Susan Hated Literature

Author: Hilary Mantel
ISBN: 038525895X DDC: 823.914
See also: Library Thing ; Elsewhere ; RIP III

“Bring in the cows now. Time to shut up for the night”.
There came three cows, breathing in the near-dark: swishing with the tips of their tails, their bones showing through hide.

This book isn’t labelled as horror; I’m guessing you are more likely to find it in the fiction or literary fiction section of a bookshop rather than the horror or even historical fiction section. But it fits under both. If you ask me.

The Giant of the title is based on the real life story of Charles Byrne but this is never intended to follow his life story. The real Byrne merely provides the inspiration. Along with the real John Hunter, real-life surgeon and anatomist. What Mantel does is use their stories as a jumping off point, an examination of the characters and their times. So of course it makes no pretence at being a real story.

Continue Reading »

As I mentioned in my last proper post Carl’s RIP challenge is on again. And as part of the first Peril I have to “Read Four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that you choose”. So, my list is:

• Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer - Its got vamps and werewolves, but I’m not sure that it is really scary. Still they fit with the whole supernatural theme of Hallowe’en, right?
• The Host by Stephanie Meyer - Alien abduction! But as it is Meyer I’m guessing it isn’t going to be that scary. But you never know, not til you read it.
• Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean. Batman, in the asylum, written by Morrison. It’s got to be weird and scary.
• The Giant O’Brien by Hilary Mantel - I don’t think this is a horror, but it is described as a dark gothic tale which involves a doctor becoming obsessed with the giant Charles O’Brien and his desire to dissect him. Fun fun fun.

I may also add a few more when I look through the list of unread books. We’ll see.

Edited to add And I’m already adding books. First up I am Legend which I meant to read ages and ages ago but never got around to it. Thanks Andi.

It is only Tuesday
I wantssess it to be Thursday. Okay, okay, I’d prefer if it were Friday and the working week over, but if I was going to go that far I’d have to hope it was the 20th and I’d be on my xmas hols, but that is wishing your life away and is ever so dreary

But Thursday’ll be fun as we are having a charity football match at work. Students v Staff. yay. And in a good cause, tis for concern, so we can feel good about ourselves.

To keep you updated, I still but nevertheless, here I am, typing away like a mad yoke. I spent ages yesterday putting photos up on my facebook account, and answering silly trivia questions. What else can one do when one is bored?

I’ve been reading Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety but have decided to toss it for the time being. I’m getting nowhere with it, although I am enjoying it, it simply requires more thought and attention than I’m willing to give at the moment. Plus it, like, totally weighs a ton, so I can’t be dragging it about with me. Maybe over the break when I have the time I’ll get stuck back in.

My problem is that I don’t really know all that much about the peoples involved in the French Revolution, and that, together with their funny furrin names is confudling me. And the fact that I seem to only read it at weekends. Actually I’m guessing that last point is probably the real problem

I trying to figure out how much *fun* I should have at the xmas partay. Do I just be merry and go home early so I can go into work the next morning with no trouble? Or do I go out and get totally slaughtered and come to work still drunk? At the moment I’m veering towards the slaughtered option, it seems more fun.

---

Title is a line from the first chapter of A Plave of Greater Safety, no real reason, I just like the way it sounds.

ISBN: 0007157762
Author: Hilary Mantel
DDC: 823.914

Travelling: the dank oily days after Christmas. The motorway, its wastes looping London: the margin’s scrub-grass flaring orange in the lights, and the leaves of the poisoned shrubs striped yellow-green like a cantaloupe melon.

Alison is a medium, she travels around London passing on messages from those who have “passed”, or at least passing on some of the messages. Because the dead are just people afterall, and not all people are nice, or worth listening to. And then there is the fact that they can get confused and lose their memories after death. Or even forget who they were. And sometimes they are downright malicous.

Alison isn’t alone, she has her manager/assistant Colette, who is recently divorced and who in many ways, wants to believe, yet never really does.

A terrible childhood, abuse, murder, violence, neglect haunts Alison. She has to deal with the spirits as they try to pass on their messages, and their pettiness. And she has to deal with her spirit guide, Morris. He is about as far from the ideal guide as you can imagine. Foul mouthed, mean spirited and hostile, Alison wishes he’d move on, and stop her remembering her past.

“Fucking stuck-up cow” he said, as Colette went out. “White-faced fucking freak. She’s like a bloody ghoul. Where did you get her, gel, a churchyard?”

And when he starts bringing back friends things get much worse, because they are all men from Alison’s childhood. And childhood was not a good time for Alison, with her prostitute, neglectful, drugged mother:

and her mum says, so am I balck and white, am I stood in the fucking meadow, and if not, what leads you to believe I am a fucking cow?

I really enjoyed this book. It is a wonderful blend of light and dark, of horror and humour.

Colette was puzzled by the woman, who urned most of her statements into questions. It must be what they do in Surrey, she decided; they must have had it twinned with Australia

Never turning into farce, and at its heart it is about Alison, and her relationship with people. Colette being the main other in her life. Have to say though that I never warmed to Colette, she is very unsympathetic, and her thoughts on the overweight Alison can be very offputting. Not to mention her controlling temperment. Sometimes you wish that Al would just snap back, or refuse to go along with whatever diet Colette is forcing her to stick to.

Well worth picking up, I’m glad the cover of this book attracted my attention as I was browsing in the three for two section.