This is my second read from the Booker shortlist and it’s one of the shorter ones, but, quietly and unobtrusively, it plumbs the great depths of the human experience, exploring life, death, grief, the meaning of existence, forgiveness and plague. For a relatively small novel it packs a great deal in! Set in Australia in contemporary times (before, during and a little after the global Covid-19 pandemic), it is narrated in the first person by a woman, perhaps in late middle age, who has chosen to retreat from her life and live within a community of nuns. Initially, this is as a short-term guest, but her stay becomes indefinite. Whilst the narrator does not become a nun (curiously, she describes herself as an atheist and writes of the horrors of Catholicism growing up, at school, and in the world at large) she participates fully in the life of the community, eventually taking charge of the food, growing, foraging, buying and preparing it.
Our narrator initially went to the community on a form of retreat; she was separating from her husband and grieving for her mother who had died of cancer. The timing of events is not clear, echoing the timelessness, the absence of a life ruled by clocks, of living in the abbey. Amongst the nuns, the shape of the day is determined by the rising and setting of the sun, birdsong and the daily prayer rituals. There is comfort in both its order and in the absence of strict commercially-driven time structures.
Life in the abbey provides the narrator with space to reflect, on her childhood, her family and in particular her relationship with her mother. The mother is perhaps the nearest thing to a saint that the narrator will ever worship, despite the availability of so many in the church. The pain of her loss seeps out of the pages and she describes a gentleness, a goodness and a generosity that is unmatched by any of the religious figures in the novel.
The nature of belief and Christianity are also explored and the lifestyle chosen by the nuns in the abbey is contrasted with other nuns who go out and work with the poor and the abused. Two nuns in particular are given as examples – sisters Jenny (formerly of the abbey and known to the other nuns) and Helen, who set up a refuge for abused women in Thailand. Sister Jenny was murdered and when her body is later recovered it is returned to the abbey by her colleague, sister Helen, who, by chance, is a former school mate of the narrator. Helen was bullied because she was poor, and the narrator revisits the harms that were done to her and the part she herself played in them.
Covid is a presence in the novel but this is not about Covid – the community is after all, largely separate from mainstream society. The plague that does permeate, however, is the infestation of mice that occurs periodically in Australia – I recall hearing about this in the news. The abbey and the local town are overrun and the author writes graphically of how the creatures invade every detail of life and what the sisters do to combat them. It conveys a sense of a world out of control, that even where a life of solitude is chosen, destructive phenomena cannot be escaped.
This is a powerful novel. It took me a little while to get into after James because it has a totally different pace and perspective, but I found it a rich and rewarding read. Since I finished it I find myself reflecting on it often and new insights keep cropping up in my mind. It is an extremely well-crafted piece of work.
Highly recommended.
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