For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain

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Victoria MacKenzie’s ambitious debut reimagines the lives of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, both of whose books are still read and studied many centuries after they were written. The anchorite emphasized that any contrary movement would not be from a good spirit but rather from an evil spirit. Can it be that Julian, far more mentally stable, who married for love and felt real sorrow at the death of her husband and only baby, counselled her visitor in language and imagery that fitted with her world?

If you’re new to these figures, you might be captivated by their bizarre life stories and religious obsession, but I thought the bare telling was somewhat lacking in literary interest. Her withdrawal had been prompted by a series of religious visions when she was afflicted by a fever aged thirty about which she remains silent. Upon hearing the marvelous goodness of our Lord, the anchorite thanked God wholeheartedly for His visitation. In the early sections, I struggled to tell Julian and Margery’s voices apart, but as the novel unfolds, Mackenzie establishes their distinctive characters and their very different attitudes to their holy visions.Holy Wryt seyth that the sowle of a rytful man is the sete of God, and so I trust, syster, that ye ben. The ankres, heryng the mervelyows goodnes of owyr Lord, hyly thankyd God wyth al hir hert for hys visitacyon, cownselyng this creatur to be obedyent to the wyl of owyr Lord God and fulfyllyn wyth al hir mygthys whatevyr he put in hir sowle yf it wer not ageyn the worshep of God and profyte of hir evyn cristen, for, yf it wer, than it wer nowt the mevyng of a good spyryte but rathyr of an evyl spyrit.

A novel like this requires exquisite balance, not to tip the hand towards one or other of the paired yet opposing characters. It is an extraordinary feat of historical ventriloquism; the women’s inner lives, their religiosity, their sense of place in the world is miraculously conjured … This novel is brilliantly done.Seeing its length means I can pop it into Novellas in November if I spot a copy between now and then!