Fludd ~ Hilary Mantel (60 of 2024)

 

In 'Fludd' Hilary Mantel  takes us to the fictitious village of Fetherhoughton, which is proudly Catholic and conservative. It is presided over by Father Angwin, an elderly alcoholic priest who has lost faith in God but believes that the devil exists (moreover, that he is physically present in the village). The convent and its attached school are ruled with an iron hand by Mother Perpetua (popularly known as Purpiture or simply, Purpit). There are a handful of protestants, as well as the sister village of Netherhoughton populated by atheists.

The plot centres on the Roman Catholic church and convent in the town and concerns the dramatic impact of the mysterious Fludd, who is apparently a curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin, a priest who continues in his role despite privately having lost his faith.

The novel presents an uncompromisingly harsh view of the Roman Catholic Church, portraying a vividly cruel mother superior and a thoughtless, bullying bishop. The narrative flirts with the supernatural (for instance, a wart migrates miraculously from one person to another, a character bursts into flames, Fludd causes food to vanish without appearing to eat it). Fludd resembles the Devil in various ways (he instantly succeeds in learning people's innermost feelings and wishes, and he performs subtle profane miracles like maintaining an ever-full whiskey bottle). Yet Fludd's effect on both of the two main protagonists, Father Angwin and the young Sister Philomena, turns out to be very liberating, and the novel ends with some degree of new hope for both of them.

A few choice quotes:

The village:

    The village lay in moorland, which ringed it on three sides. The surrounding hills, from the village streets, looked like the hunched and bristling back of a sleeping dog. Let sleeping dogs lie, was the attitude of the people; for they hated nature. They turned their faces in the fourth direction, to the road and the railway that led them to the black heart of the industrial north: to Manchester, to Wigan, to Liverpool. They were not townspeople; they had none of their curiosity. They were not country people; they could tell a cow from a sheep, but it was not their business. Cotton was their business, and had been for nearly a century. There were three mills, but there were no clogs and shawls; there was nothing picturesque.

The language:

    The speech of the Fetherhoughtonians is not easy to reproduce. The endeavour is false and futile. One misses the solemnity, the archaic formality of the Fetherhoughtonian dialect. It was a mode of speech, Father Angwin believed, that had come adrift from the language around it. Some current had caught them unawares, and washed the Fetherhoughtonians far from the navigable reaches of plain English; and there they drifted and bobbed on waters of their own, up the creek without a paddle.

The women:

    Consider the women of Fetherhoughton, as a stranger might see them; a stranger might have the opportunity, because while the men were shut away in the mills the women liked to stand on their doorsteps. This standing was what they did. Recreational pursuits were for men: football, billiards, keeping hens. Treats were doled out to men, as a reward for good behaviour: cigarettes, beer at the Arundel Arms. Religion, and the public library, were for children. Women only talked. They analysed motive, discussed the serious business, carried life forward. Between the schoolroom and their present state came the weaving sheds; deafened by the noise of the machines, they spoke too loudly now, their voices scattering through the gritty streets like the cries of displaced gulls.

The Protestants:

    The Protestants were damned, of course, by reason of this culpable ignorance. They would roast in hell. A span of seventy years, to ride bicycles in the steep streets, to get married, to eat bread and dripping: then bronchitis, pneumonia, a broken hip: then the minister calls, and the florist does a wreath: then devils will tear their flesh with pincers.

The Bishop, a man of modern sensibilities, decides to reform Fetherhoughton and bring it out from the Middle Ages. As a beginning, he gets Father Angwin to get rid of most of the statuary from the church (the padre buries them!) and decides to appoint a curate to keep the old man in line.

Enter Fludd.

The curate is strange. He can penetrate the very souls of people (especially the fair sex), yet nobody can recall his features from memory. He eats and drinks without seeming to do so. His approach to religion is unorthodox, to say the least.

Soon, the influence of Fludd is felt everywhere. The padre's middle-aged housekeeper Agnes Dempsey and the young sister Philomena feel his magnetism. Mother Purpit is intimidated. Father Angwin is emboldened in his unorthodox views. The Fetherhoughtonian on the street becomes more pious, and even the atheists of Netherhoughton are affected.

Fludd, who talks in alchemical terms, effects his own alchemy on the sleepy village before leaving in the most unusual fashion.

The sense of being in perpetual sin, the need for redemption, and guilt about being human and having human emotions... these are highlighted, especially through the thoughts of Sister Philomena, who has the burden of being a nun in addition to being a Catholic. True, the church in Fetherhoughton does not bear much resemblance to the actual Roman Catholic Church of 1956 (when the events take place), but that creative exaggeration enables the writer to highlight some universal issues.

In one hundred and eighty-six pages, Hilary Mantel has managed to tell a thumping good story as well put a lot questions into the reader's mind. No mean feat!

PS: The author states at the beginning: "The real Fludd (1574-1637) was a physician, scholar and alchemist. In alchemy, everything has a literal and factual description, and in addition a description that is symbolic and fantastical ." (Emphasis mine). That could be said of this novel, too.

To say that Hilary Mantel writes beautifully would be a statement of the obvious. She has enormous control over the language; in addition, she can delineate characters so effectively with a few strokes of her pen, that they stand before you as living, breathing entities. And to top it all, her subject matter is always unique, so that the reader is hooked and pulled into the tale before she knows it. (I have faced some problem with her thicker books: but those were more to do with my powers of persistence than the quality of her writing.)

Thanks to Nandakishore sir for this.