Fludd: A Novel

One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin-or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. No matter how copiously Father Angwin drinks while he confesses his broken faith, the level of the bottle does not drop. Although Fludd does not appear to be eating, the food on his plate disappears. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action. Knitting together the miraculous and the mundane, the dreadful and the ludicrous, Fludd is a tale of alchemy and transformation told with astonishing art, insight, humor, and wit.

Fetherhoughton, the shabby and provincial village of Hilary Mantel's fifth novel, Fludd, possesses a charm that is, at best, latent. The surrounding moorland is foreboding, the populace is querulous and ill-educated, and the presiding priest is an atheist. It's 1956, and drabness is general to this English backwater. Until, that is, the appearance of a disarming young priest who, apparently, has been dispatched to wrest Fetherhoughton out of its superstitious stupor. One of the novel's several wonders is that Fludd surpasses all expectations.

Father Angwin, Fetherhoughton's disbelieving priest, has--much to the displeasure of his superiors--grown comfortable with the entrenched, misapprehending devoutness of his flock. Fludd, who may or may not be the curate sent to deliver the wayward, exerts an immediate, if unexpected, influence. He intrigues the townspeople, flusters the church's gaggle of nuns, kindles a welcome self-examination in Father Angwin, and arouses the passion of the young and yearning Sister Philomena. A charge of possibility suddenly animates the village, accompanied by several incidents that seem midway between coincidence and miracle. Fludd, however, remains beset by an insistent disillusionment--his clarity, it seems, arcs outward only.

Mantel's cramped and pliant village is a marvel. Fetherhoughton "wrestles not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world," insists the dour headmistress, Mother Perpetua. A local tobacconist, not so trivially, just might be the devil in human garb. Fludd's gift lies in unearthing all the lovely and fearsome truths buried just beneath the surface. "The frightening thing is that life is fair," he observes, "but what we need... is not justice but mercy." The fruits of this conviction, in Fetherhoughton, are rebellion, self-assertion, and even scandal; but Mantel's lovely tale suggests that difficult possibility is fair compensation for a sloughed predictability. --Ben Guterson

Hilary Mantel has a remarkable sense for the rhythm and shape of words. I imagine that reading anything she wrote would give the sensory pleasures of a unique and artistic voice. This little book does give that but it is not compelling. It promises to be, but then none of the characters seem to develop in a way that does much to progress the story. Later books such as A Place of Greater Safety and Wolf Hall are so stirring and satisfying that one hopes Ms. Mantel is just getting going. Generally I'd say authors create a great first or second book and then lose the touch, but in some cases (such as Philip Roth I think) they may grow even as they age. I can imagine Mantel might be one of those writers. I certainly hope so as I look forward to more from her.

An odd little novel by the winner of this year's Booker prize. It was one of those books I'd always known about -- who knows why? -- and was determined to read one day. The story centers on a Roman Catholic parish in a provincial English town in the 1950s. Fludd is the name the young curate whose arrival upsets their little world.

Do you ever get that feeling when reading a book that you're a part of something special and very important, but you aren't entirely sure that you can grasp the entirety of what the author is presenting to you? That is the feeling I had with Fludd. It didn't seem as though there was much plot to the book until the very end, and then all at once I was finished and was left feeling as though I had read everything closely but had somehow missed The Big Picture.

The book is about religion and faith and the positive and negative effects the two can have on people. But there is so much more to it. Symbolism, I might say, up the wazoo. There are statues and nuns and obscure questions of faith ("If one uses dripping to cook on a Friday during Lent, is that considered eating meat?"). A never-ending carafe of whiskey. A priest who claims disbelief in God to Fludd, but who then says that the devil lives in Netherhoughton. (Can you believe in the devil but not in God? Is that not depressing?) And then, the biggest enigma of them all, there is Fludd.

He arrives and miracles happen. No one can really describe what his face looks like. He appears to finish the food on his plate, but no one ever sees him put food in his mouth. He doesn't seem to do much of anything, but he comes and he goes and things are different. His name, at the least, suggests a great deal about him.

I realize that I haven't so much reviewed this book as made oblique references to how much it has remained in my mind after I finished reading it. Isn't that a stellar review in and of itself? I should think most authors want readers to continue chewing over their stories after reading the last word. I am still chewing (much as Fludd spent much of the book chewing without seeming to eat anything). But I think I know enough about my reaction to recommend the book- it is a misleading slim volume, but it will stay with you after you're done.

If Fludd were a movie, it would be 'Michael' (the one with John Travolta). I have not decided for myself whether Fludd is an angel - and I do not have the sense, as another reviewer has, that Fludd is somehow the real alchemist Fludd reincarnated - but there is unquestionably something supernatural about him. There is a Christ-likeness about him, turning water into whiskey, a tiny bit of food into generous portions, giving the (spiritually) dead back their lives, their hopes, their souls. Freeing them. How does the line in 'Michael' go? "It is a hard thing to give a man back his soul." Michael wasn't there to help the old lady....he showed up 6 months in advance, to set up the situation that would bring the real target to him. And Fludd? Who is Fludd there to help? I still don't know. He certainly does seem to help people, though. I quote this paragraph that jumped out at me and made my throat constrict:

"When people complain of their lot, their sneering enemies gloat and tell them, to make them afraid, "Life's not fair." But then again, taking the long view, and barring flood, fire, brain damage, and usual run of bad luck, people do get what they want in life. There is a hidden principle of equity in operation. The frightening thing is that life *is* fair; but what we need, as someone has already observed, is not justice but mercy."

I am haunted by the images in this book. By the people given back their souls. Fludd has done something Michael himself has not: he has served out justice. And mercy.

This is one of the funniest novels I have read in a while - but with black, black humour, which does seem to dilute as the story unfolds. The first half is marvellous as Mantel cuttingly describes the primitive village. Fludd remains enigmatic but perhaps that is the point and I didn't think deeper about the alchemy implied.