We now know the answer to Atwood’s question: Mantel was working on a rewriting of Pride and Prejudice, told from the perspective of the overlooked middle sister Mary Bennet, to be titled Provocation.
Aside from her Cromwell novels, Mantel had a habit of confounding expectations, with each new work so different from its predecessor.
“I don’t know, but I will miss it.” In this, she spoke for readers around the world, eagerly awaiting a new book from the author of the Wolf Hall trilogy. The only slight downside to the book, but bear in mind this is completely down to personal taste, was that at times I felt that as a reader, one had to pay very close attention to Mantel's writing to fully understand her inferences, making it a book best read when fully awake, and not, perhaps the best choice for a relaxing evening read.“W hat might she have written next?” asked Margaret Atwood in her tribute to Hilary Mantel, after the Booker prize-winning novelist’s sudden death in September last year.
Mantel's ability to infer information about the leaders is very intuitive, and this is the quality which really makes this historical novel great. I found the book enthralling, and at times it was difficult to put down. In my opinion this was a clever take on the typical historical novel, which focuses mainly on well known characters. It is interesting that Mantel chose not to focus on Marat, the sickly revolutionary leader who was famously stabbed to death in his bathtub, but instead his contemporaries, about whom there is less knowledge, particularly surrounding their private lives.
Mantel uses the leaders of the Revolution – Danton, Robespierre and Camille Desmouslins – as the pivotal characters, which, of course, they were, but also manages to use their characters and positions to give information about lesser known characters, such as Lucille Desmoulins, without whom the revolution may not have run in the same way. Being very interested in history, particularly the French Revolution (in which the novel is set), the book turned out to be the perfect choice for me, as Mantle's ability to seamlessly interweave fact with fiction proved to be excellent. Even so, buying A Place of Greater Safety was still a bit of a whim, as I didn't have much time in which to choose, but was still desperate to be exposed to Mantel's writing.
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