Fludd novel by hilary mantel biography
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Patricia O’Connor reviewing the book for The New York Times says that “..the writing is characteristically Mantel: mordant, pitiless, razor-sharp” and Publishers Weekly concluded that:
“Hawthornden Prize-winner Mantel (The Giant, O'Brien) uses her knack for dry wit and lovely, scene-setting detail to liven up crisp, utilitarian prose, revealing, as her characters do, the ever-surprising divine in the mundane.”
I’d encourage readers to explore Mantel’s non-historical novels because there’s a danger the giant shadow cast by the likes of Wolf Hall will hide the treasures to be found there.
Inexpensive paperbacks of the book are easy to find but the original hardback is increasingly elusive and expensive.
Terry Potter
May 2023
Sister Philomena strains against the monotony of convent life and the pettiness of her fellow nuns. This, it transpires, is the frontline in the battle between good and evil.
I was immediately reminded of T.F. Powys’ Mr Weston’s Good Wine which I have reviewed on this site (here) and which, in approach and its key themes, treads on similar ground.
He influences Agnes Dempsey by making her more open in her views. The chirpy modernising bishop is mocked, as are all the arcane questions on Catholic dogma (Is dripping meat? The priest at the little, outdated Catholic church gets a letter warning that someone is coming to shake things up. But who is Fludd? She gave each character a full life with a hint of the heavenly.
She transformed a 1950s English town into a kingdom of the supernatural. There is a nearby convent, headed by Mother Perpetua, known to all as Ma Purpit. Once he has freed Sister Philomena/Roisin O’Halloran, he leaves.
As well as the clever idea of introducing a dead alchemist to change the village, with its own devil and cynical priest, Mantel gives us a witty portrait of the state of the Catholic Church in England at that time.
These are indeed monumental achievements and garnered the author plenty of literary awards – including two Bookers – but they are by no means fully representative of her total output. Father Angwin finally arranges for the statues to be buried and many people from the town come to help in the burial ceremony.
Or is he the devil himself, a shadowy wanderer of the darkest places in the human heart?
Full of dry wit, compassionate characterisations and cutting insight, Fludd is a brilliant gem of a book, and one of Hilary Mantel’s most original works.
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Hilary Mantel: Fludd
Mantel’s fourth novel takes as its premise a theme found elsewhere – see, for example, Simone de Beauvoir‘s L’invitée (She Came to Stay) and Pasolini‘s film Theorem – which involves an outsider arriving in a family or community and completely changing some or all of the people in that family or community.
Is it right to have a collection on Sundays in Lent?). Sister Philomena – real name Roison O’Halloran – had been sent from her convent in Ireland, where she had claimed to have stigmata (it was actually eczema) and is now under Mother Perpetua’s control. Whichever, I’m not sure if it matters.
Sister Philly is the character I love the most.
Angwin begins to get back his hope and equanimity, the sour and nosey housekeeper, Agnes, is swept off her feet by Fludd’s charm and Sister Philomena finds herself magnetically attracted to Fludd and his philosophy of freedom. Prior to that she had also written a hugely admired novel set in the French revolution, A Place of Greater Safety. An angel come to shake the Fetherhoughtonians from their stupor, to reawaken Father Angwin’s faith, to show Philomena the nature of love?
As if by divine intervention.