Black Robe

Graham Greene once described Brian Moore as “my favourite living writer”. Moore’s death in 1999 means I can’t do the same but I can confirm that he is rapidly ascending the ranks of my all-time favourites. He must have something special for I kept reading even though Black Robe is a tale of full of atrocity and foul language. Not my usual fare at all.

But it’s impossible to stop reading a novel that encompasses all of Moore’s compulsive themes: sex, the clash of ideologies, loneliness, betrayal and religion. That’s a heady mix. But then Black Robe is a heady novel.

Set in the mid-17th century, it describes Father Paul Laforgue’s journey into the heart of darkness of Northern Canada. He is sent to relieve a dying priest of his post in a country inhabited by hostile, violent tribes. While he is prepared for martyrdom, his young novice, Daniel, is more ambivalent and succumbs to infatuation and the temptations of the flesh offered him by Annuka, a young Algonkin squaw. And so begin the religious complexities. Not only does Laforgue attempt to save the soul of his fallen Christian brother, he must also attempt the conversion of the pagan and, it must be said, savage natives. These are not the natives, cowed, domesticated and addicted to alcohol that we meet in Stef Penney’s The Tenderness of Wolves, set 200 years after the events of Black Robe. The tribes of Black Robe are savages. To illustrate: at one point Laforgue, Daniel and his lover’s family are taken captive by the hostile Iroquois.

“May we caress the captives?” asked one of the women.

“Caress them” said Kiotsaeton, “but carefully, We must make them last.”

The women, gleeful, at once thrust their burning brands against the genitals of Chomina and Laforgue, causng them to double up in pain. They then burned Annuka’s shoulder and thrust a flaming stick into Daniel’s armpit …

and this is just the start of a torture session that ends in the parboiling and cannibalism of a young Algonkin child.

Moore makes it clear that the savagery is a result of the native religious system, which, with its belief in the world of night and the power of dreams, is so far removed from Christianity that the idea of conversion is inconceivable. Daniel and Annuka’s relationship, at face value demonstrating that reconciliation is possible, becomes the catalyst for the destruction of her family. Laforgue’s problems reconciling his experiences with his own beliefs precipitates a personal crisis of faith.

What’s amazing is Moore’s evenhandedness in showing both sides of the religious divide. Raised an Irish Catholic, Moore famously renounced his faith on the boat leaving Ireland. He waited that long, he said, so as not to hurt his mother. Yet, he remained cognisant of religious faith that could inspire men to behaviour beyond what is normal. So, while Black Robe shows the extremities of Indian belief, it does not condemn. It explains. So too Moore’s treatment of Jesuit faith and the behaviour of the missionaries.

The events are shocking and the outcomes bleak. Yet Moore is depicting real history - his source the voluminous letters that the Jesuits sent back to their superiors in France. He doesn’t sanitise the facts and as a result, demonstrates the bravery, the arrogance and the shortsightedness of the seventeenth-century Jesuit Blackrobes.

Presented with Moore’s trademarks, spare unadorned prose, strong visual elements, controlled pace and a tight plotline, this was quite simply unputdownable.

 

(Originally posted on Lizzy’s Literary Life 14.11.2007)

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

Rarely does a paperback cover hint so atmospherically at a novel’s content as this one.  A middle-aged woman,  stands alone, staring out to sea.  Atmosphere in droves.  Loneliness …. desperation …. waste.

Waste?  It’s the psychology behind the red suit.  The woman wants to make a mark.  She wants to live.  She’s not ready to retire into the background.  She’s still has hope but she’s fading and not showing the best of judgement. She is a woman of a certain age and in the Belfast of the fifties derided by the less charitable as “mutton dressed as lamb”.  Which may well be true because the portrait Moore paints of her is, I feel, sympathetic, but not flattering. 

The novel opens as Judith moves into new furnished accommodation - a bedroom in a B&B.  She brings with her two cherished belongings: a picture of her great-aunt and an iconic Sacred Heart.  The former is placed on the mantelpiece, the latter above her bedhead.  Doing so, makes the room home.  It is the first hint that Judith has been on the move for a while.

