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Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
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  | Virago Press Ltd, 2009
Hardcover, 480 pages
isbn: 1844085961
value: 27 credits
condition: good, very good copy | owner: toomanybooks (new user)
Note: the owner's email address is currently unconfirmed. When it is confirmed you will be able to request this book.
I did not feel that this book was quite as good as her previous 2 Renaissance novels , however still worth reading. |
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Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
Review: Disappointed with Venus,enjoyed Courtesan but this one is also good, In my oppinion Courtesan coveredd high class prostitution, Venus covered sodamy and this one covers purity a good read
Review: We have so much quality writing about these days that I always feel the book I'm reading at the time is the best yet, but Sarah Dunant's latest novel transported me so convincingly into the heart of this Sixteenth Century convent life, that I was living it alongside her. Her's is a gift which only a writer with the power to inhabit its every aspect can call up.
One facet brought home to me was how, in spite of its religious practices, some of which in their extremes of self-induced suffering appear bizarre to us in this secular age, convent life offered women the opportunity to develop innate talents, artistic, musical horticultural and medical, with a degree of respect and authority impossible outside its walls. Above all, what impresses is the sheer beauty of its language invoking with fiery passion the love story at its heart - and perhaps inviting questions on the nature of Love itself.
The developing relationship between the two central characters, the novice Serafina and Suora Zuana, is warmly and subtly drawn. Zuana is basically a healer; knowledgeable in a wide range of medicinal plants, the remedial properties and modes of application she has learned at her apothecary/physicist father's knee. She has inherited his books - at least the ones which remained after his students and other visitors in the wake of his sudden death, had smuggled out - as well as inheriting his intuitive and scientific mind. As a healer she cares, is compassionate, (as far as the onerous and rigid rules of the convent allow,) and the Madonna Chiara, head of the order, is canny enough to place Serafina in her care. And what a task that is! Torn from her relationship with her young and musically talented lover by a father whose interest is in making the best possible alliance with another prominent family, Serafina is distraught. He has sold this daughter, in effect, to the convent - a sentence no better that life imprisonment.
Madonna Chiara herself is fascinating: Zuara says of her, that, not only does she display great political skill in running a prestigious order of nuns during a time when the forces of the counter-reformation were playing out a struggle for the power to direct men's souls, but she could run an empire equally well.
As a writer myself, albeit one who came to the craft rather late in life, I bow to a Master. My own books address questions concerning life in the body and life of the spirit, but from a different perspective, not of unsustainable old beliefs, but ones which take Today out into the Future. (See my profile.)
Review: While I was reading this book, I was thinking that I would rate it three stars, but now that I've finished it and am thinking about it, I realise that I liked it more than that.
Sacred Hearts takes the reader into the hushed and cloistered world of a 16th century Italian convent: a life governed by routines, where conversation is limited and people seldom say what they are thinking. The book is obviously very well researched (there is an extensive bibliography at the end) and from a historical perspective it is very interesting. It also gets you thinking about what it means to be a nun and the different ways that the women in the book find meaning and satisfaction in their lives.
The story hinges on Serafina, a young girl put into the convent against her will after she has fallen in love with her music teacher. She is desperate to find a way out. This storyline takes a long time to get going, peaks about two thirds of the way through the book and then loses momentum for a time after that. This is a character driven novel rather than plot driven, but a problem is that the characters are not really interesting enough to sustain a book of this length. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I was bored by this book, but it doesn't move quickly. However Dunant does get things back on track and the ending is genuinely moving.
Review: The world of the convent was utterly convincing - from the characters of the nuns to all the little details of their daily lives. This was what I most enjoyed about this book - transportation into this world. Okay so it wasn't exactly a page-turner, and the plot moved very very slowly at times, but the writing was so good and the whole thing so 'real' that I didn't really mind.
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