2006-11-14 a beautifully realised work by Mantel

I love Mantel. And can't believe her books aren't better known. Her work is complex, and unlike anyone else I have read, she seems to embody the skills and stories of four or five different authors. Her books cross continents and eras, her writing veering from brutally real to entirely magical. Fludd is the shortest and one of her most likeable reads. The Yorkshire town, the smell of a fusty 1950's school gym, the fear of the unknown, the superstition of Christianity and the allusion to alchemy are all intertwined and beautifully evoked in this gem of a book.