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Review
‘Hilary Mantel is a wonderfully unsurprised dissector of human motivation, and in An Experiment in Love she has written a bleak tale seamed with crackling wit.’ Helen Dunmore, Observer
‘Funny, tragic and wondefully perceptive, this is a book to be treasured, for the sheer quality of its writing and for its honesty.’ Independent
‘Mantel writes prose of imperturbable aplomp, crisp with irony and highlighted with deftly places, elegantly surprising images … she has a penchant for caustic, spiky heroines and a sardonic ear for dialogue.’ Sunday Times
‘My favourite novel of the year: An Experiment in Love is written with subtle perceptiveness, sharp wit and canny wisdom’ Margaret Forster, Independent
‘Cool unsentimental, and unassumingly authoritative.’ Anita Brookner, Spectator
‘The time is 1970, and it is wonderfully well evoked … The skill with which Mantel manages her time-shifts, the precision of her writing, the acuteness of her observations, the seriousness of her themes, and the way in which she weaves them into a coherant whole, make this an unusually satisfying novel.’ Allan Massie, Scotsman
‘An Experiment in Love has much to say about its turbulant era, and is replete with the atmosphere of the cusp, with the prospect of irreversible change … It is also a profoundly sad novel, to which Mantel’s liberal sense of comedy and dazzling acuity for metaphor add an almost excruciating flavour.’ Rachel Cusk, The Times
Product Description
Following on from ‘A Change in Climate’, this brilliant novel follows two girls as they leave behind their pasts and set off to the new preoccupations of 1970s London.
It is London, 1970. Carmel McBain, in her first term at university, has cut free of her childhood roots in the north. Among the gossiping, flirtatious girls of Tonbridge Hall, she begins her experiments in life and love. But the year turns. The mini-skirt falls out of style and an era of concealment begins. Carmel’s world darkens, and tragedy waits in the wings.
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My only problem with the book was that the final scene almost felt tacked on from another novel. I couldn't really believe that Karina would be quite so evil or do such a dramatic action as Mantel had her do - I got the feeling that the final scene was really put in because Mantel wasn't quite sure how to end her book, and needed a 'cleansing' image. It seemed slightly out of kilter with the rest of the narrative, which was so thoughtful and intelligent - a sudden move into melodrama. We were also left with a lot of unanswered questions, about who Karina's boyfriend had been, what happened to Carmel in between her university days and when we see her as an adult, why she lost touch with Julianne (who renames herself Julia)and who Carmel eventually married. A slightly longer, slightly gentler end to the book might have been good. This being said, I still return to this book regularly with great enjoyment and have read it several times.
The author obviously feels there is great injustice in the lives of these girls, and this gives her always excellent writing a particular energy. The flashbacks to the girls' schooldays, and the relationships between Carmel and Karina and their mothers, are particularly well done.
More than just a story, this book explores the broader themes of girls' education and ambitions, and how they can be thwarted both by society and by nature. Although the ending is downright strange and I really wanted to know more about some of the characters' motivations, I found this to be a truly original and compelling book.
This is both a tragedy and a comedy. Mantel is very prescient about girls and their friendships, and about girls and their boys. There is much to enjoy in these pages and I found myself disappointed that this novel wasn't longer. Like her novel Beyond Black, this one too creates some wonderful characters, and in common with that novel it ends at a point that might also be a beginning. Her gift for storytelling is so strong that her created lives go on after the book has finished.
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