Spirited Away

Sunday March 30, 2008 in |

4/5

At some point on your road you have to turn and start walking back towards yourself. Or the past will pursue you and bite the nape of your neck, leave you bleeding in the ditch. Better to turn and face it with such weapons as you possess.
Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black

Hilary Mantel’s highly original and very odd novel received much praise when it was published in 2005. Somehow it has managed to escape my attention until now, following a lucky find in my favourite second hand bookshop. The novel follows the life of Alison, a medium, as she tours provincial towns with her psychic stage act. As she reconnects her audience with those lost to the spirit world she fights her own personal battle in keeping her private fiends at bay. Beyond Black has some very unsettling moments, but it’s a sinister story that manages to inject moments of comedy. Mantel is a very good writer, and even though this novel is a touch overlong at 450 pages, it is well worth reading.

Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black

Probably what surprised me most is that Beyond Black is far from what my paperback edition attempts to sell it as:

One of the greatest ghost stories in the language.
Philip Pullman

I’m not sure how many ghost stories Mr Pullman has read, but this simply isn’t true. M.R. James it isn’t, and the blurb is misleading as Hilary Mantel probably wouldn’t appeal to fans of the traditional ghost story (or even fans of Philip Pullman). The ghosts in Beyond Black are only visible to Alison, and as the novel progresses we delve further into her disturbing childhood. Her fiends represent very real monsters, and Mantel skilfully explores how horrors in the real world can easily surpass any in the supernatural. In the book, a minor character claims that, wherever you are, a rat is only six feet away from you. Similarly, Hilary Mantel suggests that something evil and unsettling is always lurking just below the surface. But that’s not necessarily anything supernatural.

Nastiness aside, this novel has some brilliantly subtle characterisations. Colette, Alison’s assistant, is very well drawn, as are Colette’s foolish husband Gavin and Alison’s pitiful mother. Even Morris, the ghost who personifies all of Alison’s woes, is strangely compelling. And true to the best ghost stories, if you really want to label it with a genre, this novel is wonderfully suggestive, and Mantel keeps the truth just beyond your grasp. You have to work to unravel this, which makes it all the more satisfying.

I’ll have to pick this up again then: I got it a couple of years ago, got a couple of chapters in and then got distracted by something ekse and haven’t been back since.

Will have to find where it is on my shelves and move to my ‘to read’ pile!

JackP    Sunday March 30, 2008   

Cool. I’d be interested in your reaction. But remember not to expect a conventional ghost story (but perhaps do expect to be haunted by the book).

Stephen    Sunday March 30, 2008   

Just a thought, on coming back to this post, that when you consider Pullman’s own fiction has been described as having an atheistic bent (don’t know myself, not having read any), but if this is the case, then perhaps his idea of what constitues a ghost story may be somewhat different to those old-fashioned fuddy-duddy MR James fans (like us two!)

JackP    Monday March 31, 2008   

Yes could be. There’s that part in the last book of His Dark Materials with all the spirits of the dead returning. He probably sees that as a good ghost story, but I thought it was the weakest part of the trilogy.

Stephen    Tuesday April 1, 2008   

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