Customer Reviews

The Good Men: A Novel of Heresy

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Charmaine Craig's The Good Men is at the top of my most cherished books list, and I can't recommend it more highly. I have not submitted an online review before, but I loved this book so much, I felt compelled to comment. The novel entirely drew me in from beginning to end, and I couldn't put it down once I started. I still find myself reflecting on the three generations of characters, feeling for them as if they were real to me. In particular, I was struck by the author's most honest portrayal of the human condition. Her characters were true to life -- complicated and imperfect, wanting goodness, but invariably stumbling along their interconnected paths. Through their struggles and triumphs, Craig cut straight to the core of what it means to be human, in all its pain and beauty. Though the story takes place in medieval France, its essence is absolutely timeless, and just as relevant today as ever. I am in awe of this talented, first time novelist, and can't wait to see what's next on her horizon.

Charmaine Craig has recreated the world of medieval France, a time when a peasant's perception of theology could end him up to his chin in flaming cordwood. What is especially subtle and honest about the book is that it admits that spiritual doubt is not always beneficial--contrary to our contemporary values--nor is heresy necessarily more attractive than orthodoxy.

In a Spielberg version, the heretics would be good and right, unfairly persecuted, and the Church presented as bad, corrupt and doctrinally reprehensible. But in the case of the Good Men, as presented in this meticulously researched novel, the heretics are even worse than the church, which at least holds that God created the world and that life and creation are good. Yet who can stop them, but the inquisition? Religion, power politics and personal vengeance all play a part in the outcome.

The central character of the book, the village priest, is drawn with a similar complexity and realism. A man both capable of deep love and shocking heartlessness, spiritual longing and the basest betrayal, his conflicts form the axes upon which the book turns. I believed the world of The Good Men in way I would not have a more simplistic treatment of the same period. Anyone who thinks that the lives of common country people were better, safer or more peaceful in the past should read Craig's elegant, suspenseful novel.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!!! This is one of the best novels I've read in the last five years, without question. The Time Magazine review called Ms. Craig the real deal, and it wasn't kidding. From the very first page, I was hooked, and I had to put my life on hold for two days to finish the book. This isn't an ordinary historical novel---this is literature, at the level of Flaubert, Hugo, Tolstoy. All the characters are complex and flawed and striving---just like people are in real life, and Craig writes about them with empathy and compassion. But what I loved the most about this novel was the wisdom it offers on life, and how Craig isn't afraid to probe the deeper questions about what it means to be alive and to try to live a moral life while still living in the material world. And the last part of the book had me crying all over the pages. I won't give it away, but the ending was transcendant.

I finished reading The Good Men two weeks ago and I can't get it out of my head, so I have to add my praise to the long list of glowing remarks already posted by other admirers of this beautiful book. I won't be surprised if this novel garners lots of awards. Ms. Craig's masterly prose, her eye for detail, and her ability to find emotional nuance in scene after scene, transported me to another place and time, where her characters struggle, each in their own way, with how to live life. Like in all great works of literature, the characters are often flawed, but through Craig's compassionate telling, each takes on a kind of dignity and human grace, right down to the fallen priest, Pierre Clergue, whose final act (which I won't give away) is so right and momentous, that it gives reason and meaning to his life in its very last seconds. My book club loved this book too, and I've been recommending it to everyone.

The best historical novels transport us to a world we've never known and teach us something important about the world we live in presently. This beautiful, resonant book does just that. As I read, I felt immersed in the richness of medieval times. The many aspects of life and land are vividly described. Perhaps more importantly, this book enriched my life by furthering my experience. I felt as if I had lived with its characters, and their experiences became mine. The Good Men transcends the genre of historical fiction. It is a classic that I will return to with gratitude and pleasure.

Freedom of religion is something that we don't have to think about too much anymore. It's been an ingrained part of our society for so long that it is difficult to imagine living any other way, and we probably take it for granted. It therefore always comes as a little bit of a surprise to learn of a time or place in fiction or history in which there is no freedom of religion. The reader gets a very healthy dose of it in this excellent first novel by Charmaine Craig.

It takes place in the little village of Montaillou in southern France around the year 1300. The story primarily concerns a wayward priest, Pierre, who takes to heart his mentor's suggestion that, "Vows of chastity are not as solid among mountain priests." He becomes sexually involved with a woman who decides to use him as a shield to protect the heretics in the area--the Good Men of the title--who are actually nothing more than a renegade Christian sect. Of course, this doesn't seem like such a big deal to us, living in our free society, but back then, such things weren't done. And when the Inquisition comes sniffing around, attempting to root them out, one realizes that the practice of one's faith in these dark ages was literally a matter of life and death.

