- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (30 May 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140243755
- ISBN-13: 978-0140243758
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 405,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
An Experiment in Love
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Product Description
Review
"With all its brilliance, its sharpness, and its clear-eyed wit, "An Experiment in Love" is a haunting book."--Margaret Atwood, "The New York Times Book Review"
"Mantel has several points in common with Graham Greene: she can make your flesh creep with horror and especially with the apprehension of it."--"New York Review of Books"
"Terrifically satisfying."--"Elle"
"Mantel has several points in common with Graham Greene: she can make your flesh creep with horror and especially with the apprehension of it."--"New York Review of Books"
"Terrifically satisfying."--"Elle"
Product Description
A "New York Times Book Review" Notable Book of the Year
It was the year after Chappaquiddick, and all spring Carmel McBain had watery dreams about the disaster. Now she, Karina, and Julianne were escaping the dreary English countryside for a London University hall of residence. Interspersing accounts of her current position as a university student with recollections of her childhood and an ever difficult relationship with her longtime schoolmate Karina, Carmel reflects on a generation of girls desiring the power of men, but fearful of abandoning what is expected and proper. When these bright but confused young women land in late 1960s London, they are confronted with a slew of new preoccupations--sex, politics, food, and fertility--and a pointless grotesque tragedy of their own.
Hilary Mantel's magnificent novel examines the pressures on women during the early days of contemporary feminism to excel--but not be "too" successful--in England's complex hierarchy of class and status.
It was the year after Chappaquiddick, and all spring Carmel McBain had watery dreams about the disaster. Now she, Karina, and Julianne were escaping the dreary English countryside for a London University hall of residence. Interspersing accounts of her current position as a university student with recollections of her childhood and an ever difficult relationship with her longtime schoolmate Karina, Carmel reflects on a generation of girls desiring the power of men, but fearful of abandoning what is expected and proper. When these bright but confused young women land in late 1960s London, they are confronted with a slew of new preoccupations--sex, politics, food, and fertility--and a pointless grotesque tragedy of their own.
Hilary Mantel's magnificent novel examines the pressures on women during the early days of contemporary feminism to excel--but not be "too" successful--in England's complex hierarchy of class and status.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A sometimes very funny, sometimes horribly poignant tale of a girl from working-class Lancashire trying to make her way as a law student at London University while haunted by her past, her memories of her parents' unhappy marriage and her experiences at convent school, and by a former schoolmate, Karina, who has followed her to London, moved into her hall of residence and constantly reminds her that she cannot break away totally from her past life. Mantel brings the claustrophobic life in a women's hall of residence vividly to life, and there are some memorable characters, ranging from the heroine Carmel's friend from convent school Julianne, a clever and sardonic girl from a wealthy background who can't really understand Carmel's poverty to the lovely, aristocratic Lynette, daughter of East European emigres (as is Karina, though Karina won't discuss this aspect of her past), the fanatically Christian Claire who turns out at heart to be a deeply good person despite her foolish side, and the dread Karina, sullen, silent, brooding vengefully. Mantel's descriptions of some aspects of university life (such as the student Labour club) and the awful institutional meals were hilarious. Coupled with this humour were some heartbreaking episodes: Carmel's growing anorexia, and the collapse of her relationship with her boyfriend, her accounts of her schooldays and the bullying she underwent at the hands of her mother, and her constant worries about money.
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.
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.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Like the starving heroine, I was left wanting more by this enigmatic but excellent book. In an antidote to the usual "take three girls" formula, we follow the school and university careers of Carmel, Karina and Julianne, three pupils from a northern convent who all end up in the same grim University residence in London. Without ever becoming friends or understanding each other, the girls are thrown together into a penny-pinching student existence in their all-female enclave, playing out an ultimately tragic tale of envy, competition, appetite and self-denial.
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.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Carmel is an ordinary little Catholic girl from a Lancashire mill-town when this novel opens. Her strong-willed mother has decided that she will be a friend to Karina, whose strange European mother and taciturn father mutter about cattle trucks. Karina is not ordinary. She has no gift for friendship and the relationship is something of a trial to Carmel. By the time they attend big school Carmel has moved on and begun making friends with more interesting girls. It is one of these, Julia, that she rooms with in the hostel that is the main setting when they get to University. Karina goes too, but lives a curiously self-sufficient and separate life from that of her peers. The one shocking act at the end brings Carmel's past relationship with Karina into focus once again. She now knows two very important things about Karina - but neither of them can be told to anyone else.
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.
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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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Hilary Mantel
Having been wowed by Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize Wolf Hall I'm thoroughly enjoying her other books which I have never come across before. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2010 by S. A. Griffiths
Unbelievable
I was attracted to this book because it dealt with life at a (fictional) London University college during the 1970's. Read more
Published on 29 May 2009 by C. K. Harrison
original?
This is actually a good book. The characterization is superb. But if you have read Muriel Spark's Girls of Slender Means, you might just have a sense of déjà vu.
Published on 17 May 2008 by Michael Scuffil
Food for Thought
This is my favourite among Hilary Mantel's books. It will strike a special chord with women brought up in the 60s and 70s in England. Read more
Published on 25 Jun 2003
self-hating rubbish
What I learned from this book: thin girls are beautiful, fragile, and good; fat girls are ugly, and either stupid (Claire) or evil (Karina); all men are the same, cookie-cutter... Read more
Published on 29 Jan 2000
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