Post by Calenture on Mar 1, 2009 16:20:02 GMT
Fludd by Hilary Mantel
First published 1989; Penguin 1990
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin-or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. No matter how copiously Father Angwin drinks while he confesses his broken faith, the level of the bottle does not drop. Although Fludd does not appear to be eating, the food on his plate disappears. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action. Knitting together the miraculous and the mundane, the dreadful and the ludicrous, Fludd is a tale of alchemy and transformation told with astonishing art, insight, humor, and wit.
Copied from Fantastic Fiction
Father Angwin is a temperamental old priest who has charge of the parish of Featherhoughton, circa 1956. Angwin has long ago lost his belief in God, but continues to act the role of priest for the benefit of his parishioners. Up the hill, the people of the hamlet of Netherhoughton enact their pagan rites. And Father Angwin knows that the Devil lives there; he is called Mr McEvoy and runs a tobacconist's shop, but he smells of brimstone. Then the bishop arrives and announces that Father Angwin is out of step with the times. He decrees that the many statues of the saints must be removed from the church, and informs Angwin that he will be sending a forward-thinking young curate to assist Angwin in modernising his church.
In due course Fludd arrives. He is young, but to Father Angwin's pleasant surprise, educated and intelligent. Fludd has a certain way with him, a quality difficult to pin down. Sister Philomena notices this. She has been sent to the convent by her mother, after Philomena's sister has been thrown from another convent in disgrace. Is he a real priest, an angel, or the devil in disguise? Philomena is torn between her terror of the tyranical Sister Perpetua, Mother Superior of the convent, and Fludd, who presents a terror equally temporal but more tempting. The detail and atmosphere of this story are beautifully judged.