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95th out of 100 books
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192 voters
Giving Up the Ghost
In postwar rural England, Hilary Mantel grew up convinced that the most improbable of accomplishments, including "chivalry, horsemanship, and swordplay," were within her grasp. Once married, however, she acquired a persistent pain that led to destructive drugs and patronizing psychiatry, ending in an ineffective but irrevocable surgery. There would be no children; in herse...more
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
September 1st 2004
by Picador
(first published 2003)
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This is a compelling and readable memoir. It's melancholic but tinged with humour. There is a sense of longing for another self but ultimately a coming to terms with the ghost of the person she might have been.
This book is largely a childhood memoir. As you can imagine Hilary was a bright and precocious child, she amuses herself with tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the round table and desires the life of the knight errant but alas at the age of four she is disappointed to find that she d...more
This book is largely a childhood memoir. As you can imagine Hilary was a bright and precocious child, she amuses herself with tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the round table and desires the life of the knight errant but alas at the age of four she is disappointed to find that she d...more
An eminently readable book, Mantel's autobiography is chilling, charming, and absorbing in turn. I recognized much here of the places I grew up - the same terraced houses; the same paved yards; the same stone walls and grey skies. I certainly recognized the pragmatic satisfaction of Mantel's grandparents, although it's hard to know if that satisfaction is deep, or warm, or simply a resignation to fact.
I liked this book best as Mantel worked through her childhood and early teen years. There's a l...more
I liked this book best as Mantel worked through her childhood and early teen years. There's a l...more
Recently finished Giving Up the Ghost : A Memoir the autobiography of Hilary Mantel. I was really looking forward to reading this as I love her novels, but I found it a bit disjointed and frustratingly opaque. There were some great descriptions from her child eye's point of view - humorous and touching. But you want to know more about the family and friends - she begins to tell you things then suddenly switches to something else, so I never felt I got close to knowing her or the family (or later...more
This may be my least favorite Mantel, but I still savored every page. As a memoir, this one's going to be little too oblique for most people, especially fans of this great writer--and I do mean great. She won the 2009 Booker Prize, and it was long overdue. If, like me, you were hoping to learn something about Mantel's writing process, you're going to feel frustrated. Her famous quote about what advice she'd give to beginning writers ("Eat meat. Drink blood.") is here, but she doesn't spend much...more
A highly personable memoir that is not immediately accessible to the reader and must have been even harder to write. Mantel starts off with early memories of a childhood in rural Derbyshire that was strongly influenced by Catholicism. More or less skipping her teens - she admits she still cannot write about this period, may never will - she continues with the painful, repeatedly misdiagnosed illness that begun haunting her in her late teens. After she finally (correctly) self-diagnoses herself w...more
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Has a good section on endemitreosis which Hilary suffered and suffers from and which might be helpful to other sufferers at least in the sense of how bad it can get but also with amusing language mix ups that go with migraines. The arms of chairs become sleaves. I find myself using words like that sometimes as I get older and I can't find the right word in my speach and have to try to explain myself using alternatives. She talks about how she works and experiences the changes in her perception o...more
I haven't quite finished reading this as I picked it up at a friends house and read it continuously all day, while waiting for dinner, sitting on the bus, lying in a London Park. I had to return home before I finished but I was absolutely engrossed. Hilary Mantel has such a distinct and unique style, I have never read anyone like her. It is an interesting autobiography not just for the life described, the intimate personal lives led by real, working class people in Manchester in the 1950's but a...more
Hard to believe that I just discovered Hilary Mantel, the Booker prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and, most recently, Bring Up the Bodies. Giving Up the Ghost, 2003, is one of the best autobios I have ever read. Her writing swept me away with its clarity and brilliance and at times made me laugh, pleased with the distance she could go in a paragraph. She has told a lot of truth in this book; it calls to mind Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, also about an exceptionall...more
This book presents a partial autobiography of Hilary Mantel. I enjoyed reading this book, which took me back to my childhood, to the time when I really thought that I was able to fly, and was populated by people who seem far more solid and real than people do now, perhaps because older people then did not spend the money on changing, either furniture or clothes, so seemed as steady as rocks. Now, people seem to change constantly.
