Peters, Ellis The Devil’s Novice (The Chronicles of
Brother Cadfael) Again a Kindle read so no cover picture.
With the medieval mysteries of Ellis Peters featuring
Brother Cadfael we return from the ridiculousness of Howard of Warrick and Brother Hermintage to, if
not the sublime, at least the more straight forward vicissitudes of the medieval
world. Cadfael is a Benedictine monk who resides at Shrewsbury Abbey, in
western England, in the first half of the 12th century. The stories are set in
the 1130’s and 1140’s during the reign
of King Stephen.
What I like about Brother Cadfael is that he is a true and
empathetic human being. Peters gives him a compelling life background that sees him in
middle age committing to the rigors of
monastic life. With his sincere piety and worldly experience he manages to be liked
and respected by everyone he contacts no matter if they are within or without
the abbey. His work within the community
is to raise and prepare the herbs and elixirs that are used to treat the ills
of the brothers and the townspeople. Symbolically this makes him a healer of bodies
and souls and seems to also tie in with his function as investigator of
criminal behavior. Since he is portrayed as a thorough and intelligent man, it
is no surprise that he works his way
through difficulties in a logical manner. I have now read a number of books in
the series and they all offer real clues, lots of suspects, twists and turns,
and finally solutions. Philosophically they also seem always to return to the
comforting world of the contemplative life after the crisis has been dealt
with.
An additional pleasure in the novels is that they offer
realistic pictures of medieval life. The
geography is accurate and there is a clear love expressed for the natural
world. Peter’s prose pays sensitive homage to the birds, the animals, the forests, the weather, the time of day, and
passing of the seasons. She also gives us the details of garments worn, meals eaten, and customs kept. It is easy to see why the series was chosen
some years ago to be televised. The characters are interesting, the plots
engaging, and the settings lush and colorful.
In The Devil’s Novice Cadfael’s abbey accepts a young
man who seems strangely troubled and not totally amenable to the rigors of monastic
life. When a traveling priest visits the new recruit’s family home and then
disappears, Cadfael and his fellow monks begin to see some possible connections
between the young man’s strange behavior and the disappearance. The priest is
later found murdered and it becomes even clearer that the young recruit knows
more than he is letting on. Resolving
the murder and dealing with this “devil’s novice” takes us right through to the
end of the book. If you try one of the Brother
Cadfael novels I am convinced you will want to read more of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment