Rapture
Emily Maguire’s new novel, Rapture, takes as its inspiration the legend of Pope Joan, reworking key elements of the myth to create a brilliant work of great power and beauty.
The story starts in 9th-century Mainz, Germany, where Agnes lives with her father, an English priest. Although his vows include celibacy, Agnes’s father has slept with a local Saxon woman, but her death in childbirth has left him with the responsibility of raising his daughter. Unusually for that time, Agnes is given an education, listening to the intellectual debates at her father’s dinner table. At one of these dinners, she meets Brother Randulf, a monk from Fulda Abbey, and thus begins their relationship. After her father’s untimely death, Randulf agrees to help Agnes disguise herself as a man to become a Benedictine monk. As Brother John, Agnes starts down the path that will lead her to becoming the head of the Roman Catholic church.
There is so much that is compelling about this novel. The writing is absolutely beautiful and often poetic in its intensity. Characterisation is intimate and believable, and Agnes’s perspective gives us a close insight into her views and feelings. The power of the novel lies in this range: Agnes is a person of huge intellect, but it is also her journey to womanhood, something that she initially represses, that becomes a key focus – with tragic consequences. The novel always bears its research lightly; we see the often-conflicted world of the monasteries, alongside the disintegration of the Carolingian dynasty after the death of Charlemagne and the terrible consequences of the ensuing civil war. Maguire depicts some horrific moments with artistic sensitivity and, as much as violence is a part of this world, its inclusion is never gratuitous.
This is a fabulous book for any serious reader of literary historical fiction. Very highly recommended.
