From Publishers Weekly
According to the publicity material accompanying her new book, novelist Cunningham (The Return of the Goddess) is descended from nine generations of Episcopal priests. She resisted the temptation to become a Christian priest herself, but proudly calls herself a priestess, and has written reams of feminist, neo-pagan fiction. In this novel, the first in a projected trilogy, Cunningham introduces us to Mary Magdalen, Celtic-style. Here, Mary, called Maeve, is born in the Land of Women in 4 B.C.E. As a young woman, she moves to Mona to study at a druidic university. There she meets EsusAaka JesusAwho is also studying there during his so-called lost years. In Maeve, Cunningham has blended the perky insouciance of Sabrina the teenage witch with the penetrating common sense of Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennett. She speaks in a refreshingly modern voiceA"Yes, I know. Girl hero is awkward, like woman doctor.... But I balk at the word heroine. A personal quirk." But awkward locutions creep into this historical fantasy ("It was the blood, my woman's blood!"), and much of the novel reads like a poor imitation of Ursula Le Guin. At times, Cunningham tries too hard to prove her bona fides; her references to the Talmud, for example, hardly blend in seamlessly. ("You'll find this very discussion in a volume called Taharoth, in the tractate Niddah, chapter 9, Mishnah 5.") The endearing protagonist almost makes plowing through the tendentious, turgid prose worthwhile. Almost, but not quite. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Cunningham outdoes herself. Always an imaginative writer, as The Return of the Goddess (1992) and The Wild Mother (1993) attest, Cunningham now mixes Celtic mythology with the emergent feminist tradition of the Magdalen to create a powerful, spiritually charged visionary novel. Red-haired Maeve was born on the legendary Isle of Women, where her weather-witching mothers (the plural is intentional) raise her to be utterly self-assured as well as almost overwhelmingly self-willed. But her confidence and skills are put to the test when, accepted as one of the first female candidates for initiation at Mona, she meets her soulmate and beloved, Esus (aka Jesus) of Nazareth, whose lengthy, invisible apprenticeship wasn't among the Essenes, as some would have it, but among the Druids, where he learned his destiny in a shamanic vision. In less-skilled hands, this wild combination of cultures and spiritual traditions might strain all suspension of disbelief, but Cunningham makes Maeve a force of nature that sweeps the reader along in her train. Indeed, Cunningham's artistry encourages the belief that, if there had been a lover fated for the fated savior, she certainly would have been this brilliant, soulful, sensual Celtic lass, Maeve. And this is just the first volume of a projected trilogy. Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
