A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel: worth continuing?

[LobeliaBaggins]

I loved Wolf Hall and I love long historical books, but I just can't get into this. The subject is fascinating but it's so opaque.
Any one read it ( all 800 pages)?

Thanks all. I guess I should give it another try. But maybe on holiday.
I don't seem to be able to read difficult books like I used to these days.

Don't plug away if you're not enjoying it. You can love a writer but still dislike one of their books. I love Aldous Huxley's early fiction, for example, but found The Genius and the Goddess unreadable. I also love George Orwell's essays, but hated A Clergyman's Daughter.

Oh, I love this book so much! But I read it in the 90s, when I had a better attention span - i.e. pre-internet. I think when you find out what the title means (maybe about half way through?) everything falls into place a lot more. I did study the French Revolution and I always found Danton and Desmoulins charismatic but hated Robespierre and the book does play to that. There is a French film with Gerard Depardieu as Danton - watching that might be helpful in understanding the background

I had a historical crush on Camille and named my dog after him.

I wish I'd thought to do this, @MrsMcNallysMaureen!

Argh, I can't even get through it on Audible! Must try harder.

Its a strange book. I started reading it, and hit a real obstacle in the chapters about Camille's youth and even gave up at that point.

I went back to it a few months later and couldn't put it down!

Someone in my French class said how much he had loved Wolf Hall so another class mate lent him APOGS, he returned it after a couple of weeks saying he couldn't get on with it at all, although the two of us tried to persuade him that it was a work of genius.

I read it years ago and it's always stayed with me, so I'd say it was worth it, but then I am totally obsessed with the French Revolution generally.

Yes, Audible is the answer I think. I listened to it rather than reading it, and loved it

It’s one of my favourite books of all time and one of the greatest historical novels ever written in my view. Always surprises me when people say it’s hard going as I find it more compulsively readable than the Cromwell books. Like several other posters I developed a crush on Camille Desmoulins (or at least Mantel’s portrayal of him) as a result of this book! The final scenes are extraordinary and have stayed with me ever since I first read them. A masterpiece.

I love it, but it was her first novel so maybe not quite as polished as her later titles.