At the lodgings she meets a variety of subsidiary characters.  All are memorable.  Her landlady and her son have a very unhealthy relationship.  There is another middle-aged spinster there - an absolute female dog (I do wish to keep this polite).  And there is Madden - the landlady’s brother, widowed, recently returned from the States ….

a man, available and with an aura of adventure (let’s face it there’s nothing adventurous in the Belfast that Moore paints).   Judith is the only one that finds Madden’s past fascinating.  She engages him in conversation and a friendship develops - a friendship, unfortunately based on wrong assumptions by both parties.  It would be a comedy of errors, if it wasn’t so tragic.  For both are, in separate ways, as desperate as each other.  Madden wants only a business partner, Judith wants much more - even though she knows that Madden is not an ideal catch and not good enough for her.  But she spent her marriageable years caring for her sick old aunt.  She didn’t get out much.  Incidentally those years coincided with the Second World War.  Now that her aunt is dead, so too are most of the men. Circumstance dictates that any man will do.

And so the crisis cometh and both succumb to their secret vices.

Interspersed with the “romance” is a more serious subtext.  That of Judith’s loneliness and the comfort/redemption she seeks in her Catholic faith. But the Church is unable to provide that which Judith needs and the dissolution of her relationship with Madden precipitates the dissolution of her faith - her crutch - her sanity? Yet, while the Church fails, a ”friend”,  Moira practices a living, breathing christianity, extending a lifeline to Judith in her hour of crisis.  This is a bitter sweet pill for Judith who understands, with demoralising clarity,  that she has moved from the realms of friendship into those of charity.

Moore’s prose is lucid, direct and uncompromising and, I suspect, with regard to the religious themes,  heavily autobiographical.  I winced at times at the searing honesty of the dialogue.  There are no easy solutions.  Particularly heart-rending are the scenes depicting Judith’s tragic loss of faith; a faith which has kept her above sea level. Without it she will drown.

And so I return to the book cover.  I don’t remember such a scene.   Then again,  I may have been reading too quickly; despite the depressing subject matter, this is a pageturner. Moore is a master of pace.  Aspects of character are revealed in a measured, controlled and, at times, shocking way.  Neither Judith nor Madden are fully sympathetic characters yet I felt for them both. These characters live and breathe, jump off the page and punch me in the gut with their flawed humanity.  What more can I ask?

Posting Guidelines

These are initial thoughts - so feel free to offer suggestions, comments.   I’m quite happy to go with the flow.

Content 

Posts should contain reviews of the novel, with categories by title and by contributor.  That way an index will build allowing easy retrieval of reviews by title and by contributor.

Because this is a blog, discussions should be posted as comments to the particular review under discussion.

Will this work?  Let’s see at the weekend.  I’ll post up my Judith Hearne review then.

Reading Sequence

There’s a flurry of buying activity going on out there and it sounds like a few challenge participants, myself included,  have copies of “Lies of Silence” in hand.  So that’s January 2008 sorted!  We’ll see what’s out there at the end of December before deciding February’s book.

How this blog began ….

I was introduced to the writings of Brian Moore by a face2face book group member.   The novels sat in the TBR mountain for over 12 months before I read a word.  I picked Brian Moore for a Reading the Author challenge and after just two novels, I knew my destiny was to become a Brian Moore completist. There are 20 novels and I have to read them all! I am anticipating so much pleasure from this (even though the endings aren’t happy) that I’d like to share the ride.

So here’s the deal - I intend reading one Brian Moore novel per month until I’ve read them all.  I would like you to join me.  The Moore, the merrier!

You don’t have to read all the novels (particularly as some are no longer in print and won’t be that easy to get hold off) but you may fancy one or two or three or four ….. and, if you’re like me, you may want to opt in to all 20!  (They really are that good!)

I’m going to kick this off for real in December 2007.  No time limit but I’ll aim to read one Brian Moore per month - not necessarily in chronological sequence, but, for the purposes of this blog, I will start with his debut novel, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. 

Not many have heard of Brian Moore, despite his being Booker shortlisted 3 times! Graham Greene called Moore “his favourite living writer” …. and he’s fast becoming a favourite of mine.  Why?  Take a peek at my previous reviews.

If you want to join me, please leave a comment. 

If you have a wordpress account, please send me details of the email associated with that account.  I will then be able to give you contributor rights to this blog.

Email details:  lizzysiddal@yahoo.com.