February 14, 2006

Havoc, in its Third Year by Ronan Bennett

Once I had begun I couldn't put this down. It was not just the central mystery of the death of an infant, though that is compelling enough. It was more the suspense of the looming disaster of the Civil War. Even though the outcome of that event is well known it is much to Bennett's credit that he evokes the uncertainty, the apocalyptic anxiety, the hysteria, of the preceding years. He also evokes the blood and grit of what sex and reproduction must have been like, though I can't help wondering whether or not the attitudes and practices of some of the characters are not perhaps more post- than pre-enlightenment. I am planning to lend my copy to a colleague who works on the 17th century and get her opinion, as really, I am not on solid ground here. Perhaps rural folk in Northern England were a more adventurous lot, and somewhat more liberal, than one might imagine, in sexual as well as other matters. Well, the Catholics, at any rate; the Puritans do not have the same élan.

As well as the aforementioned presumed infanticide, the wife of coroner John Brigge, the lead character, is brought to bed to deliver a child. We meet a midwife, wet-nurses, and a doctor. This aspect of the novel is fascinating, even though it is from the necessarily limited male perspective. In contrast to the warm, closed domestic space of Brigge's household, Bennett presents the rigours — okay, that's a euphemism: the tortures — of the criminal justice system in 17th-century England. It is here that Brigge first runs afoul of his Puritan colleagues, his fellow-governors of the town. Bennett's portrayal of rigid Puritanism is depressingly topical.

The language — both the dialogue and the narrative — gestures at being archaic without being coy, and the cold and dreary setting is nicely realized. Cold and dreary, but there are moments of bucolic contentment. Bennet's narrative undergoes on interesting shift over the course of the novel: it imperceptibly departs from the realism of its opening and enters the mythic by the end. Christopher Hill meets Gladiator.

And, not insignificantly, as least for this reader, the novel is beautifully produced with a handsome woodcut on the cover, a spare but attractive layout, and satisfyingly tactile paper.

Highly recommended; the acclaim this novel has received is not misplaced.

Scribbled at February 14, 2006 8:10 PM AST | Permanent link to this post | More? books/reading, c17th

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