Customer Reviews

A Change of Climate: A Novel

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When asked, rhetorically, by his sister, "Whatever happened to the dinosaurs?", Ralph, the main character responds, "Their habitat altered...A change of climate." In his rebellion against his parents, their closed, religiously fundamentalist point of view, and his father's financial blackmailing regarding his career choices, Ralph intentionally changes his physical habitat and his climate by escaping to South Africa with his bride.

Working as a lay person at a mission and vigorously opposing apartheid, Ralph and Anna eventually are imprisoned, then banished to Bechuanaland, now Botswana. It is here that the savagery which creates a permanent and terrible climate in their marriage occurs, a savagery not limited to one race as Ralph and Anna had perceived in South Africa.

As the story bounces from the present in England back twenty years to Africa, the reader lives through the vivid and terrible African experiences and simultaneously sees how they have permeated the lives of these good, but often naïve, people. Both Ralph and Anna have rejected the traditional religion of their parents in favor of doing good deeds in their family lives and through a social service trust. But as Ralph's uncle James points out, "There is nothing so appallingly hard...as the business of being human."

While the reader cheers as James grows and eventually embraces life, s/he also fears for Anna, who remains emotionally closed, despite her good deeds, fearful that she "should lose everything, one of these days." As the events resolve themselves and the "competition in goodness" comes to an end, we see real humans trying to put aside the petrified past and to change the climate of their lives, and we will, perhaps, evaluate our own lives. Can we accept change, or are we dinosaurs at heart?

I didn't discover Hilary Mantel until two weeks ago when I read a July 2005 New Yorker magazine (I don't remember the week). All I can say is that I thought I was well read, but now I wonder. No, I AM well read! So how have I missed this great author? And why, I demand to know, hasn't she won a Booker Prize?

Anyway, in the two weeks since my discovery, I have read "A Change of Climate" and "Fludd". I now have before me "A Place of Greater Safety" which I hungrily look forward to. In fact, I plan to read all of her books. I even considered becoming one of those nuts who dedicates a web page to his or her favorite author. I won't, however, but not because Mantel is unworthy of such adulation, but because, well, I am not a nut.

Finally, please allow me do the reader of "A Change of Climate" a great favor: do not read the back cover, as it tells way too much of the story. Instead, trust Mantel to tell you the story. You won't be disappointed. Great writing and great story.

Instinctively, people know that when a pain is too great to be endured, it is appropriate to wait until it can be more rationally confronted. But there is always the danger of pushing the pain so far away that it becomes inaccessible, if never, ever forgotten. "To some people great grief is an indecency...They blame the bereaved."

After a stunning tragedy in Africa, where Ralph and Anna Eldred have gone as missionaries, they return home, cautioning their family never to speak of the horror they have endured. It is relegated to the past, where it will stay. The Eldred's are compliant people, particularly Ralph, a man of good intentions who works for the family charitable trust, providing necessities, such as food, clothing and shelter for those less fortunate. But for their brief years in Africa and the trauma they suffer on the Dark Continent, the Eldred's personify the spirit of missionary life.

Once again residing in England providing for the downtrodden, Anna and Ralph live out a self-effacing routine. As a Christian, Ralph believes in service, so compassionate that he cannot turn away from those in need. Covertly, Ralph is concerned that people will mistake him for a man who loves mankind in general, but not persons in particular. However, this is exactly how he is perceived, soldiering on for over twenty years after the tragedy, burying himself in the trivia of everyday obligations. His endless pursuit of virtue in hopes of atonement can never be realized.

Meanwhile, Anna suffers grievously for Ralph's neglect, enduring a constant ache, her own survival defined by the ever-present needs of her four children. Anna has paid a terrible price for her silence all these years. Ralph grows more distant and preoccupied, Anna more edgy and neither expects the emotional eruption when Ralph falls into a romantic entanglement with a local woman.

Mantel is gifted writer, dissecting her character's motivations with elegant precision, especially their great missionary hubris, the vagrant self-congratulatory thoughts that creep into even the most well-meant acts, as the couple seeks to bury the past under the weight of the present. Layer upon layer, the author builds a structure that appears sturdy but ultimately collapses under the weight of grief and silence. Whether the couple recovers will be determined by their spiritual strengths and human weaknesses, the delicate balance between expectations and reality. Luan Gaines/2004.

A lot of American readers may be put off by the rather dryly literate writing style of this British writer, but I would urge them to stick it out for a deep and true read, with an ending that is uplifting, but as painful and complex as life itself. As one who grew up with the benefit of an idealistic liberal education and travelled the world widely and deeply, and like the protoganists of this book found that the almost diefied third world races are no less free of the capacity to do evil than white westerners, this novel had a brave ring of truth. In fact, it is so against the grain that I'm surprised it wasn't condemned by the liberal elites who write most of the book reviews. A different view of the missionary experience, as well as Mantel's classical prose and subtly unfolding plot make an interesting antidote to the simplistically politically correct and gimmickally narrated bestseller, Barbara Kinsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible." This is one of the few books I've read in recent years that had something new and original to say.

