn't do the story justice.
I don't know that I would judge Mantel on this book only, and if you're looking for somewhere to start with her, this almost certainly isn't it, but it's not a bad book. It just didn't connect with me... it could be I didn't appreciate it because I'm too distanced from or unknowledgable about the setting, but it's still what it is: a slight volume that should probably have been less slight, for the betterment of all involved, including our slight Carmel.
Next up: A Monster Calls. Might as well see how we got here.
Book #36: An Experiment in Love
Author: Hilary Mantel
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
As reasons to try reading a book go, the fact that a quote from it was used as an epigraph in another book you liked (here, A Monster Calls) is a pretty weak one. And yet, it can be enough to set matters rolling, and I had sort of meant to read something by Mantel since she won the Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, and this book was relatively short and easy enough to try, and so here we are. So was it worth it? Well... yes and no.
This is a story of one Carmel McBain, narrated by an older and perhaps wiser version of the character as she gives an account of her school days in London, and her dealings primarily with two women she attended school with in her hometown, the rich and stylish Julianne and the working-class daughter of immigrants Karina. The book functions on two levels, really: the one dealing with the straightforward story of how each of the women adapts to life and the new circumstances and people it brings once they arrive in London, and the other looking at class issues in England in the late 60s, and at culture more generally. Carmel's parents are lower middle class and give her very little to live on at school, meaning she comes to find it hard even to survive on the funds she has; Julianne has enough money to essentially get whatever she wants, and fits into the culture of the dorm more cleanly; Karina has a different mindset from the other girls about money and the face needed to present to the world, what she wants from life, and what is fair play. Etc.
There's much backstory about the three leads' life before coming to London, and wistful or almost sardonic framing from the future, and definitely some glancing but still caustic blows at what is probably a realistic enough depiction of life for women during that period in England - how hard it was to be taken seriously at events and meetings, to lead a life you could carve out and want with the strictures in both place and mores. The class stuff is actually handled fairly deftly as well; it's not waved in your face much or anything, you have to think about it a little, and that's nice.
That said... yeah. The book didn't quite come together for me, perhaps because I found it hard to really get into understanding the character's mindsets, particularly Carmel's, or perhaps because sometimes the plotting really was too low-key for me. The style was generally good, and Carmel did have a clear voice, and yet it meant that the other characters didn't come in sharp enough sometimes. Also, the ending felt far too abrupt; there's a big event and no real denouement, just a sudden turn away from the page, from the feel of it. It doesn't do the story justice.
I don't know that I would judge Mantel on this book only, and if you're looking for somewhere to start with her, this almost certainly isn't it, but it's not a bad book. It just didn't connect with me... it could be I didn't appreciate it because I'm too distanced from or unknowledgable about the setting, but it's still what it is: a slight volume that should probably have been less slight, for the betterment of all involved, including our slight Carmel.
Next up: A Monster Calls. Might as well see how we got here.
