Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel

‘Giving up the Ghost’ is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's uniquely unusual five-part autobiography. 
Opening in 1995 with 'A Second Home', Mantel describes the death of her stepfather which leaves her deeply troubled by the unresolved events of her childhood. In 'Now Geoffrey Don't Torment Her' Mantel takes the reader into the muffled consciousness of her early childhood, culminating in the birth of a younger brother and the strange candlelight ceremony of her mother's 'churching'. In 'Smile', an account of teenage perplexity, Mantel describes a household where the keeping of secrets has become a way of life. Finally, at the memoir's conclusion, Mantel explains how through a series of medical misunderstandings and neglect she came to be childless and how the ghosts of the unborn like chances missed or pages unturned, have come to haunt her life as a writer.

Hilary Mantel's memoir is, for me, the best depiction of childhood and what it is like to be truly naive in all the right ways. There's a brilliant moment after Mantel's first day at school where she feels she's had a go at 'school', on balance felt she preferred being at home, so assumed she didn't have to go back. For some reason I found this hilarious and adorable - I mean why should a child know school was compulsory??

The memoir does look at Mantel's childhood and the unusual set up she had at home but, told through her eyes as a child, there is no boasting of strangeness, no boasting of any kind. It's just told naively and straightly, which I found very appealing. I mean no family is 'normal', mine certainly has some.. eccentricities.. but you only find out that those eccentricities are eccentricities later. I mean no child really thinks 'this set up is odd', they find out later.

Mantel later goes into her medical history, which is simply extraordinary. What she's been through you can only begin to understand when you read this book. I read a few very cruel comments about Mantel following the 'Kate Middleton' fiasco and it's almost funny how ignorant some of those criticisms were - think they should all be sent a copy of this book...

7/10

Can great novels change your life?

For decades older generations have been despairing at the passivity of the television generation, absorbing poisonous morals and unhealthy opinions from spending hours in front of Dawson's Creek. Well now researchers from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia have published a study in the journal, Brain Connectivity, that claims some books may be so affecting that they actually change the way our brains work.

Author and neuroscientist, Gregory Berns, who heads up the study has said, “Stories shape our lives and in some cases help define a person... We want to understand how stories get into your brain, and what they do to it.”

21 Emory undergraduate guinea pigs were asked to read Pompeii by bestselling novelist, Robert Harris. Over a nine-day period, the undergraduates read 9 thirty-page segments of the novel. After each set of 30 pages the undergraduates were tested on the material to make sure they'd read it fully and then given an MRI scan.

What they found, perhaps less surprisingly, was that the left temporal cortex of each of their brains seemed to show "heightened connectivity". This part of the brain is associated with "receptivity for language" but also the part that links thoughts to actions.

While this area of the brain was likely to be triggered during reading, what was interesting was that the brains continued to be stimulated in this way days afterwards.

Professor Berns acknowledges that there is not yet a conclusive answer to this question - can great novels change your life... but he says 'we're detecting [these stimulations] over a few days for a randomly assigned novel suggests that favourite novels could certainly have a bigger and longer-lasting effect on the biology of your brain."

All I can say is that explains a few things... making things happen. Things I couldn't explain when I was angry, or scared... although I never did get my letter. Still waiting.

P.s. My apologies if you've lost me and think I've suddenly gone completely mental. You're obviously just not cool enough.

The Railway Man by Eric Lomax

During the Second World War Eric Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and was tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio.

Left emotionally scarred and unable to form normal relationships, Lomax suffered for years until, with the help of his wife, Patti Lomax, and of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, he came terms with what happened. Fifty years after the terrible events, he was able to meet one of his tormentors.

The Railway Man is a story of innocence betrayed, and of survival and courage in the face of horror.

When I first bought this book I had no idea how 'big' a book it was. Not in length, but in terms of its effect. Not only had the book had been published well over a decade before I picked it up, it had been phenomenally successful and won the 1996 NCR Book Award and the J R Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. What I had gone and bought was Vintage's celebratory re-jacketing of the now-classic memoir.

Well, what a read. You could say I was naive as to the emotional power a story like this has. Growing up in the modern world I have always been aware of images everywhere of war zones, terrorist attacks, violent dictatorships and from that you certainly build at least a little immunity from the shock factor. Not a good thing. This book, however, not only proved that I have not been entirely stripped of any emotion or empathy... But also illustrated the danger of not knowing. Soldiers were subject to the cruellest treatment all over the world  as POWs but after their release, there was a feeling that they were the lucky ones - all kitted out in luxury away from the front line. To be traumatised is one thing, for the trauma to be left unacknowledged and thus untreated is another.

I was bemoaning to my sister the way that our parents and grandparents have shaped the world so much they have left little for us to put our name to, aside from yet more technology to deplete our resources and the rise of size zero. But she said an interesting thing and that was that surely we will be part of a psychological age of some kind, where we all understand ourselves and each other more through psychological advances, therapy et al. This book certainly goes along with that argument and the therapeutic opportunities and recognition of trauma that Lomax receives eventually is arguably what gives this book it's unique power.

Anyway, sorry that this has turned all whimsical, the book itself is a must read. It's educational, it lacks bitterness, the images are clear as day without even a single photograph and I was left feeling extremely fortunate.

Lomax sadly died in 2012 but did live to know his book would be made into a film. Indeed he met his Hollywood selves, Colin Firth and Jeremy Irvine. The film is out now.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit trilogy; a filmic masterpiece or an exercise in making the longest films ever out of a very average sized book? As much as I'd like to believe and feel the former, I am desperately struggling to get past the latter unfortunately.

I think if I were a film maker *makes mental note for whenever Stylist magazine ask me my Plan B career* I would struggle to not want to make my mark. I heard last week that Scorcese has allegedly managed to make it into the record books with The Wolf of Wall Street by making a movie that has the highest usage of the F-word in any other movie other than a film about the F-word itself... over 500 utterances apparently. If Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Tolkein classic is indeed an indulgent attempt to make it into the record books with the greatest amount of screen-time per page of a single novel, then I have to say he's doing a pretty good job. I'm not going to go out there and say it's the best film I saw last year. It's far from it: it's too long and it's not got enough content to stop me from looking at my watch... but it could be SO much worse.

Maybe not the words Peter Jackson wants to hear from the likes of Empire or Total Film, but I'm pretty sure he won't give a hobbit's foot what I think so I'll make the most of my insignificance.

I definitely preferred this film to the first in the trilogy. The plot still feels stretched but overall it felt more 'whole' somehow, like it stood by itself better than the first. The ending was less abrupt too, a nice cameo from Orlando Bloom, a bit of dwarf flirting that was absent from part 1, LOVED the melting gold and there was a little bit more pretty in the form of Bard the Bowman for which I was thankful. Talking of casting, if there were ever a film that better solidified the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch will become the next Anthony Hopkins or Michael Gambon of brilliant British voiceovers, then I don't know what will. Cumberbatch as Smaug has got to be a highlight.

Overall, I'd wait for it on DVD if it weren't for the stunning scenery that continues to scene steal throughout.