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A review by jeannelovesbooks
Eight Months On Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The late, great Hilary Mantel is probably best known for Wolf Hall, the Booker Prize-winning novel that propelled her into the spotlight. Published twenty years earlier, Eight Months is trademark Mantel: an exploration of politics and religion through extravagant use of metaphors and similes, brilliant dialogue and darkly caustic wit. And of course the sheer beauty of her writing.
‘The sea itself, sometimes cobalt in colour and sometimes turquoise, has a flat, domestic, well-used appearance. Small white-collared waves trip primly up to the precincts of the desalination plant, like a party of vicars on an industrial tour.’
The story centres on Frances and Andrew, an English couple recently arrived in Jeddah. He’s been offered a salary too good to resist, she simply has to sit it out for a few years. Easier than it sounds. Between the stifling heat, the rules that constrain Frances’ freedom and the tightly-knit ex-pat community (gawd, they’re awful), her life is oppressive. Suspicious coming and goings in the empty upstairs apartment add a sense of intrigue but not one which is satisfactorily resolved. We’re only party to Frances’ perspective: glimpses of shadowy strangers and conflicting accounts of who’s doing what to whom - aka rampant gossip - that adds up to a confusing end.
But that really doesn’t matter because the joy of Eight Months lies in its character exploration. Mantel lays bare Frances’ perpetual inner conflict: professing tolerance but deeply intolerant of the regime; entertaining glassy-eyed racist ex-pats in the name of social integration; determined to retain the liberal values that clash with cultural expectations and local laws. This is a horror story of a different kind. No shape-shifting monsters, zombie apocalypse or demonic possession but rather the horror of isolation and fear. Worth it for the money though.
“‘So what do you want, more than you want to be rich?’
‘Peace,’ Andrew says.
‘Freedom,’ Frances says.”
Fibbers.
‘The sea itself, sometimes cobalt in colour and sometimes turquoise, has a flat, domestic, well-used appearance. Small white-collared waves trip primly up to the precincts of the desalination plant, like a party of vicars on an industrial tour.’
The story centres on Frances and Andrew, an English couple recently arrived in Jeddah. He’s been offered a salary too good to resist, she simply has to sit it out for a few years. Easier than it sounds. Between the stifling heat, the rules that constrain Frances’ freedom and the tightly-knit ex-pat community (gawd, they’re awful), her life is oppressive. Suspicious coming and goings in the empty upstairs apartment add a sense of intrigue but not one which is satisfactorily resolved. We’re only party to Frances’ perspective: glimpses of shadowy strangers and conflicting accounts of who’s doing what to whom - aka rampant gossip - that adds up to a confusing end.
But that really doesn’t matter because the joy of Eight Months lies in its character exploration. Mantel lays bare Frances’ perpetual inner conflict: professing tolerance but deeply intolerant of the regime; entertaining glassy-eyed racist ex-pats in the name of social integration; determined to retain the liberal values that clash with cultural expectations and local laws. This is a horror story of a different kind. No shape-shifting monsters, zombie apocalypse or demonic possession but rather the horror of isolation and fear. Worth it for the money though.
“‘So what do you want, more than you want to be rich?’
‘Peace,’ Andrew says.
‘Freedom,’ Frances says.”
Fibbers.