This is the first novel of Hilary Mantel that I've read, and I'm eager to read more. Her style is her strength: she is a keen observer of human character, human fraility, human environments, and she describes the environment, emotions and atmospheres with a crystal clarity. For example, her paragraph about the end of a semester caused me to relive those times: "only dogged by that usual feeling of anticlimax the end of exams brings. After this, you think, after my papers are over, I will do, and I will do ... and then you don't. You are a shell, enclosing outworn effort. You expect a sense of freedom, and yet you feel trapped in the same old body, the same drab routines; you expect exhilaration, and you only feel a kind of habitual dullness, a letdown, a perverse longing for the days when you read and made notes and sat up all night."

Mantel's characters are muddlers. They muddle through life with good intentions, but feel displaced and unsatisfied. Yet you care for them, and say to yourself, "I know these people!" There are many robust characters [Ralph and Anna, missionaries in Africa; their children, searching for their place in the world; Ralph's sister Emma] and threads interwoven through the basic story. The main characters are Ralph and Anna, missionaries who go to Africa to "do good". Evil events there haunt their lives when they return to England.

The novel is written as an "entertaining read", in a page-turning style -- you are interested in the characters and events. Yet it is a substantial work, addressing important themes: good versus evil, do our choices make a difference, the cost of cultural misunderrstandings, the loss of faith, how any sense of security is an illusion. While entertaining, Mantel is not afraid of the artist's obligation to tell us unpalatable truths about ourselves.

My one complaint is that the ending was too predictable; I felt that the novel was "wrapped up", rather than allowed to find its own ending.

"A Change of Climate" begins like a Jane Austen comedy of manners: close observation of the social rituals which enable people to not speak the through. Even some of the characters (Ralph's and Anna's parents, for example) seem taken from a 19th century novelistic description of religious fanatics. It is not long, however, before th novel leaves Austen in the dust--and blood. I found the novel to be intellectually stimulating--is it possible to be good?--and profoundly disturbing. I think the novel is perfect for bookclubs. I am looking forward to reading "The Giant O'Brien" and "An Experiment in Love."

It isn't easy to write a review of this book. I liked how it dealt with some big issues, such as how teens and young adults react to parents' expectations with respect to education, careers, and marriage; good versus evil; cultural differences and their impacts; the loss of faith; and the question of whether people have choices and how they deal with them. Can they change?

On the other hand, I didn't find this book a page turner except for the parts in Africa.

One reviewer thought the ending was too predictable and "wrapped up," but I felt it was not. I thought there were many loose ends. I suppose life is like that though.

The characters of Ralph and Anna were well developed. One of the daughters, Kit, struck me as odd. I could understand her desire to return to Africa where she was born, but she often acted very immature as if she were still a teenager. We never learned enough about her as a child in England to understand why she acted like that with others. At least I didn't.

Edit: I see this says I read the paperback, but I read it on the Kindle.

A Change of Climate is a wonderful book. Hilary Mantel examines issues such as love, faith, and fidelity through the lives of Ralph and Anna Eldred. I truly enjoyed reading this book.

When asked, rhetorically, by his sister, "Whatever happened to the dinosaurs?", Ralph, the main character responds, "Their habitat altered...A change of climate." In his rebellion against his parents, their closed, religiously fundamentalist point of view, and his father's financial blackmailing regarding his career choices, Ralph intentionally changes his physical habitat and his climate by escaping to South Africa with his bride. Working as a lay person at a mission and vigorously opposing apartheid, Ralph and Anna eventually are imprisoned, then banished to Bechuanaland, now Botswana. It is here that the savagery which creates a permanent and terrible climate in their marriage occurs, a savagery not limited to one race as Ralph and Anna had perceived in South Africa.

As the story bounces from the present in England back twenty years to Africa, the reader lives through the vivid and terrible African experiences and simultaneously sees how they have permeated the lives of these good, but often naïve, people. Both Ralph and Anna have rejected the traditional religion of their parents in favor of doing good deeds in their family lives and through a social service trust. But as Ralph's uncle James points out, "There is nothing so appallingly hard...as the business of being human." While the reader cheers as James grows and eventually embraces life, s/he also fears for Anna, who remains emotionally closed, despite her good deeds, fearful that she "should lose everything, one of these days." As the events resolve themselves and the "competition in goodness" comes to an end, we see real humans trying to put aside the petrified past and to change the climate of their lives, and we will, perhaps, evaluate our own lives: How human are we? Or are we dinosaurs?

The Literary Review mentions this book's compassion and intellectual energy. While I have no argument with the latter, "compassion" is the very antithesis of this dark and brooding story. A CHANGE OF CLIMATE revolves around the lives of Ralph and Anna Eldred, two British missionaries who, in their endeavor to make living easier for others, endure tremendous cruelty and heartbreak through the same grace of God. The story spits in the face of compassion. It is a fable with the moral "no good deed goes unpunished." Though Mantel is obviously a gifted writer, I did not find this book to be enthralling. It was more a bleak outlook on the way of the world; one of which I'd rather not be reminded.