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A Change of Climate (Paperback)

by Hilary Mantel (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (2 Mar 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140127755
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140127751
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 231,881 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #27 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > M > Mantel, Hilary

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Product Description

Product Description

Set in Norfolk in 1980 but with flashbacks to South Africa and Bechuanaland of the 1960s. Ralph and Anna are "do-gooders". They run a trust for young people and take offenders into their home. But they harbour a secret: in Africa, years before, their son had been abducted, his body never found.
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
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3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful family saga evoking a climate of change., 5 Nov 2003
By Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: A Change of Climate (Paperback)
When asked, rhetorically, by his sister, "Whatever happened to the dinosaurs?", Ralph, the main character responds, "Their habitat altered...A change of climate." In rebellion against his parents, their closed, religiously fundamentalist point of view, and his father's financial blackmailing regarding his career choices,Ralph intentionally changes his physical habitat and his climate by escaping to South Africa with his bride.

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

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful prose, believable characters, 8 Sep 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: A Change of Climate (Hardcover)
This heart-rending story could have been very depressing and desolate. However, I came out of it, if not uplifted, at least not feeling unhappy. My main quibble was the ending. It wasn't too clear what had happened, and I would have liked to have been certain of the fate of the central married couple. I liked the spare yet fully-rounded style and the strange switches between characters as the focus of the story, while disorientating, were effective. I wished I had started reading her sooner.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical and heartfelt, 19 Feb 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: A Change of Climate (Hardcover)
Hilary Mantel is a brilliant writer. She gets so deep into the lives of her characters and makes an ordinary life seem fascinating and full of mystery. As with 8 months on Ghazza Street there is quite a lot of suspense in this book that builds up nicely as the family secrets are slowly revealed. The ending is sad but very true.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A Change of Climate
This book is written with brutal honesty about life in African countries.It is very insightful about the nature of human relationships and the ability (or not) to recover from... Read more
Published 5 months ago by A. Mendes

5.0 out of 5 stars masterpiece
I am not a huge fan of Hilary Mantel. I find much of her work parasitical on Muriel Spark, for a start. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Michael Scuffil

3.0 out of 5 stars Well written, but depressing
A friend allowed me to borrow this book and if I had realised it was written by Hilary Mantel, I wouldn't have bothered reading it as I have given up with her novels in the past... Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2007 by alimarcam

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