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EIGHT MONTHS ON GHAZZAH STREET: Hilary Mantel

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I don't know why Mantel devised a central character who was so unsympathetic, and I hesitate to think that Mantel herself saw anything admirable in Frances Shore.

Its set up to be this psychological thriller where Arab culture/Islam stands in for the "other" and the "alien. This book was written in the late 80s and came out at about the time I went to serve in Peace Corps in Malawi. Andrew and Frances live on Gazzah Street, not in a Western compound, in an apartment building with four flats. Smoked glass was not dark enough; a Saudi "family car" came with curtains in the back window, with just enough of a gap to give the driver a view of the road behind him.A friend asked me for a copy of this novel as part of her birthday present a few years ago, so I will send her your review. Description: Nearly 30 years on from its original publication, Hilary Mantel's third novel is still as disturbing, incisive and illuminating as ever. We get a few excerpts but given that the narration followed Frances very closely most of the time, the diary didn’t seem to add any new perspective. I got to visit Riyadh Saudi Arabia in May 2015 for short period and I was looking for a book that tell me more about the country and life there. The regime is corrupt and harsh, the expatriates are hard-drinking money-grubbers, and her Muslim neighbours are secretive, watchful.

I rapporti sono tesi però anche con la comunità anglosassone degli espatriati, spesso razzisti, che vivono esclusivamente per il denaro, tra pettegolezzi e dicerie. Mantel's depiction of the mortal threat of living in a country that has no rule of law is devastatingly realistic. At least one other member felt as I did, fascinated by the novel, appreciative of the good writing but disliked the characters (I think we were supposed to). Yet, almost immediately following this exchange, Fairfax shows Frances a photo of his wife, who he describes as a "giantess," a woman who married him only because she could walk down the aisle in high heels rather than "shuffling up the aisle in gym shoes and bending her knees.In fact, this gothic part of the story is almost a subplot, or a symbol for the much more mundane corruption that is portrayed throughout the novel. The streets are not a woman's territory; confined in her flat, she finds her sense of self begin to dissolve. Lo stretto legame tra l'autrice e la protagonista, assente nei due libri precedenti, è qui evidente nelle vicende di base: una coppia di trentenni inglesi, Frances («slight, neat» nella descrizione del marito) e Andrew si trasferiscono a Jeddah, in Arabia Saudita, negli anni Ottanta; e prima erano stati insieme in Africa: Zambia e Botswana.

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