A deeply reflective novel

This book does exactly what it says on the tin! It is hard to classify this book, fiction of course, but what kind of fiction? A devotional is exactly the right description. Our protagonist – I don’t think she is ever named – comes to this nunnery – again, I don’t think it is ever specified where in Australia this is located – to spend some time being on her own, in a quiet space, to heal. She is mourning the death of her parents, old losses though, and also the breaking up of her life with her husband.

It is a three part novel, and by part 2, the protagonist has already moved into this nunnery full time, although she is not herself a nun, or even a novitiate, or even religious. The place and life however, gives her the peace she needs. The novel is just details of their daily life, the swirls and eddies of events in this place and interactions with other nuns, and many reminiscences into the protagonist’s past and memories, which is how she unpacks and makes sense of things she is seeing, and experiences she has had. It is deeply reflective, and that is what gives it the sense of a devotional. It all seems to happen in a hush.

Here’s a typical example of how the past is linked with the present, and of how Wood writes:

“A heavy spring frost this morning. Crossing the grass I made a clean track of footprints, deep green on the white spread of the lawn. It returned me to my childhood, to the sense of secret authority, imprinting one’s presence into a place with those clear, sharp prints. I exist. The private, pleasurable sound of the finest layer of ice breaking beneath the weight of each step” (p39).

There are many little stories within stories; of a child bullied at school, of her mother’s love for gardening and composting, of reading of saints and wondering if it is their bravery or suffering which is being valorised, of her parents’ work with Vietnamese refugees, of behaviour at a wedding, of a famous news story of a murder of his parents by a young boy, and many other random events and memories, but all of which gradually fall into place for the protagonist, almost as if those are pieces of jigsaw she is fitting to make sense of life.

The plot is absurdly simple – it is just there to give a little time structure to the novel, but otherwise, unimportant. The nunnery waits for the arrival of a Sister who is bringing the bones and remains of another Sister who used to be at the nunnery a long time ago. This arrival causes change and disruption, and the ‘plot’ is about awaiting the time when the burial of these remains can take place, and this disruptive visitor can leave again.

One of the highlights of the novel for me was the description of the mouse plague. The phrase sounds benign enough – mouse, not rat. But what is the difference? The mouse plague infiltrates every part of their lives. The Sisters have to transfer everything edible to glass containers and sealed rooms. They lay traps which have to be emptied continually throughout the day, and can’t buy enough traps in fact. They watch mice all around them in every room every  day, listen to mice scampering inside their walls and around their structures at nights. Mice get into everything, even the piano, and apparently, mice will eat anything, insulation, rubber, plastic, literally anything. The disposal of mice caught is another big problem given the sheer numbers. Mice also attack other animals and savage any dead ones they find. There are stories of mice attacking even babies. Although the protagonist and the Sisters fight back valiantly, there is little that can be done until the rains come, and the plague recedes.

Here’s one of the passages which really brings the problem into sharp perspective.

“Opening the car door now takes mettle. Bonaventure’s lumbar cushion had to be thrown away, yesterday I lowered myself too heavily into the seat and felt a squirming sensation at my back that made me roar and hurl myself from the vehicle, twisting my ankle as I did. A dozen mice exploded into the air from behind the cushion, bounced around the driver’s seat and footwell trying to escape. It took me twenty minutes to find the courage to get into the car again. Now I open the doors before starting the engine, and wait for them to escape (or hide) before I get in” (p250).

This passage – one paragraph – is also one page. Many of the pages have single short paragraphs on them, breaking up the storyline, forcing a reading pause, further enhancing the feeling of the devotional.

There is another beautifully written passage on the mouse plague, the protagonist telling of her friend’s experience when he was driving:

“Not far from their gate the surface of the road began to move. In this one stretch of bitumen there were so many mice crossing the road that he had to slow right down to understand what he was seeing. He and his wife sat, transfixed, floating across what seemed to be a wide river of silver water, flowing steadily beneath them” (p188).

It is a beautifully textured novel. The reader gets a sense of the simplicity and austerity of the nunnery, a sense of rough surfaces, wood and stone, but also of course of great order, and hard work to keep that order. There are few luxuries of course, everything is pared back. But the Sisters eat meat regularly, have a car for errands, and aren’t living in want by any means. There are few creature comforts, but there is a lot of spirituality and space for solitude and sometimes even a little serenity. It seems the protagonist is listening to herself, a chance to hear herself in this place which is like a bubble outside of ordinary life. The reader very soon accustoms themselves to this mode, this internality, this combination of confiding and distance.

“I’m used to it now, the waiting. An incomplete, unhurried emergence of understanding, sitting with questions that are sometimes never answered” (p69).

A most unusual novel, truly a devotional, and a very smooth and interesting read.

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