La monaca by Simonetta Agnello Hornby Review

La monaca – this is Agata, the sixth daughter of Don Peppino Padellani and Donna Gesuela Aspidi. Agata grew up in Messina, where the family of a Neapolitan princely family is one of the most respected. But to keep the befitting palace facade, personnel and parties on shining the financial basis, fades rapidly. Could the four oldest sisters are still well married to bourgeois climbers, it is the fifth a nail-biter. For the thirteen-year-old Agata but there are dies when the beloved father (1839), little more hope that the family of the boy she loves dearly, will ever agree to a marriage.

Mama takes her to Naples, but as the noble Padellani clan proves there to be buttoned up, you have to humble yourself. The girl alone is the path to a noble monastery, San Giorgio Stilita in which the ladies though isolated from the outside world, according to religious principles, but comfortable to live together with staff. But even for this gate of the mite is barely raise; because that helps the abbess Agata’s aunt and the cardinal is also a Padellani.

The bitter Donna Gesuela – even not even thirty years of age – will finally go their separate ways (and is located in Palermo newly married), and so Agata pulls in San Giorgio a (1840).

Protect. taught, guided and urged Agata learns all the nuances of monastic life to know and to deal with them: ” Il monastero era un Vespaio di gruppi e fazioni because divisi gelosie, ripicche e campagne di odio … Sotto la superficie calma, .

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San Giorgio Stilita era tutto un ribollire di passioni malate “(page 202) Klug and dutifully goes through the stages: prova , educanda , postulante , professione semplice , professione solenne , eventually is called monaca confessa “donna Maria Ninfa” (1846). How to cook how delicious dolci prepared and decorated how to elaborate devotional tinkering from a variety of materials, how sick nurses, and all about: In that time she has learned a lot Practical according to the Benedictine rules medicinal properties of the plant. With all that it contributes to well-being and income of the monastic community at.

Never but felt the calling. On the contrary: From the beginning, she is torn between a strong desire to open the desired vocazione , and the desire for love for a man to marital life to their own children to active participation in social developments. The tolerance of the aunt Abbess, own tricks and loyal allies open their lines of communication to the outside: Rumors, journals and especially the latest novels – for example, by Jane Austen – keep up to date and strengthen their urge the narrow convent walls, including the intrigue again to leave behind.

Simonetta Agnello Hornby (which itself comes from Sicily, knows the wide world, since 1972 lives in London and works there as a judge) portrayed in her novels like a certain type of woman (standalone , confident, despite resistance within the family and in society for their independence fighting) and simultaneously records the political development of their home after. Their notionally spectrum, the events and upheavals are knowledgeable reported and commented, but serve only as background sheet. The events in “La monaca” bear in Messina and Naples 1839 to 1848 to, is prepared as the base for the Italian unification; “La zia Marchesa” and the historical crime novel “La mennulara” comprise the second half of the 19th century with the changing relations between the layers.

Southern Italian impressions of all five senses blow through the whole book. For this reading experience a noble, broad differentiated vocabulary, sometimes flavored with Sicilian or Neapolitan Dialektbröckchen provides. And, as in “La zia Marchesa” the chapter headings carry the old literary tradition: They call narrowly theme or plot of the chapter ( “19 Agata pensa all’amore mentre Impasta il pane “). This is nice because it is tuned equal.

The writer formed maintains over long distances a chronicle-like narrative style, the summary tells us what happens sometimes individual scenes vividly illustrates. only the determining of Agata’s fate passages designed the author dialogical. In this way they can handle extensive courses of action for many years, without detail or atmospheric density come briefly. On the contrary: In most short scenes, wonderful miniatures see from the monastic, aristocratic or urban life that remain in memory: Agata subtle sensations when the cardinal or her confessor touched her cheeks; their observation of how ants cross the tile floor – and what insights it gains from it about their own situation; always accurately recorded ceremonies and work of monastic life -. offering or as simple as a seller next to the monastery portal boiled potatoes bargain.

A masterpiece of storytelling is the rousing description of the procession to Ferragosto (15 August Assumption) very Messina seven hours put into ecstasy: Strong men pulling sled a ludicrous meter high artwork, populated by humans and papier-mâché statues, moved by sophisticated mechanisms, bizarrely animated by the shrill cries dozens of tightly packed infants, donated by desperately poor parents rotate as angels to the rays of the sun and the moon. Some take God mercifully still during the move to him. And above all sits the (living) Madonna.