Julia O'Faolain (1932–2020)

This book takes the little that is known about some real 6th century saints and religious figures and tries to imagine what their lives were actually like, with all the passions and powerplays, not to mention some of the grotesque violence (against others and the self) of the chaotic and brutal era they were living in.

The main figures are Radegunda, a queen who rejects the world to found a nunnery (and was later made a saint), Agnes, a young girl whom she persuaded to leave the world along show more with her and who becomes the abbess of the convent, and a poet and priest, Fortunatus.

Radegunda is a German princess, whose family are slaughtered by Franks when she is eleven, and who is later married to the Frankish king who led the warriors that day. She is an extremely pious woman, but she is also very proud and stubborn - and a woman who understands power well enough to make pretty sure she gets what she wants ("after all, I had spent fourteen years as a king's wife"). She is often assailed by doubts about her real motivations for joining the convent: it had "sprung from love - but of what? God? Self? Peace? Privacy?" Of course the answer, as is usually the case, is 'a bit of all of these', but as a religious, Radegunda is not comfortable with shades of grey. This makes her very tough on herself - but the dramatic penances she chooses could be (and are) criticised by others as pride rather than humility. Meanwhile, Agnes has little sense of vocation, and she struggles between the two ideas that religion is about finding joy, or that God is more pleased with greater sacrifice (so someone who goes unhappily to the cloister is more welcome than someone who is happy to be there).

This is a vivid and energetic book, which drew me in very quickly. It's a fascinating imagining of the world at that time, and of two complex women trying to make their way in that world. It's about politics as much as religion - within the conflict-torn kingdom, but also in the ostensibly calm and quiet convent. The women are stronger - and more manipulative - than the men, who are fairly weak souls. There is also a surprising amount of sexiness for a book about 6th-century nuns: real sex (which is often compared to apples, sweet and juicy, but I guess with an overtone of wholesome and natural) but also the strangely sexualised imagery of the nuns' passion for their Lord. Part of Radegunda's complex motivations for entering the convent is a disgust with herself for enjoying sex with her fairly brutish husband.

There are lots and lots of other things in this book, eg an interesting theme about the continued influence of the Roman era - some of the kings live in Roman palaces, where they can still get hot water, although they wouldn't be able to build the systems themselves - and Fortunatus is allowed to get away with a lot because his ability to poetize in Latin is seen as a hangover from those civilised times. I am sure there was lots about the religious debates and the reflections of real lives that went right over my head but would be picked up by another reader. I should also warn that there is a disturbing and sometimes gruesome sub-plot involving an anchoress, a nun who has chosen to be walled up in a tiny space and live there for the rest of her life, as a way of bringing grace and power to the convent. This is something that did happen at this time, and the reason for this subplot becomes clear by the end of the novel, but it's a horrible thing to imagine in detail.

Sample sentence: This was something for which Agnes always had to be prepared. Radegunda, who thought she left control and responsibility to Agnes, was not even aware of what she was doing. Authority was part of her. She had to make a conscious effort to get rid of it as she had rid her diet of meat, fish, fruit, eggs and wine. When she forgot, her directions were immediately obeyed and often ran counter to some arrangement made by Agnes.

Recommended for: I would recommend this to anyone interested in literary fiction, especially fiction focused around women and/or human relationships. show less

Scholars have argued extensively about the relationship between the sacred and the erotic in the lives of women ascetics in the early Catholic Church. Were the ascetic practices of these women genuine; symptoms of hysteria, sexual frustration, lack of control; assertions of power in a male-dominated world; or something else? In her historical novel Women in the Wall, Julia O’Faolain explores all of these possibilities. Women in the Wall tells the story of St. Radegunda, her ward Agnes, and show more Ingunda, the woman in the wall. These three women and the poet Fortunatus take turns narrating the events of each other’s lives both within and without the convent and analyzing the implications of the ascetic life.

