~ Melmoth, by Sarah Perry ~
This is a difficult book to review. There is a clear plotline, there are a number of strong protagonists, but this novel’s focus is neither on the storyline nor its key characters. It has been talked of as a Gothic novel, a novel of morals, and it is all that too. It is a novel which tries to bring the uncanny into the everyday, to spook the ordinary, to build the surreal into the mundane. And to quite an extent, it succeeds.
The central idea binding the many narratives of this novel is the notion of Melmoth, or Melmotte, or Melmotka, the eternal witness. This woman supposedly always clad in (floating) black, was by legend one of the group of women who went to the tomb of Jesus only to find it empty, the stone rolled away, and who saw the risen Christ in the garden. She alone denied she saw him, and so was cursed to forever wander the world, barefoot and bleeding, witnessing the worst, and always lonely. Many of the key characters of Perry’s novel are dogged by this spectre once they have done some unholy or wicked deed(s).
The many stories contained this novel are loosely linked together by characters passing on manuscripts and testimonies to each other, and sharing stories of their crimes. The most compelling is perhaps that of Helen Franklin who is at the heart of this web of stories, a middle aged, austere British woman living in Prague who denies herself all enjoyment and good living as a penance for some dread past sin. The story of her sin committed in the single year of her life spent in Manila is well told, touching, and tragic indeed. However, not all the narratives of guilt are quite as compelling as hers. The common thread is that none of the guilty are spectacular criminals, but just ordinary people who have damaged others, intentionally or otherwise, in very terrible ways, in the course of their ordinary life activities. And as a consequence, Melmoth comes to claim them, to damn them to eternal wandering and loneliness also.
Forgiveness, refreshingly enough, is not a key theme in the novel, to balance the theme of guilt and sin. Hope is, however, and companionship. The novel is written in Perry’s distinctive style, and a charming read just as The Essex Serpent was, but was less well structured, more meandering, less well balanced in how much ‘air time’ it gave the various narratives which are pieced together to form the novel. It perhaps tries to rope in one story too many (esp at the end, the story of the Nameless, seems to be an auxilliary, an add-on, not very well woven into the central fabric of the novel), and just manages to avoid ending up being a laundry list of transgressors telling their stories of guilt. Because of the strength of Perry’s facility with language, the novel gives the reader an excellent reading experience despite being a little flawed; however, it just never manages to convince entirely that the Melmoth is a figure to be feared or dreaded. Somehow, the narrative ambience just did not manage to fill one’s mindspace enough for the entire suspension of disbelief.
That said, this is not a novel to be missed. The mastery of the craft alone is worth reading this for. Perry has not disappointed. She remains maestro of narrative and story telling, and her writing voice is extremely distinctive, which is a delight in this age of prosaic samey-ness.
I just wish I was a bit more haunted by Melmoth.
Although the narratives span many cities and continents worldwide, it is set in Prague predominantly, and the depiction of Prague as majestic, melancholy and timelessly magical, is reason enough to pick up this novel. Perry’s eye is observant, and the urban details are beautifully picked out and masterfully depicted.
Melmoth, by Sarah Perry. Custom House, 2018
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