Very strong in the beginning, started to drag towards the end. However well worth reading for the fascinating depiction of public psychic shows, the personal beliefs (delusions ?) and hopes that draw up the dead and how the dead are “invented”. The spirit guides as reflections of the Medium's past abuse were less convincing as their narrative dragged on. ( )

Kind of a different story about a small time psychic in England ( )

I'm not sure if I liked this or not, but I read to the end. Maybe it was there when I was no longer sure if I liked it? I won't add spoilers, but I wasn't happy with the Great Revelations. Nonetheless, Beyond Black was an engaging read, and the Morris character is exceptionally creepy. Likewise the two main characters are exceptional portraits - I felt k=like I knew them by a third of the way in. I didn't particularly like them, but I don't suppose that's the point. I did notice that all the men in the book are heels or worse, while all the women are suffering... Maybe that's why I am not sure if I liked it? ( )

Perhaps an English reader would enjoy this more than I did. I recoiled at most of the humor.

Perhaps an English reader would enjoy this more than I did. I recoiled at most of the humor.

I enjoy Mantel, and I’m not entirely sure why, given that she has some massive (like, Dworkin-massive) issues with men. And religion. And bodies. And human interaction. But mostly men. (In this book, anyway. The other of hers I’ve read [Fludd] is heavier on the religion-issues.) Apparently her autobiography reveals that she is batsh*t insane. I do not see why one would have to read the autobiography to figure that out. But if you’ve a high tolerance for really black scenarios, you could do much worse than read her stuff.

I couldn't even finish this one. The plot on the jacket sounded interesting and compelling, while the actual plot in the book was plodding and pointless. ( )

mysterious and pragmatic

While I have no truck with the beliefs of psychics and their ilk, this novel hit home. An evocation of putridity in low income/lower class British life (note that a similar exploration of all that is putrid in high income/high class British life would be a different novel altogether).

Alison is a saint and doesn't know it. Colette would like to be, but fails.

Scary, funny and true. ( )

This was an odd one. It was by no means an enjoyable read - the characters are singularly unappealing and many of the situations seem terribly forced - when I finished it I felt that it would pass quickly from my memory. But it hasn't - Mantel has an odd way of finagling her concerns into your head, unappealing as they may indeed be, and I find myself thinking about the situations far more than I would have expected many months after completing the book. Those expecting a lightweight humourous look at the occult be warned - there is some funny business, but it is black, indeed businesslike, and said occult is a backdrop to darker musings on the nature of being - relationships, family, depth and depression. Most odd. ( )

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I did a very stupid thing on Thursday evening, I lent my copy of Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black to a friend only then to realise that I wouldn't have it to refer to when I wanted to write about the book here. So, I’m not going to be able to quote passages to support my view that this is a very remarkable novel indeed and that rather than being about spiritualism as might seem to be the case on the surface, it is in fact a satirical exploration of the state of the nation under New Labour.
It might seem that it is a book about spiritualism because the main character, Alison, is a medium and the action centres around her life over a period of around seven years as she, Colette, her assistant, and Morris her foul-mouthed (and foul pretty much everything else, actually) spirit guide traverse the land surrounding the M25 corridor participating in seances with an odd assortment of other psychics. It would also be possible to draw further evidence for this from the book I wrote about on Tuesday, Giving up the Ghost, because in that Mantel, having said that she wants to seize the copyright in myself, discusses the awareness that she and her family had of being surrounded by ghosts in the family house when she was a child. An open exploration of the spirit world might seem a credible next step.
However, it seems to me that far more important is the writer’s examination of the society in which Alison and her colleagues are operating. The scene is set in the opening chapter which defines the physical world in which Alison plies her craft, the world of the upwardly mobile, the world of people like Colette, who starts by describing herself as an assistant only to progress to self-aggrandising her role as that of partner and eventually manager. Mantel reinforces this with her depiction of the estate to which the two women move, where not only are the houses spoken of by their generic names, but even the garden sheds are never simply sheds but the Balmoral or the Sandringham. Here the main topics of conversation among the women’s neighbours are those burning issues that are likely to affect house prices: pollution, subsidence and the undesirable elements of society who must be rooted out at every opportunity.
Meanwhile, at the seances, Alison’s clients want to know about the scandals of the day, the dramas, the tittle-tattle of celebrity. What’s the truth behind Diana’s death? What was her relationship with Dido (sic)? Has the Queen Mother come through? What does she think about it all? Nothing is safe from Mantel’s satirical eye. She deals with reality shows, with the day-time televisual urge to confess in public, even with the NHS, nicely likened to hell. Apparently, if we die within the hallowed halls of the Health Service we’re not going to notice the difference.
It isn’t just in what she writes about though that Mantel draws attention to the political elements of her vision, her use of language is also instructive. One of the spirits hanging around with Morris is Bill Wagstaff, who occasionally quotes snippets of John of Gaunt’s famous speech from Richard II the one that begins This royal throne of kings, a speech often taken out of context but which, in its original setting is a piece of political propaganda designed to swing government policy the way the speaker thinks it ought to go. Even more persuasive is the opening of Chapter Three (and here I really could do with quoting) where the structure and vocabulary echo that early passage in Dickens’ Bleak House where in while seemingly talking about fog, the writer is actually drawing attention to the deliberate obfuscation being carried out by the political establishment. Another book with a message about the political and social state of the Nation.
The world that Mantel depicts is a world of creeping decay, a world in which people are becoming increasingly discontented, suspicious and aggressive. For Alison this is reflected in the control that her spirit guide and his friends have over her, gradually destroying both her physical and psychological health. And here Mantel again seems to return to the idea of claiming one’s own copyright, for Alison only finds peace when she realises that she has to turn back and examine her own part in the creation of her current situation. She has to remember and acknowledge what has, in childhood, been done to her and what in turn she has done to others. Only when she recognises that to some extent she is responsible for the situation that torments her is she able to take control and do something about it. In the same way, Mantel suggests, it is only when we stop blaming everyone else for the social situations we deplore and acknowledge our own communal responsibility for them that we might begin to find solutions.
Alison’s story ends well. I’m not sure how hopeful Mantel is that the same will be true in the parallel she is drawing.