This book is about bits and pieces of time. The early part of Hilar...more
This book is about bits and pieces of time. The early part of Hilar...more
One recent historical novel I very much enjoyed was "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel. So I welcomed getting lent a memoir written by Mantel six year earlier from a copy-editing friend and goodreads.com member, Vicky Walker. "Giving Up the Ghost" is not a consistent page-turner that "Wolf Hall" is, but there are interesting sections in the memoir. Born in 1952, Mantel grew up in rural England near Manchester. She was a Catholic with Irish blood in a Protestant country and attended Catholic schools....more
There is no self-pity in this memoir, which is poignant, unexpectedly funny at times. If anything there is too much self-control, and even minute traces of self-loathing. In handling the sections of her childhood, she shapes the story to the child’s half understandings. The male figures, father, step-father, brothers, husband, are at best presences. Yet every sentence, every phrase in this book is breathtaking, artfully crafted, subtly shaped. We almost forget the message given at the beginning....more
Mantel's memoir dwells mostly upon the mysterious illness which plagued her throughout her childhood/early adulthood, and which appears to have defined her life, at least in her eyes. Very little time is spent on her life as a writer, her relationship with her second husband (who was also her first husband), or other details someone picking up a Mantel memoir might expect. Instead, you get an eye in on how someone of extraordinary intelligence and sensitivity lives through and in ordinary and ev...more
The endometriosis monologues. Very painful reading.
"'When I was young,' I said diffidently, 'I used to think that dog was a cow.' I was hoping to prompt the reply, 'Well, actually, secretly, it is,' but the reply I got was, 'Don’t be silly.'"
"She didn’t understand their genteel nursey euphemisms, and when they handed her a flask and asked her to pass water she came across to ask if I knew what the fuck they were talking about."
"When the professor had examined me at Outpatients, a week or two ea...more
"'When I was young,' I said diffidently, 'I used to think that dog was a cow.' I was hoping to prompt the reply, 'Well, actually, secretly, it is,' but the reply I got was, 'Don’t be silly.'"
"She didn’t understand their genteel nursey euphemisms, and when they handed her a flask and asked her to pass water she came across to ask if I knew what the fuck they were talking about."
"When the professor had examined me at Outpatients, a week or two ea...more
The back of this book is unhelpful; it makes it seem as though the whole thing is about her infertility. That's part of the story, but it's not even most of it. Most of it is about growing up Catholic, going to schools taught by nuns, growing up in a family, trying to make sense of life from a child's perspective. The mysteries of adults and the struggle to unravel them. How it is when Father is displaced by another man who is unkind, and how the neighbors know and try to shame your mother.
Late...more
Late...more
Hilary Mantel is an extraordinary writer. There is much that she leaves unsaid, but upon finishing her memoir, I think I understood what many of those things may be. Her life is comparable to Kafka's short story, Metamorphosis. She suffers from a strange disease that has left an indelible mark on her life. I had the impression that Giving up the Ghost was written for her mother; in part, it is about grieving her not being able to have children. Her becoming a writer was quite accidental it seems...more
Wow, what a book!
What I learned? A memoir is a totally different beast from an autobiography. At least it is in Ms. Mantel's hands.
I swear that I read at least a third of the book, wandering from memory to memory, wondering just what was the plan? Where am "I" going? But I kept reading because her writing was so compelling and so wonderful to read.
And then the memories began to jell and I was hooked. I couldn't put it down and, at the same time, wanted to slow down and savor each page.
What a lif...more
What I learned? A memoir is a totally different beast from an autobiography. At least it is in Ms. Mantel's hands.
I swear that I read at least a third of the book, wandering from memory to memory, wondering just what was the plan? Where am "I" going? But I kept reading because her writing was so compelling and so wonderful to read.
And then the memories began to jell and I was hooked. I couldn't put it down and, at the same time, wanted to slow down and savor each page.
What a lif...more
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This is the first Mantel I've read that I didn't find utterly compelling. At least not all the way through. The last section of the book, dealing with her long-undiagnosed illness and the treatment for non-existent madness that intermittently drove her mad, is horrible and fascinating and helps make sense of earlier quirks and what seemed to me an occasional lack of generosity. Mantel's persona is far from all sweetness and light, and this is in itself successfully represented as part of a neces...more
1 like · like · see review
Though Mantel does not always follow the typical formula of an autobiography, her reflections on her life are still stunningly written. I am glad that she did not dissect every bit of her past; this may be one of the reasons why the narrative flows more like a story instead of a relating of simple facts (in a positive way). It was interesting to see her skip around in time a bit to fully explain her train of thought or finish a story. Doing so helped keep the flow of that particular bit of the n...more
"You come to this place, midlife. You don't know how you got here, but suddenly you're staring fifty in the face. When you turn and look back down the years, you glimpse the ghosts of other lives you might have led. All your houses are haunted by the person you might have been. The wraiths and phantoms creep under your carpets and between the warp and weft of your curtains, they lurk in wardrobes and lie flat under drawer liners. You think of the children you might have had but didn't. When the...more
This helped me through the most difficult time of my life and I can't say anything better about a book than that. It is exquisitely written, as all Hilary Mantel's books are, and is one of the most acccurate and heartbreaking accounts of what a life of pain and illness is like. I can't thank her enough for writing something that so eloquently articulates the experience of sickness without a hint of self pity or melodrama.
