Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant (2009)
Sarah Dunant has written two other books that take place during the Italian Renaissance ~ The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan. I couldn’t put either of those books down. Unfortunately, Sacred Hearts doesn’t live up to the same standard.
Sacred Hearts is set in a Benedictine convent in 16th Century Ferrara, Italy. The novel portrays the very stark life of the nuns confined within the walls of the convent. Many of the nuns living in the convent entered for purely secular or practical reasons. It was not uncommon for large aristocratic families to send their younger daughters to lead a convent live. Families often could not afford a dowry for more than one daughter, and it was too expensive to keep the young, single women at home. Convents provided a convenient career for these young women, whether it was a life they would chose or not.
The novel focuses on two nuns, Suora Zuana, the middle-aged dispensary nun, and Sarafina, the teenaged novice, who pined for her music-teacher lover. Serafina was forced into the convent when she rejected the wealthy suitor selected by her family in favor of the love of her own chosing. Thus, separated from the secular world and her lover, Serafina spends her first few days screaming and crying in her cell until Suora Zuana take her under her wing.
Suora Zuana was herself once an unwilling novice. She understands what Serafina is going through in her transition from the secular world into the religious life. Serafina, however, devises a way to communicate with her lover and plots an escape.
Dunant describes the daily life of the convent. All actions are focused on the good of the convent, thus the women have given up all freedoms and devote their entire loves to the total obedience of the Abbess. Even speaking during the Great Silence is cause for atonement.
Serafina is rebellious. Although she had a great deal of musical talent in the secular world, she refuses to sing once she has entered the convent. Suora Zuana allows here to help out in the infirmary, where she learns about herbs and potions. Will this new knowledge help her to escape her fate?
While the book provided an interesting glimpse of convent life in the 1500s, and while it is clear that a great deal of research went in to building the foundation of this novel, I found the premise of the novel unsatisfying. Sarah Dunant is a wonderful writer, but this book doesn’t live up to the expectations of her previous writings.
Read: May 30, 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment