Inscription

Written by Christine Whittemore
Review by Edward James

It is said that history teaches us about the present, usually meaning war and politics, which is what history is usually about.  We seldom look to history to help us with our private lives.

This was not always so. The early Christian historians hoped that in narrating the lives of the Saints they might inspire the personal lives of their readers. Inscription tells the story of a modern-day woman who comes to a better understanding of her own life by studying the life of an early Christian saint.

The story is told in two time streams. The modern stream is told by Aubrey, a female palaeographer (expert in ancient manuscripts) who discovers a 1^st-century Latin manuscript, written not by the saint herself but by Marina, her companion-in-exile on the Italian island of Ponza.  The 1^st-century time stream is told by Marina, speaking through Aubrey’s translation. Aubrey intersperses chapters from the manuscript with her own commentaries, which gradually become a retrospective of her own life.  The two women have very different lives, but they echo the same themes of exile, loss and redemption.

This short book is excellently researched, although I found the modern stream more compelling.  All the main characters are women, but this should not deter male readers from a delightful and poignant tale.