La Sombra de La Guillotina (Spanish Edition) (original 1994; edição 1994)

Sometimes when a book's been on your "read this soon" shelf for nearly a decade, its number comes up. I enjoyed this one, though not as much as Mantel's Cromwell books. Made me want to read some more French Revolutionary history, too. ( )

Hilary Mantel’s book about the French Revolution is rich in detail and tells the story of the revolution in a variety of ways: traditional narrative (in first and third person) by multiple characters, letters, diary and notebook entries, and even play-style dialogue. Sometimes the third-person narrator is omniscient, and sometimes we get right into the head of Desmoulins or Robespierre or Danton.

For people who like to get stuck into a book and fully immerse themselves in its world, this will provide over 700 pages’ worth of enjoyment. I was full of enthusiasm at the beginning but by the end found it harder to tackle. (It didn’t help that I broke my purse strap from carrying the book around all the time.) Also my edition had a lot of weird typos that were distracting. But I am glad to have read it, because it will set me off on a path of reading other books set in or written about the French Revolution. And maybe now that I’ve tackled that, Les Misérables will be next on the list…

On a side note, this book came to my attention in the first place thanks to Kate Beaton’s comics about the French Revolution—and yes, some of those were in my mind when I read (such as the one about Madame de Lamballe). ( )

Far too long. We know what’s going to happen, so there's no narrative tension in that way, and 900 pages of the minutiae of these peoples lives is just too much. It needed an editor to say “Very nice Hilary, now take it away and take 500 pages out. Or turn it into a trilogy, but make sure you deliver the third part”. ( )

I love Hilary Mantel's writing. But his novel is almost 900 pages. It took me three months to read it. I had to make myself finish it. Was it worth it? Probably. I hadn't realised the French Revolution followed the course that it did, I didn't know many of the details, many of them quite shocking.

Mantel has deftly followed the (actual and real) lives of three boys that meet at school and their lifelong intertwined relationships. As usual, she doesn't make it a clean story with clear motives. Real life isn't like that, it is messy, people change, people make mistakes, people's opinions and allegiances vary from year to year.

You get the feeling that Mantel has done a huge amount of research for this novel and that she often quotes from sources. ( )

Really poor. I love historical fiction and was excited to read this. The author is the only person to have won the Booker Prize twice. I am interested in the French Revolution. What could go wrong?

Oh so many things. The POV is covered by so many people it was difficult to work out who was speaking at a particular time. All the people seemed o b e sketches. It went on and on. In my book group it was voted the book we most wanted to read over the year. In the event only two of us were able to finish it. Even the person who proposed it couldn't.

Wasted opportunity. Back to Plaidy! ( )