First off, I just really gotta say I love the cover art for both of these books, the Monk especially. If you'll notice, it looks a lot like a devil mask with some crazy eyebrows. I like Slow Man's too - so simple and powerful - but I think this blog is about books, not their covers. So let's talk about this batty historical religious romance!
I actually started this book last time I was home, but this is not a slender volume and I only got about a third of the way through, at which point all the complicated romances were just getting started. There are essentially three different storylines in this novel, which constantly intersect.
The first deals with Ambrosio, a perfectly devout and pious monk whose fiery speeches about damnation have all of Spain trembling in their britches. Ambrosio, prideful and cocky, is stunned to discover that one of his favorite fellow monks, Rosario, is actually a woman named Matilda! Obviously, having a women in the abbey was a big no-no in the 18th century, but Matilda convinces Ambrosio to let her stay through a lot of crying and pleading and then, eventually, her womanly wiles. Ambrosio, after putting up barely a fight at all, becomes inflamed by her golden hair and body (the word bosom gets thrown around a lot in this book) and, forgetting his vows, sinks into passion.
The second deals with Don Raymond, a man of very high rank in his native Spain. Deciding that Spain is too boring for his tastes, he decides to travel to Germany, where he encounters bandits, sleeping powder, bleeding nun ghosts, and the wandering Jew. Most importantly, he meets a young girl called Agnes and falls head over heels in love with her. Unfortunately for Raymond, Agnes is destined to take the veil, and is forced into the nunnery of St. Clare before Raymond can interfere. However, a little bribery and a willing gardener later, Agnes and Raymond manage to meet each other and whoops! - things get a little out of hand. So Agnes is now a pregnant nun and Raymond is still trying to get her out, and then this particular plotline becomes very complicated.
The third (and final) romance deals with Lorezno, sister to the unfortunate Agnes and buddy to Don Raymond. Lorezno has his heart fixed another young, nubile teenager- Antonia, whom he ironically meets at one of Ambrosio's masses. However, there's all sorts of dither about money and politics that are preventing them from getting married, and in the meantime, the newly sinful Ambrosio happens to run across Antonia and immediately wants to sully her innocence, so to speak. Since he's still a monk, this is a bit difficult to achieve, but that's when Lucifer comes in (I'm not even kidding).
This book! I'm kind of madly fascinated by it. The beginning started off a bit dry and slow for me but the ending was SPECTACULAR and I'm kind of getting into this historical drama stuff! I just want to know what it was about monasteries and nunneries that was getting these novelists all charged up. The last two books I've read about religious orders have been full of illicit sex, torture, and murder. Maybe what actually was going on in a nunnery was so boring it was fun to imagine them becoming undone? I think politicians are kind of like the modern day monks - we like to imagine they're all pure and boring, but when it turns out there is a scandal we all start frothing at the mouths to hear about it (this being written during the whole debacle with Anthony Weiner).
Anyway, I really liked this story in the end. There were a lot of fun mishaps and misunderstandings and religious overtones and scandals to keep me interested, plus some pretty fun characters to boot. Don Raymond I could take or leave (he seems to spend a lot of time in bed crying), but Elvira is a pretty great example of a single mom kicking ass and taking names, and Agnes doesn't just dissolve into pieces when she's put in a hard situation. Even Matilda, evil schemer that she is, was fascinating to read about - it's remarkable how quickly and easily she could undo years of religious training with only a few choice words (and some bare skin).
In the end, the story that stuck with me most was that of Ambrosio. The reader is very aware that he's going down the wrong path for most of the both, and the longer he listens to Matilda the worse acts he's ready to commit. I'm going to spoil everyone here, but proceeding from innocence to sex to assault to rape to murder is kind of a downward spiral. What I love best about the ending and his story is that Lucifer actually gives him a chance to repent, a chance to be right with God, but in the end he's too afraid to die and is damned eternally. Typically for an 18th century novel, it's got to have a moral message, and the message is this; secret evils don't stay secret for long, and only through repentance - not further evil - can salvation be found.
In Summary: Wikipedia tells me this book was written before Lewis was 20 years old and in 10 weeks. That's freaking incredible. This book is a messy, sexy, emotional ride, and though it might take you a little while to finish it, it's worth it for the ending.
Book Twenty Five: Slow Man, J.M Coetzee
This book starts out with a bang - Paul Rayment, a 60-something riding his bike down a busy street, is suddenly hit by a car and ends up losing the lower part of his leg. Unfortunately, that's the most action we're gonna get for the remaining 250 pages. Paul spends the next few weeks moping around his apartment, but with the introduction of Marijana, his new Croatian day nurse, his days start looking up. Paul falls in love with Marijana, and by extension her son Drago (awesome, awesome name), but it's a strange kind of love. He's got almost no desire to act upon it and nowhere to put it, so he lives with it circling around in his chest, driving him quietly insane. A final twist to the story is the introduction of the novelist Elizabeth Costello, who follows Paul around and seems to know everything about him. It finally comes out that Paul is being used as a character in Elizabeth's latest book, though he seems to be a very uncooperative one and won't proceed with the correct story arc, or the correct love.
This is a classic example of a book I think I am still too young for. Every character in this book, Marijana's children excepted, is over the age of 40, and a lot of the novel has to do with growing older, coming to terms with your legacy, and deciding in what manner to live out the rest of your days. This is not something I can really relate to, and after Paul's third internal monologue about his old age and his uselessness, I started to get a little bored. I was intrigued by the romance between Paul and Marijana, but it never really got off the ground (which was realistic, I guess), and in the end I didn't really feel like anything had significantly changed. The introduction of Elizabeth Costello put a new twist on the novel - I love it when authors break down the fourth wall and confront their characters - but what she was accusing Paul of was being boring, undriven, and overall slow, and I can't say I disagree with her. This book reminds me a lot of Saturday, which was also about a sixty something reminiscing about his life, and I have the same problem with both books - less internal dialogue, more action, please.
That being said, I love Coetzee's writing - he has these turns of phrase that are just beautiful and imagery that just sings off the pages. I remember once in the hospital scene he describes Paul as waking up in a "cocoon of dead air" and his descriptions of Drago as "angel-touched" and slightly other-wordly are just beautiful, really. There's no denying that Coetzee is a brilliant writer, but this novel just didn't really do it for me in the end.
In Summary: This is not Coetzee's best novel, but maybe I'll give it another go forty years from now and see if anything changes. Who knows - by then I could be ready to ruminate slowly on my life and my quiet loves, and have no itch for further passion. But somehow, I doubt it.
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