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Title: Lambs of God by Marlene Day, Marele Day ISBN: 1-57322-722-6 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.9 (20 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The nuns teaching at Our Lady of Malibu were never like this
Comment: "They were unkempt, practically savages. Their teeth were yellow, their skin lined and leathery. They wore no shoes. Everything about them suggested that they let nature just take its course."
Such is the disconcerting observation concerning Sister Iphigenia, Sister Margarita, and Sister Carla by Father Ignatius in LAMBS OF GOD. (No immaculately white wimples here!) When I was a young lad attending Catholic elementary school, the nuns, though occasionally intimidating, were blessedly cut from different cloth.
Fr. Ignatius is the bishop's private secretary sent to reconnoiter the property of a deserted and forgotten island abbey (presumably in Ireland, though the book never states). The diocese wants to sell the site to a land developer, which has plans to create a posh resort. To the cleric's consternation, the abbey is still inhabited by the three named nuns and their flock of sheep. The sisters believe the sheep harbor the souls of the nunnery's deceased members. Isolation from the rest of the world has rendered the three just a little ... well, touched in the head, and their religious observances a peculiar blend of pagan and Christian. When Ignatius announces that the nuns are to be relocated and the sheep butchered, it doesn't go over well.
This novel by Marele Day is a gentle and low key fable of confrontation between the religious women, determined not to lose the only life they know, and the ambitious, young priest from the mainland. Managing to incapacitate the cleric and hold him incommunicado, it's their intent to "convert" him to their community lifestyle. On the other hand, Ignatius knows that to escape, he must divide and conquer, so to speak. In the course of this test of wills, we discover some deep and startling secrets harbored by the sisterhood. (It's a pointed reminder that beneath their habits and clerical garb, nuns and priests are "just folks". Perhaps this lesson is one of the novel's biggest strongpoints.)
While I like LAMBS OF GOD enough to recommend it, female readers will probably better appreciate it. The predicament in which our lone male hero finds himself is decidedly embarrassing, and not one to elicit much sympathy from passing Real Men. In recognition of this gender-based bias, I gave the book one more star than I would have otherwise. And this comes after accepting the precarious premise that the Holy Mother Church could lose total contact with a religious house - a material and financial asset, after all - and its residents during the last years of the 20th century when the storyline apparently unfolds. It illustrates the benefits of staying in touch.
Rating: 3
Summary: Allusions galore in this satisfying oddity
Comment: This writer reminds me of Alice Hoffman in her earlier days (before Oprah chose her movie-of-the week novel about obsessive love) when she wrote novels that mixed superstition, witchcraft and fairy tale allusions in stories about everyday suburban life transforming to out of the ordinary eventful living. Day's novel is utterly odd, at times annoying, but nonetheless original and for the most part captivating. I especially enjoyed how the nuns' language was terse, almost like Morse code messages, in their conversations but became fluid, sensual, rich with description when they told their tales at their knitting & storytelling hour. Granted, some of the plot elements seemed to me a bit tired (the childhood sexual abuse of one nun, for example) and the few mystery-like elements to the story were predictable, but the quirkiness of the tale kept me going. I wanted to know if the poor priest would be executed, sacrificed, escape or be set free. At the point when Iphi! genia (my favorite of all the characters) becomes determined to outwit Father Ignatius and uses his business handbook in combination with the powerful "Car relic" (I love that!) -- the cellular phone, the story comes alive with action and page turning suspense. For a very unusual, weird break from run-of-the-mill novels and whodunnits, Lambs of God is a book that will satisfy anyone who cherishes genuine storytelling.
Rating: 5
Summary: Ho! Ho! Ho! What a wild ride!
Comment: I loved this quirky novel because it kept surprising me. Like the mysterious convent buried in brambles, the secret lives of these nuns kept unfolding in ways that astonished me and made me laugh out loud. Magical-realism is a tricky genre, but Day certainly managed to dance along quite nicely within its bounds. I couldn't believe the relationship that developed between the nuns & the sheep or between the nuns and the priest. It was wonderfully bizarre and yet somehow very touching. The way Day explores the motif of being exiled from the world, and the way she contrasts this a natural lust to explore, deftly provides much to think about. It's a far-out book that people might not pull in people who want an ordinary plot, but for those readers who enjoy having their minds stretched and their funny bones tickled, this is a memorable book!
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Title: Into the Forest by Jean Hegland ISBN: 0553379615 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott ISBN: 1573223425 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Lucky Jim (Twentieth-Century Classics) by Kingsley Amis ISBN: 0140186301 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The 6th Lamentation by William Brodrick ISBN: 0670031917 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 10 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy) by Naguib Mahfouz ISBN: 0385264666 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 January, 1991 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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