I would start with the outrage its publication caused in most of the press. How offended they were at the the very idea that not everybody venerated the ex Prime Minister, whose status of heroine saviour they assumed to be universally acknowledged. Saying this was not so and even contemplating an assassination was somehow extra disrespectful because she had recently died. One Thatcher’s old advisors, Tim Bell ( a man of such moral nicety he has been prepared to represent the brutal regime in Uzbekistan) made some barmpot suggestion that the police ought to look into the fantasy murder. The flurry of outrage would have rewarded a little examination. But perhaps the funniest thing was that the Daily Telegraph bought the rights for the book, pre publication, presumably without knowing what the title story was about. They dropped it and it was then taken up by the Guardian.
Then I would haved linked to a previous controversy stoked in the same papers about something Mantle wrote, or rather said, in a lecture, entitled ‘Royal Bodies’ . It is actually an interesting and thoughtful piece abut how we look at monarchy, especially the women, both at present and in Tudor times. However it was read only as an attack on Kate Middleton rather than the expectations of her role:
Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character. She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture.
Such extracts were highlighted to provide fodder for the papers, phone-ins and politicians who could proclaim how disgraceful it was that someone could say such things when everyone knew Kate was perfection itself.How, with this fake controversy only a year old could the Daily Telegraph think that the next Mantel book would necessarily be safe for their readers? That must just have assumed that she was still stuck in Tudor times.
Anyway I picked up the book expecting to expand on the theme but a book of short stories is an unpredictable thing. Here there are ten different tales just like some old LPs and just like an album you might not like the title track best. Here the story that interested me most was the opening one (again think how many albums open with the strongest song).
It is called ‘Sorry to Disturb’ and the reference at the back says it was first published as ‘Sorry to Disturb: a memoir’ in the London Review of Books in 2009. However the LRB archive gives it the title ‘Someone to Disturb’, which is actually a more interesting title as it has a slight ambiguity: it could refer to the person who was disturbing or the person vulnerable to disruption, which is apt as the story is about vulnerability. However we have lost the subtitle and we are now no longer sure whether it is a memoir, fictionalised memoir, or fiction.
We know it is about someone who was living in Saudi Arabia, trapped at home whilst her husband was out at work. Someone who was muzzy with drugs that also cause psychotic incidents, and someone who wrote a novel and had it accepted for publication during the course of the story. These things are all part of Hilary Mantel’s biography. Whether the visit and subsequent contact with Muhammed Ijaz happened - who knows. It doesn’t matter. It’s a story. What it shows is the effect of being trapped inside a house, with activity overlooked, and severe restraints on the way a woman is meant to behave. Such constraints lead to a debilitated of a sense of self and in the end she is incapable of cutting herself free from the attentions of the unwanted visitor and has to rely on her husband to write a letter.
It is a creepy, sad tale that has the feeling of unreality, as if it doesn’t quite make sense. This is acknowledge near the end:
“Even after all this time it is hard to grasp exactly what happened. I try to write it as it occurred but I find myself changing the names to protect the guilty. I wonder if Jeddah left me forever off kilter in some way, tilted from the vertical and condemned to see life skewed.”
It was this story that got me thinking the most.
Date of publication
2014
Random Factor:
Library ‘Hot Pick’
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