Hilary Mantel  – A Memoir of My Former Self – A life in writing.

Nicholas Pearson – Hilary’s longtime editor writes in the forward of this last but essential book: ‘She was a writer at the peak of her powers, one for whom fresh creative vistas were just opening up’.

This book is a posthumous collection of articles spanning four decades of her nonfiction. Pearson also drops in the teasing detail that she had been working on a new novel, Provocation, about Mary Bennet from Pride and Prejudice.

If you missed the extract in the Guardian – here it is:

Provocation

An extract from Mantel’s unfinished Austen satire.

Elizabeth took her new sister’s silence as a token of profundity. But I myself saw that, compared to Georgiana, my sister was Socrates. And this led me to question, in due course, whether Darcy himself was in command of any significant intellectual power. How often, I believe, we women must suppress the question? A solemn countenance, a grave manner, a pre-occupied frown; these suggest to us a mastering of life’s perplexities born of a habit of deep reflection, and vigorous examination of every fact and circumstance. Yet, what if the frown means nothing but ill humour? If the grave and pre-occupied air means nothing but insufficiency in the face of whatever circumstances present? What if the long silences, so intimidating to my sex, are merely the consequence of having nothing to say? What if that prevailing solemnity results from a simple failure to see the joke? Reader, to think it is to know it: Darcy was a more harmless soul than we had imagined, and replete with good intentions; his silence in company proceeded, not from a conviction of natural superiority, but from a solid, sterling stupidity, such as an English gentleman alone dares display. When was Darcy ever contradicted? His every assertion was treated as scripture. When were his wishes not performed, as if they were law? Such infallible consideration must divide a man from himself: he is dull but never knows it, for he receives witty answers to witless questions. I saw that it would be Elizabeth’s lifetime work to collaborate with his innocent self-conceit. It is what she will give, in return for being mistress of Pemberley.

“Darcy believes it is going to rain!”– and the whole county must seek cover. “Darcy believes there will be a vote in the house!” and all interested parties are agog. Never mind that the sky is clear. Never mind that Parliament is prorogued. We simple souls will all agree that Darcy has power to perceive what is hidden from us, because he is a man, and a gentleman and has a park that is ten miles round.

John Self in the Guardian says of Mantel, ‘Her long essays on female writers show Mantel at her best. She encapsulates the contradictions of Rebecca West (“It’s her vices, as much as her virtues, that make her letters so compelling”), and doesn’t mince her words on Elizabeth Jane Howard. “The real reason [her] books are underestimated – let’s be blunt – is that they are by a woman.”

Mantel’s subjects are wide-ranging. She discusses nationalism and her own sense of belonging; our dream life flopping into our conscious life; the mythic legacy of Princess Diana; the many themes that feed into her novels – revolutionary France, psychics, Tudor England – and other novelists, from Jane Austen to V. S. Naipaul. She writes about her father and the man who replaced him; she writes fiercely and heartbreakingly about the battles with her health she endured as a young woman, and the stifling years she found herself living in Saudi Arabia. Here, too, is a selection of her film reviews – from When Harry Met Sally to RoboCop – and, published for the first time, her stunning Reith Lectures, which explore the process of art bringing history and the dead back to life.

At the Wolf Hall Weekend we will exploring not only Mantel’s in depth fictional and factual account of Thomas Cromwell’s life, but also how it fits within her entire oeuvre – in particular her views on the writing of history in general and her approach to personal and national story telling – not least the importance of raising the dead through fiction. We have an amazing line-up of speakers to assist in that task. https://wolfhallweekend.com/speakers

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The Reviews:

Her long essays on female writers show Mantel at her best . . . Indeed she excels at writing about writing generally . . . And it’s on being a writer that Mantel is funniest . . . a guide to the mind of one of the great English novelists of the last half-century ― Guardian

Today, she reigns supreme as the queen of the historical novel: the achievement of her Wolf Hall trilogy, twice the recipient of Booker Prizes, is universally acknowledged . . . it’s a rich and illuminating coda to both Mantel’s life and career . . . Now we’re the ones stumbling along behind the spectral figure of Mantel herself, eager for her every last word ― Daily Telegraph

The range of subjects is magnificent . . . She can create character in a few lines . . . open at any page for treasures and gold ― i Paper

Her death at the age of 70 last September still feels like a tragedy. Open the pages of this book and that feeling hardens into certainty. What a talent we lost. Her sentences leap off the page, her range is exceptional . . . You never waste a moment reading Hilary Mantel . . . There wasn’t much she couldn’t do ― Evening Standard

In this dazzling posthumous collection of previously published and original writings . . . Mantel’s idiosyncratic and magisterial voice comes through on every page, carrying readers across an astonishing array of subject matter with ease. This is a treasure ― Publishers Weekly

We must be grateful that she has left us this collection of pieces, thoughtfully compiled by Pearson . . . Revisiting these pieces, with their fierce wit, their dark humour and compassion, is like hearing the voice of an old friend you had not expected to encounter again . . . A Memoir of My Former Self is a fine testament to that remarkable imagination – a reminder of what a voice we have lost, and how fortunate we are that she left us so much ― Observer

A smart, deft, meticulous, thoughtful writer, with such a grasp of the dark and spidery corners of human nature — Margaret Atwood

One of the very greatest of our writers; poetic and profound prose with an incomparable feel for the texture of history — Simon Schama

Mantel was a queen of literature . . . her reign was long, varied and uncontested — Maggie O’Farrell

Mantel bristled with intelligence, looked at everything, saw everything . . . With the uneasy energy of her early life, Mantel made rigorous and unsettling work about history, the body and the unknowable — Anne Enright

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