A novel about convent life at the turn of the century? Hardly the makings of a page-turner, yet Ron Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy is a gripping, even life-changing book. For the Sisters of the Crucifixion, each day is a ceaseless round of work, study, and prayer--one hardly separate from the other. Their daily life is itself an act of devotion, caught here in a series of illuminated tableaux: hundreds of yellow butterflies alighting on eight gray habits, moving through a field; a sister praying as she "turns over a great slab of dough that rolls as slowly as a white pig"; nuns warming their hands on the flanks of horses, swinging scythes through timothy grass, crushing grapes with their feet.
Into this idyll comes Mariette--young, pretty, devout, but, as her father says, perhaps "too high-strung" for the convent. Prone to "trances, hallucinations, unnatural piety, great extremes of temperament, and, as he put it, 'inner wrenchings,'" Mariette scalds her hands with hot water as penance, threads barbed wire underneath her breasts while she sleeps, and is convinced Jesus speaks to her. Her very glamour disturbs the gentle rhythm of the nuns' lives. But when she begins bleeding from unexplained wounds in her hands, feet, and sides, the convent is thrown into an uproar. Is Mariette a saint? Or just a lying, hysterical girl? Where do we draw the line between madness and faith, mysticism and eroticism, the life of the spirit and that of the world?
It's to Hansen's credit that he never provides easy answers. Mariette's stigmata may or may not be genuine; the novel's achingly gorgeous prose is the true miracle here. Mariette in Ecstasy is a brief, precious book, not a single word in excess, not a single word left out. --Mary Park
This book is beautifully written- tapping into the spiritual lives of these cloistered women, although fictional somehow helped me tap into a more spiritual side of myself.
This is quite possibly the most beautiful book I have ever read. The writing is lyrical and precise. Some chapters --- divided according to the hours of prayer observed by Catholic monastics --- are like meditations. One of the things that struck me in the descriptions of the nuns reactions to their daily life, was how sensual their lives were, particularly considering they were cloistered virgins. But the fragrance of the hay in the barns, the touch of the dough as they kneaded bread, the play of light on a cow's hide as they milked. Everything was sensual and lush.
This is a haunting story about a young stigmatic who may, or may not, be what she seems to be. She is both revered and despised for her beauty and for her devotion. Some think her a saint, others an attention-seeking fraud. I found the varied emotional reactions of her fellow monastics to her fascinating --- jealousy and resentment are certainly not banished by taking Holy Orders.
The ending was, in my opinion, shattering and brilliant. This is a book I have read a number of times and I am always mesmerized by both the beauty of the language and the mystique of the story. Was Mariette a mystic or a beloved of God, or a very, very clever fraud?
This is a book by an author best know for western's however this is not a western. It is a spiritual story and a spiritual story with a major twist. It is the retelling of the life story of Saint Terese Martin aka Terese de Lisieux. But this story is told in a generic religious order set in Quebec.
This book deals with many large questions:
The Stigmata
Faith
Healing
Love
Science
And how these five things meet in the life of Mariette with ambiguity and how that ambiguity mirrors our own lives. The interesting thing about this book is it is about the world of women, the convent is a microcosm of the real world. The only two men in the book are Mariette's father and the priest at the Convent.
Mariette received the stigmata while a novice at the convent, the Prioress was her older sister. This is a story of faith versus adversity even in one's own tradition. It is the story of a girl who desires to love God with all of her heart. Yet the depth of her devotion arouses the suspicions of those around her.
A film was made of this move with many big name star's Rutger Hauer as the priest, Geraldine O'Rawe as Mariette, Mary McDonnell as the prioress. Michael W. Higgins was the Historical consultant on the film. Though filmed in 1996 it has never been released. The studio did not like the ending and the author and producer would not change it.
Dealing with many deep questions this book leave's the reader with more questions than answers but with a sense of hope and a desire to know more. Hansen has created a masterpiece.
