Deb reviews The Nun

I know several of you have read and reviewed The Nun by Simonetta Agnello Hornby; in fact, that's one reason I chose it as my 4th Europa Edition of the year. Below is my review, adapted from my blog about what I'm reading, bookconscious. Check out the rest of what I read in April there.

The Nun addresses the importance of faith and literature in the heroine’s life. When the book opens, Agata is a young teen in Messina, a town at the tip of Sicily nearest mainland Italy’s toe. It’s 1839, and Europe is rumbling with what will become the revolutionary fevor that swept the continent a decade later. Agata’s fever is more localized — she’s in love with a neighbor.

As a young woman from a “good” family met with hard times, her life is completely out of her hands however. Her father dies and her mother takes the family to Naples to try to use her connections to keep her family afloat. The passage is significant as Agata meets an English Navy officer, James Garson.

One of her mother’s machinations is to offer Agata to a convent. The unwilling young woman is isolated from her relatives and the temptations of the world as her mother wrangles a position. Hornby paints an unflattering but very detailed view of the Church in nineteenth century Italy; corruption is rampant, positions are bought and sold, political influence trumps religious fervor.

Hornby fills her descriptions with words and images I found very evocative: a Japanese camellia, Oki no Nami, in the convent garden; paperoles, small, elaborate devotional images made of paper, bits of glass, and other decorative elements; incredible pastries baked as favors, treats, and for sale (each convent has a specialty); hebdomedary, the weekly cycle of tasks in the convent; cenoby, the establishment of a religious community; vespertine, of the evening.

Agata undergoes cycles of resignation and rebellion in the convent. She tries to bury herself in the order of convent life: prayer, work, service, devotion. She learns to bake and to tend the gardens, becomes a skilled herbalist, and tries hard to find her vocation. Meanwhile the world spins on outside the cloistered walls, and when she can receive mail, she begins corresponding with James Garson, who sends her novels (she reads Jane Austen, which I found very poignant, given her dashed hopes for marriage).

In the end, after more introspection and self-examination than most people undergo in a lifetime, Agata has had enough.  She realizes she belongs in the world, not the convent, which can’t offer the spiritual solace and purity she hoped to take refuge in when first consigned there. She unravels her mother’s maneuverings and sees her earlier love and even her sisters as they really are. Eventually, she also realizes that James Garson can offer her love based not in fantasy but real emotional and intellectual understanding.

I won’t tell you what she does or whether she realizes her hopes, but I will say that if you like historical fiction, The Nun brings nineteenth century Italy to life. Agata is a complicated, passionate, and interesting heroine. I’d like to go back and re-read the novels James Garson sends her.

For now, I have Jane Gardam's The Queen of the Tambourine on tap for May, and I've promised myself a copy of her newest Europa Edition, Crusoe's Daughter, if I can polish off my "to-read" piles this summer. There are a LOT of books in my piles, though.

Marie reviews THE NUN by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

The Nun is a book that I really hope historical-fiction readers will flock to buy. Set in nineteenth century Italy during the unification period, it's the story of teenage Agata, the bookish daughter of a noble family fallen on hard times. She's the second-to-last daughter; her family is out of money but she is in love with Giacomo, a neighbor who loves her back but whose family wants him to marry a wealthy girl with a dowry. Agata's mother is desperate to marry her off but when no agreement can be made with Giacomo's family and Agata resists an arranged marriage with a much-older man, the only option left is to put an unwilling Agata into a convent.

And this it seems was not an unusual fate for Italian girls of her station for several centuries. Two years ago I read a solid, if lighter, novel called Sacred Hearts, by Sarah Dunant, also about a young girl secreted to a nunnery against her will while she harbored a passion for a man her family didn't want her to be with. The Nun covers a lot of the same ground but with more of a literary bent. Dunant's heroine is wholly opposed to the cloistered life; Agata is conflicted. She tries to make a life for herself "on the inside," learning baking and apothecary skills, trying to make friends and allies among the many relatives she finds in the convent world. But far from being bastions of piety, the convents are rife with luxury, gossip, bullying and secrets, and when she finds herself on the other side of powerful priests, her hope of escape wastes away. Agata has her own secret: a longstanding friendship with an English man who sends her books and who may even offer more- love, salvation, and escape.

I thought The Nun was a really terrific read and deserves to make its way into the hands of historical fiction fans as well as readers interested in Italy. The research that must have gone into the book is very impressive. I loved all the colorful detail Hornby includes about convent life, Italian religious celebrations and the politics of the time. But most of all I love the complexity of the characters, especially Agata, who has so much to work out while all customs, politics and social changes stream around her. I love that she's not simplistic or single-minded; I love that she really struggles with herself. Sometimes she finds contentment in ritual, routine and a preordained life; sometimes she rebels and works hard to find a way out. You'll have to read the book to find out her ultimate fate, but I really hope you do!

This is my 3rd Europa for 2012. I'm reading Cooking with Fernet Branca now.

I received this book for review from Europa Editions.

Stacia Reviews THE NUN by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

The Nun by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

Well, just a few chapters into The Nun, I was reminded of one of perks of historical fiction: finding out new facts about different times & places (& sometimes things that are still true). The book opens in Messina in 1839 during the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After poking around a bit, I found out this annual religious procession still takes place in Messina; there are various photos & videos posted online. The machine used in the procession is a huge, pyramid shaped creation that includes rotating parts depicting the sun, moon, and various angels. During the time of The Nun, apparently real infants were used to portray the angels -- seven or eight hours in the hot sun, rotating high above street level....Of course, these days, infants are no longer used and statues are in place instead. This is just one of the neat history tidbits I've picked up from this book. If you are interested, here are a few links that show what I'm referencing:

http://www.thoughts.com/backpackernews/la-vara-festival-in-messina-sicily (photos)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9bBBgeZ65o&feature=related (video)

Do you find yourself researching things (photos, maps, videos,...) when reading historical fiction? If so, this lovely novel will be a delight for you with its meticulously-researched historical details. The book moves at a languid, meditative pace (completely in keeping with the ideas of nuns & monastic orders). Each piece of the story is like a shard of colored glass – a beautiful, intricate detail (of life in a convent, of life in an Italian town in the mid-1800s, of life in Italy during times of turmoil) that meshes & unfolds with other pieces to create a kaleidoscopic view of a small window in history. I think the setting & the period details are the stars of the story. Recommended for lovers of historical fiction.