Sarah is seventeen in 1255 when she chooses to be enclosed in a cell, seven paces by nine, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing her mother and her younger sister in childbirth, and the unwelcome attentions of the lord of the manor, she renounces the world and all its dangers and disappointments to a living death dedicated to God. With guidance from The Rule, a book copied without flourishes by her reluctant confessor, Father Ranaulf, she’s also responsible for the moral welfare of her two servant women and, indirectly through her prayers, the well-being of the village, proud to have an anchoress in their midst, even if they cannot see her.
It takes great skill to compose an engaging narrative about a woman who never leaves her room, but Sarah is an intriguing character. We wonder about her motivation for being there, the impact of her incarceration on her body and mind and, when we discover along with her that one of the previous inhabitants of her cell left in disgrace, whether she will stay. And, much as Sarah would prefer to renounce the world, she cannot be completely isolated, as she hears the church services through a slit in the adjoining wall and the rhythms of village life on the other side, and as women from the village come to solicit her prayers.
It takes great skill to compose an engaging narrative about a woman who never leaves her room, but Sarah is an intriguing character. We wonder about her motivation for being there, the impact of her incarceration on her body and mind and, when we discover along with her that one of the previous inhabitants of her cell left in disgrace, whether she will stay. And, much as Sarah would prefer to renounce the world, she cannot be completely isolated, as she hears the church services through a slit in the adjoining wall and the rhythms of village life on the other side, and as women from the village come to solicit her prayers.
This novel provides an interesting insight into life in a mediaeval English village, with its feudal system on one hand and the power of the church on the other. Through the sections from the point of view of Father Ranaulf, we also get a taste of monastery politics and the pressures on scribes prior to Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press. There is also a reference to the early enclosure Acts when the lord decides to usurp the common land, mirroring Sarah’s personal enclosure. Yet the novel seems highly contemporary in its themes of religiosity; obsession and interdependency. For this reader it also connected with preoccupations of my own debut novel, Sugar and Snails, in terms of self-harm; fear of sexuality; triumph over the body; a preoccupation with death (and the church) and the reliability of adolescent decision-making (although, of course, in mediaeval times there was no such thing as adolescence and Sarah, at seventeen, would have long been considered an adult).
The Anchoress is published by Faber and Faber who provided my review copy.
While I could imagine sharing Sarah’s religious mania, I’m not sure I’d have voluntarily put myself in a situation of such utter dependence. What if there were some emergency that required me to get out but my calls for help went unanswered? This is part of the theme of what I hope to be my second novel, Underneath, which I’ve recently read through after a gap of about a year. Perhaps more to the point, it connects to the theme of the latest flash fiction challenge from Charli Mills. Over in Idaho, Charli is concerned about encroaching wildfires, and the bravery of the men and women who fight them. In Europe, we’ve been shamed for the past week by stories of migrants, particularly refugees from the war in Syria, dying in pursuit of a better, safer, healthier life for their families. There’s no way I could do justice to their plight in my 99 words – and revisiting Charli’s prompt I see I’ve strayed slightly from the need for help in an extreme weather event – but here’s my paltry contribution:
When the water swirled around our feet, the boatman insisted we’d be there soon. What choice had we? We peered through the darkness for dry land.
When we asked for jackets, they said to start bailing. When the sea reached our knees, we asked about the radio. But rescue meant repatriation and prison for the crew.
They said we were too many, but we hadn’t been too many when they took our dollars. We pleaded for the children as the waves crashed overhead. When the water reached our waists, they launched the dinghy and left us to our fate.
The Anchoress is published by Faber and Faber who provided my review copy.
While I could imagine sharing Sarah’s religious mania, I’m not sure I’d have voluntarily put myself in a situation of such utter dependence. What if there were some emergency that required me to get out but my calls for help went unanswered? This is part of the theme of what I hope to be my second novel, Underneath, which I’ve recently read through after a gap of about a year. Perhaps more to the point, it connects to the theme of the latest flash fiction challenge from Charli Mills. Over in Idaho, Charli is concerned about encroaching wildfires, and the bravery of the men and women who fight them. In Europe, we’ve been shamed for the past week by stories of migrants, particularly refugees from the war in Syria, dying in pursuit of a better, safer, healthier life for their families. There’s no way I could do justice to their plight in my 99 words – and revisiting Charli’s prompt I see I’ve strayed slightly from the need for help in an extreme weather event – but here’s my paltry contribution:
When the water swirled around our feet, the boatman insisted we’d be there soon. What choice had we? We peered through the darkness for dry land.
When we asked for jackets, they said to start bailing. When the sea reached our knees, we asked about the radio. But rescue meant repatriation and prison for the crew.
They said we were too many, but we hadn’t been too many when they took our dollars. We pleaded for the children as the waves crashed overhead. When the water reached our waists, they launched the dinghy and left us to our fate.
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