| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘A beautifully crafted novel’ Guardian
‘There are very few novels that not only bristle with ideas but leave you asking questions about those ideas, again and again, your world turned upside down. Mantel has managed to do this.’ Sunday Times
‘The best book she’s written … She writes about punishing subjects so freshly it is as if they had never been written about before.’ Observer
‘It has the tension of a first-rate thriller and the breadth of a family saga … Its compassion and its intellectual energy mark her as the novelist of her generation who will achieve a lasting greatness.’ Literary Review
‘A complex and highly intelligent portrayal of injustice, bereavement and the loss of faith … Hilary Mantel has created that rare thing, a page-turner with a profound moral dimension.’ Daily Telegraph
‘A work of exquisite craftsmanship that asks enormous questions.’ Independent
Product Description
From the violent townships of South Africa to the windswept countryside of Norfolk, this is an epic yet subtle family saga about what happens when trust is broken, when secrets are buried and when lives must be torn apart before they can be put back together again.
Ralph and Anna Eldred live in the big Red House in Norfolk, raising their four children and devoting their lives to charity. The constant flood of ‘good souls and sad cases’, children plucked from the squalor of the East London streets for a breath of fresh countryside air, hides the growing crises in their own family, the disillusionment of their children, the fissures in their marriage. Memories of their time as missionaries in South Africa and Botswana, of the terrible African tragedies that have shaped the rest of their lives, refuse to be put to rest and threaten to destroy the fragile peace they have built for themselves and their children.
This is a breath takingly intelligent novel that asks the most difficult questions. Is there anything one can never forgive? Is tragedy ever deserved? Can you ever escape your own past? A literary family saga written with the skill and subtlety of a true master, this is Hilary Mantel at her best.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Working as a lay person at a mission and vigorously opposing apartheid, Ralph and Anna, not surprisingly, run afoul of the authorities and are exposed to the savagery which creates a permanent and terrible climate in their marriage. They discover that such savagery is not limited to one race as they had previously supposed. As the story bounces from the present in England back twenty years to Africa, the reader lives through the vivid and terrible African experiences and simultaneously sees how these traumas have permeated the lives of these good, but often naïve, people. As Ralph's uncle James points out, "There is nothing so appallingly hard...as the business of being human."
As James grows and eventually embraces life, Anna remains emotionally closed, despite her good deeds, fearful that she "should lose everything, one of these days." As the events resolve themselves and the "competition in goodness" comes to an end, we see real humans trying to put aside the petrified past and to change the climate of their lives. With immense sympathy Mantel creates imperfect characters who try to lead good lives, with varying degrees of success. Mary Whipple
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
