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A review by jacki_f
The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher and Other Stories by Hilary Mantel
3.0
This is a collection of ten short stories written by Hilary Mantel between 1993-2014. They have all been previously published in newspapers or magazines and some have appeared in short story collections. They are extremely diverse in setting and nature. All but two are written in the first person and most (but not all) centre on women.
I should preface this review by saying that I have an inherent prejudice against short stories. Reading them always feels to me like speed dating - you put all this effort into wrapping your head around someone new and then they are yanked away from you and you have to do it all over again. They also highlight - to me - what a lazy reader I am. I kept finishing a story, realising that I simply hadn't been paying enough attention and having to backtrack to look for the clue about what was going to happen.
What I did like, very much, about this collection is the wonderfully descriptive way that Mantel immerses you wherever she wants you. There is one story about a writer arriving at an unpleasant hotel late at night and you can just feel how sordid and grubby the rooms are. Another story, Comma, is about two girls who roam the countryside around their homes and spy on their neighbours and once again you absolutely feel the heat, the tickly grass, hear flies buzzing lazily past. The Margaret Thatcher story is set in a genteel street in Windsor and I could see it in my mind, so beautifully was it described to me.
However to me this book felt like a triumph of style over substance. Again and again - ref description of myself above as a lazy reader and take note - unreliable narrator here! - I would finish a story and go "huh". Either "huh, didn't get it" or "huh, was that it? " There were a couple of exceptions - oddly enough, generally the shortest in the book - but for the most part they felt like slices of lives that went nowhere. And I kept wondering "what was the point of that story?".
Smarter and more intellectual people than me have raved about this collection, and I am sure that they are quite correct and the failing is mine. Speed dating is clearly not my thing.
I should preface this review by saying that I have an inherent prejudice against short stories. Reading them always feels to me like speed dating - you put all this effort into wrapping your head around someone new and then they are yanked away from you and you have to do it all over again. They also highlight - to me - what a lazy reader I am. I kept finishing a story, realising that I simply hadn't been paying enough attention and having to backtrack to look for the clue about what was going to happen.
What I did like, very much, about this collection is the wonderfully descriptive way that Mantel immerses you wherever she wants you. There is one story about a writer arriving at an unpleasant hotel late at night and you can just feel how sordid and grubby the rooms are. Another story, Comma, is about two girls who roam the countryside around their homes and spy on their neighbours and once again you absolutely feel the heat, the tickly grass, hear flies buzzing lazily past. The Margaret Thatcher story is set in a genteel street in Windsor and I could see it in my mind, so beautifully was it described to me.
However to me this book felt like a triumph of style over substance. Again and again - ref description of myself above as a lazy reader and take note - unreliable narrator here! - I would finish a story and go "huh". Either "huh, didn't get it" or "huh, was that it? " There were a couple of exceptions - oddly enough, generally the shortest in the book - but for the most part they felt like slices of lives that went nowhere. And I kept wondering "what was the point of that story?".
Smarter and more intellectual people than me have raved about this collection, and I am sure that they are quite correct and the failing is mine. Speed dating is clearly not my thing.