This book was OK, but I suppose I expected more, after the tremendous Wolf Hall, which was by far the best book I read last year. I agree with another reviewer, who said this was more an exorcism for Mantel than something written for readers. That said, of course there are compelling and evocative moments. But I didn't find it as interesting as other memoirs I've read recently (by people around the same age as Mantel) -- Nigel Slater's charming Toast and Andrea Ashworth's uneasy Once in a House...more
An unusual, visceral, sharp and insightful book, written with inventive use of language and imagery. Mantel’s story begins as she and her husband are selling their house, Owl Cottage, and in the process will be saying goodbye to its resident ghost. She looks back to infanthood and childhood, remembering herself as a young girl and using the present tense; and then moves through her often painful and challenging experiences of adulthood. It concludes with an especially moving exploration of the g...more
For years I have been enjoying Mantel's book reviews in the London Review of Books. This memoir of her childhood is most unusual. SHE is most unusual. This is not a chronological relating of memories so much as an attempt at self-analysis. Mantel tries to make sense out of how her childhood experiences made her into the person she is today. Very very interesting reading.
I loved the way that Hilary described her early life. I knew very little about her before I read this and can see where some of her literary inspiration has come from. She came from an ordinary working class background and has achieved so much. I would love to discover more about her historical writing and research - perhaps she will write a sequel!
This memoir, although fascinating and revealing at times, is scattered and disjointed. Her ongoing medical crises are interwoven with her earlier memories, but the pain and agonizing disappointment of her later years totally overwhelms the memoir. It is not that memoirs have to have a "Hollywood ending", but this book leaves the reader with a sense of pity and deep concern for her. I doubt that this is what she intended.
I've had ill health all my life and do I must admit feel sorry for myself from time to time. Well this book served as a very efficient reminder that there is always someone worse off than yourself. What Mantel went through because of apathy, her catholic background and an inefficient healthcare system is just astonishing. I do feel though that regret is the ghost she gives up. Although I was secretly hoping for details of other ghosts, this was a very worthwhile read.
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Loved this honest autobiography. So much of it rang true for me, especially the battles with endometriosis, and the feelings about schooling. Hilary Mantel's style of writing never lets me down. I enjoyed the casual flow between the events of her childhood, so much nicer than a regimented list of events.
An amazing story by an amazing woman who is able to articulate both the wonder and the pain of her life in an honest and beautiful way. I'm not ready to give up my ghosts yet, but Mantel has done a wonderful thing in setting down how she has lived through one of the most difficult losses a woman can suffer.
If you love her books (Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies) then you really should read her biography. I think it speaks to readers in general, but feminists of a certain age (60+) will relate to a lot of the issues she faced before she finally got to be an author.
"When you have committed enough words to paper you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind. But when you stop writing you find that's all you are, a spine, a row of rattling vertebrae, dried out like an old quill pen."
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Hilary Mary Mantel, née Thompson was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, England on 6 July 1952. She studied Law at the London School of Economics and Sheffield University. She was employed as a social worker, and lived in Botswana for five years, followed by four years in Saudi Arabia, before returning to Britain in the mid-1980s. In 1987 she was awarded the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for an article a...more
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“You come to this place, mid-life. You don’t know how you got here, but suddenly you’re staring fifty in the face. When you turn and look back down the years, you glimpse the ghosts of other lives you might have led; all houses are haunted. The wraiths and phantoms creep under your carpets and between the warp and weft of fabric, they lurk in wardrobes and lie flat under drawer-liners. You think of the children you might have had but didn’t. When the midwife says, ‘It’s a boy,’ where does the girl go? When you think you’re pregnant, and you’re not, what happens to the child that has already formed in your mind? You keep it filed in a drawer of your consciousness, like a short story that never worked after the opening lines.”
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“The story of my own childhood is a complicated sentence that I am always trying to finish, to finish and put behind me. It resists finishing, and partly this is because words are not enough; my early world was synaesthesic, and I am haunted by the ghosts of my own sense impressions, which re-emerge when I try to write, and shiver between the lines.”
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3 people liked it
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