not everyones cup of tea but i was impressed. the author is a posh gal but you wouldnt know it . she has a great was of trivialising the nightmare situation this medium finds herself in and tries to go about her day to day life.itsa fun book and a rare perpective of the occult which i find respectful, interesting and powerful the dark humour is very clever and kind of makes you want to have a dabble (j/k or not?) ( )

Clever novel that combines a sharp dig at the occult pretensions and fakes of the 80's and 90's with the horror endured when being able to commune with the dead is real. Love to see a TV series with Dawn French or in the key role and Catherine Tate as the logical (superficial !) assistant. ( )

This book is very odd but worth reading. It deals with Alison (why are all mediums called Alison in books and TV?)and her ability to see ghosts. She is 'helped' by Maurice, her spirit guide, and Colette, her personal assistant, but is very much alone. She tours the area around the M25 giving psychic readings and is haunted in a very real way by her past. ( )

Suggestion From Library Thing

A novel of place and time. The time is the turn of the century and the place is London's orbital motorway the M25. This book reeks of the motels and amber flourescence of surburban England and populates it with the grotesque dead of medium Alison Hart's nasty childhood. A motorway read; leave copies in the Little Chefs and Travelodges. It's grim down South! ( )

I was unimpressed by this book. There was no real plot development, just a rambling through a mediums life. Two things that were endearing about Beyond Black, however, the prose and the main character, Alison. ( )

It committed two of the worst crimes in my pretentious yet lovable opinion; it blathered on about Dianna dieing and made several references to the twin towers. I get grounding a novel in the real world but I don't think referencing major events that we hear about until we are blue in the teeth isn't the way to do it. There was a degree of let's not explain that fully or give a definite ending to seem literary but at least it managed to be interesting, human, and, in parts, quite beautiful. ( )

http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/b... ( )

Alison is a thirty-something medium who makes her living travelling from venue to small venue on the M.25, connecting people to their lost loved ones. Her life is pretty disorganised until she meets Colette, who’s just about to put an end to her failing marriage. Colette moves in and takes Alison’s affairs successfully in hand, but soon the relationship begins to disintegrate.

For Alison’s world is inhabited by a cast of dead characters from her childhood who are no better than they were when alive – and that’s pretty damned evil. The terrible secret of that childhood, hidden even from Alison herself, is revealed gradually: there’s no plot as such, yet this book would be worth reading for the beautiful prose alone, and I promise that by the time you’ve turned the last page you’ll never see the world in quite the same way again.

I enjoyed the telling descriptions of the psychics and their craft and the glimpses of Alison’s dark childhood. I’d have liked Colette to be less abrasive towards Alison, although this tension does drive the story forward. But the most amazing thing about this book is the way Hilary Mantel makes the reader suspend disbelief in the unseen dimension that exists all around us. Maybe she knows something the rest of don’t. ( )

http://community.livejournal.com/50bo... ( )

A curious book. A comedy about ... the life beyond, child abuse ... the general crapness of modern day Britain. All things to laugh at, hey?

Alison is a clairvoyant, passing on banal messages from dead relatives to audiences in seedy venues in the South-East. But there's no trickery involved - Alison's the real thing. She even has a spirit guide: "a grizzled grinning apparition in a bookmaker’s check jacket and suede shoes with bald toe caps�? who sits around making lewd remarks and fondling himself, unseen by anyone but Alison. The dead are as solidly drawn as the living in the novel and even a disorientated Princess Di turns up in Alison's hallway a few hours after passing over.

I felt great sympathy for Alison, increasingly under psychic attack from a group of men who abused her sexually and physically as a child, yet unable to share with anyone the true horror of what she sees in the world beyond.

Her self-styled "manager" Colette, is a deliciously awful character - prim, humourless and cold ... and the way she gets her come-uppance delighted me. (Guess whose grubby little sock turns up in her washing machine?)

But what I loved most about the book was Mantel's spot-on portrayal of an England I recognise all too well, in prose that sings. ( )

Clever creepy tale of a psychic working in 21st century England, her relationships, childhood and the people who believe her. ( )