At the same time the story concerns the family of women with whom Pierre finds himself inexorably involved. As a young man, it as at first the mother to whom he finds himself enraptured, and who he adores from afar. To her daughter Fabrisse, he is indifferent, although it is he who kindles her sexual yearnings. And finally it is Fabrisse's daughter, Echo, on whom he unleashes his lifelong, unquenchable lust.

But Pierre finds himself increasingly cornered by his Catholic vows--now being tested by an all-too-keen inquisitor--and his dissolute lifestyle, which also happens to involve a knowledge of heretic villagers. His response to these difficulties is, alas, all too human, and inevitably leads to the destruction of everything dear to him. To her credit, Ms. Craig offers no easy answers. Yes, she carefully depicts the cruelty of the Catholic Church at the time--with its dungeons and torture and burnings at the stake--but we also see the effects of Pierre's pursuit of earthly pleasure, in that it leads to his becoming shallow, selfish, and in the end, cowardly.

This is a superb novel, with excellent and believable characterizations; a moving and dynamic plot; and a sure, steady, revealing sense of time and place. Clearly, Ms. Craig has done her homework. Thematically it succeeds as well, being as it is an interesting exploration into the age-old conflict in the Christian church between the goals of the spirit and the desires of the flesh. A conflict, I might add, which continues to exist today, even in our free society, but which in the Middle Ages manifested itself in nothing less than open warfare.

"Montaillou", a historic study of the inquisition against the medieval Cathar heresy in the remote mountain village of the same name, is an extraordinary piece of research by Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, who took the time and energy necessary to read and interpret the extensive (and handwritten in medieval language) Vatican records of the terrible persecution. Charmaine Craig has done a service in the name of history in her novelization of Ladurie's impeccable research. This is a dark, brooding novel, written mainly from the perspective of the women named in the Vatican records, but ultimately turning on the actions of Pierre Clergue, the frequently cowardly priest of Montaillou. The helplessness of ordinary people against the might of the Church has never been more vividly portrayed. People today often feel helpless against the decisions of those in authority - read The Good Men, and you'll see how far we have come in terms of civilization and society. Compound that particular form of helplessness with the precariousness of health and weather and childbirth - and with the psychological needs that people had then and still have today. This novel is evocative of the time and place and conveys a sense of understanding about how it all could have happened. Terrific story - give it a fair chance.

A lot of the newspaper reviewers seem to focus on the author's previous modelling/acting career ("Gee she's gorgeous, but can she write" syndrome.) Let me assure you that Ms. Craig is the real deal. She evokes a 14th-century French village and its inhabitants in such luscious detail that you'll find yourself thinking about the characters at odd times. She details the minutiae of religious differences between Church and heretics without bogging down, and propels the story along smartly. I was hooked by page three. I think this would be an enjoyable read not just for medieval history buffs, but for anyone.

while I don't agree with the reviewer from San Diego, at least, not with his vehemence, essentially, he is right. Ladurie's book as well as that of Rene Weis paint quite a different picture of many of the characters in the book, especially the priest Pierre Clerque. I liked the book; it held my interest; parts of it were really compelling, but there were a number of inaccuracies. Having been a student of the Albigensian heresy for a good portion of my life as well as a retired college professor, I was bothered with the liberties that ms. Craig too. For a first novel, she did a quite good job, but the book would have been better if the history behind the Cathars had more substance. And, therefore, more accuracy.

Rich in knowledge of the times, so much so that you feel that your are in the 14th century. Rich in character; you love and hate and understand all the major characters of this story. I was torn in my feelings for Clergue, while I wanted to hate him for what he did, (or better yet, what he didn't do), I always ended up feeling sorry for him. Fabrisse was the character I rooted for most of the story; I really wanted her to find some happiness, for I felt that she deserved it more than anyone else, and I thought that she would find it in Grazida, who I loved. Unfortunately she never did. Grazida, (Echo), brought beauty to the story, her sense of goodness in God, the earth, and all things wonderful brought everything into focus. How can you love God, and not love the world he made for you, how can you forego all the gifts provided for you in this world in the name of God? This story asks some tough questions about faith and what I was brought up to believe, there is a fine line between the Good Faith and The Good Men.

Read it and Enjoy,
Debbi