Longlisted for the 2024 RSL Ondaatje Prize.
The work of this author is enriched by the most marvellous descriptions and suffused by his extraordinary empathy with ordinary people. This book won the Goldsmiths Prize which is awarded to "fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form".
The book, inspired by St Cuthbert, aka Cuddy, the patron saint of Durham Cathedral, is divided into a prologue, an intermission, and four parts:
- The prologue is mostly written as a poem, purportedly intoned by Cuddy as he dies.
- Book One, written in prose and poetry interspersed by quotations from books about Lindisfarne and St Cuthbert, tells the story of a young woman, servant and cook to the haliwerfolk (the people of the holy man), a group of monks who are taking St Cuthbert's body from place to place around the north of England, having fled Lindisfarne from the marauding Vikings, seeking a place to bury Cuddy and to build a shrine. She has visions of the cathedral to come. She starts a relationship with another slave/servant, a boy with wide eyes who looks after the horses.
- Book Two, written in prose, is set in 1346 and written from the point of view of a brewster, married to an archer, who begins an adulterous relationship with a stonemason at Durham Cathedral, which is observed by a predatory homosexual monk.
- The Interlude is set in 1650 and written as a short play about the Scottish soldiers who were imprisoned in Durham Cathedral .
- Book Three is almost a ghost story. Set in 1827, this is the diary of an Oxford professor who is summoned to Durham to witness the exhuming of Cuddy's remains (his body is said to be imperishable; the exhumers want to check). He meets a mysterious young boy, with owl-like eyes, and has visions of the haliwerfolk.
- Book Four, set in 2019, in written from the perspective of a young labourer (with big eyes) whose mother is dying of cancer, was the most moving of all.
Each of the stories had its strengths. To be honest, I found the variety of styles in Book One distracted from my enjoyment of the story; I think I understand what the author is trying to do, working towards the rhythms of early English, perhaps, but it didn't work for me. The playlet in the Interlude left me cold. This probably says more about my inability to enjoy work outside the limits of my narrow prose comfort zone than about the work. Experimental writing should be encouraged, indeed cherished.
I enjoyed the late mediaeval infidelity, with its ever-present threat of what would happen if the archer found out. The ghost story narrated by the pompous professor was fun. But the final section tore out my heart.
And the descriptions:
- "Where possible, he takes alternate routes ... following frozen streams through narrow woodlands where the trickling flow makes a type of music through the frost-fringed sunken waterways." (Book Four) Frost-fringed sunken waterways: wow!
- "The sky is grey, pregnant, a bulging net of snow, and a gust of freezing wind fills his mouth, as if the air were solid matter. He feels the cold in his teeth, his eardrums, behind his eyes. Cold as a dull weighted ache. He gags on it." (Book Four)
Selected quotes:
- "Death is a surprise party you knew all along was to be thrown in your honour" (Prologue)
- "Even Chad splits his face with a smile, though it looks more like a blade wound." (Book One Part 6)
- "Christmas, looming like a black obelisk against the white winter sun. That dismal day, dedicated to other people's happiness." (Book Four)
- "He turns up the heating, boils the kettle, puts pie and chips in the oven, plumps his mother's pillows, empties her bedpan, checks her meds and does all the other chores that make him feel less guilty for feeling more alive than he has for a long time while she, a real-life living saint, is wading headlong into death's dark water." (Book Four)
Other wonderful books by this hugely talented author:
- The Perfect Golden Circle: my favourite so far, about two misfits who make crop circles
- Pig Iron about a traveller, just out of prison
- Rare Singles about the comeback, in Scarborough, of a forgotten US soul singer
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