In their book The Mystic Mind: The Psychology of Medieval Mystics and Ascetics, Jerome Koll and Bernard Bachrach argue that Radegunda’s asceticism, her excessive mortification of the flesh, and lengthy fasts are manifestations of early childhood trauma. Certainly, Radegunda experienced ample trauma in her early life. Born in Thuringia (located in present day central Germany) circa 525 CE, Radegunda lived through her father’s murder, her mother’s death (possibly by murder as well) and saw her uncle King Hermanfrid and his household slaughtered by the Merovingian Frankish kings, Theodoric I and Clothar I. Taken prisoner along with her infant brother, Radegunda was educated in Clothar’s household.

At fifteen, Radegunda became Clothar’s wife (probably against her will). Clothar would certainly later claim he had married a nun rather than a wife. By all accounts, her relationship with Clothar was not a happy one—hardly surprising in view of the situation. As Venantius Fortunatus, Radegunda’s friend and later her confessor, noted in The Life of the Holy Radegund, Radegunda would,

when she lay with her prince . . . ask leave to rise and leave the chamber to relieve nature. Then she would prostrate herself in prayer under a hair cloak by the privy so long that the cold pierced her through and through and only her spirit was warm. Her whole flesh prematurely dead, indifferent to her body's torment, she kept her mind intent on Paradise and counted her suffering trivial, if only she might avoid becoming cheap in Christ's eyes.

King Clothar could hardly have felt complimented that his wife preferred the privy floor to his company.

But is Radegunda’s choice of the ascetic life so neatly packaged as psychological trauma? Julia O’Faolain suggests otherwise. . . .

Read the rest of this review at Club Balzac (http://clubbalzac.blogspot.com/2011/01/sacred-sin-or-profane-silence-julia.html) show less

This is an incredibly depressing book. It takes place in 6th century Gaul (France) and is based on historical characters. The story centers on two women of royal birth, one forced to marry the Frankish king who killed her family, and the other a younger woman given to her as a child for her to raise. Together they found a convent, at which most of the story takes place.

Life in a 6th century convent was brutal, although probably not as brutal as outside the "walls". Here, the world intrudes show more infrequently, but when it does it usually brings disruption, chaos, or death. The most disturbing part of the story is told in first person by a nun who has chosen to become an anchoress, a nun literally shut up between walls in the convent. No human contact, no light but the slit through which food and water are silently passed, no hygiene, or medical care, or even "facilities". In this case, the cell she occupies is too small to allow her to lie down. Being an anchoress was a life commitment. The practice was allowed because the presence of an anchoress brought renown to the convent and, it was thought, good fortune. Not to the poor soul immured in the wall, of course. Here, as she slowly goes insane, she tries to remember to offer up her suffering to God.

Actually, a lot of the book is concerned with the characters excusing suffering by offering it up to God while their civilization is disintegrating, and as fear and uncertainty breed superstition to explain the world to a people needing something, anything, to get through their lives. Signs and portents are seen everywhere, as guides to decision making, proof of guilt or innocence, and explanations for why things happened. The violence and the excuses for it are appalling. But as horrifying as the story is, O'Faolain holds the reader's interest up to the end. Just don't expect a happy ending. show less

I was very impressed by this one - both the book and the writer were previously unfamiliar to me but they don't deserve to be forgotten.

This is a story rooted in the political and ideological history of modern Ireland, but also about how the culture shapes the expectations of people who live there and the complex relationship of the Irish with their American diaspora. It tells a story of a family over four generations from the civil war of the 1920s up to the late 1970s, and their show more relationships with two American visitors who get too close to the republican in-fighting. It presents all sides in Ireland's long-standing political debate between republican hard-liners and economic pragmatists, and must have been a brave choice for the Booker jury at a time when the IRA were still so active.

It does have its faults - for me it could have done with some editing - it is quite long and there are sections that failed to hold my interest, but the gradual revelation of secrets and the ending were subtly devastating. show less