6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
excellent historical fiction, October 27, 2005
This review is from: Mandrakes from the Holy Land (Hardcover)
Beatrice Campbell-Bennett, an artist with close connections to the Bloomsbury Group, arrives in Palestine in 1906 during the fading days of the Ottoman empire. Torn between deep Christian religiosity and an intense erotic attraction to Virginia Woolf's sister Vanessa, Beatrice struggles to suppress her carnal self by immersion in the inspirational landscape of the Holy Land only to discover new temptations while accompanied by an Arab guide whose true intentions are ominously clear only to the reader. At first her exceptional scriptural knowledge seems a charmingly apt prism through which to view the landscape but inevitably proves to be a dangerous evasion of the complex political realities that engulf her. This retreat from the real is further complicated by her violent repression of her taboo urges for various alluring female figures she encounters on her pilgrimage.
Megged artfully interweaves these vulnerable moments of a fragile and wounded psyche with powerful evidence of a vital intellect. In Megged's brilliant rendering of an artistic sensibility, Beatrice's moving digressions on the achievements of Giorgione, Monet, El Greco and others provide a compelling context for the reader's appreciation of her deeply spiritual and emotional encounters with the unique qualities of light, shadow, and color during her picaresque journey: ''[T]here is something cruel about the sight of thorns at noon''; ``[H]ere, the bare light, lacking any shadow, enwraps bodies in a sheer luminescence that seems to derive from an ancient, primal source.''Such wonderfully evocative passages fully transmit the heart of an enraptured pilgrim in flight from her ''sin'' as she wends her way through Palestine's desolate deserts, hills and valleys, offering invariably textured and sensual descriptions of the crusader castles, mosques and churches that feed her poignantly desperate inner life. Beatrice fails utterly to reconcile the disparity between the heavenly Jerusalem of her deepest yearnings and the all too earthy city of fierce sectarian hatreds, refusing to heed the warning of one character that it is ``a city that devours its inhabitants.''
"Mandrakes" offers brief yet memorable sketches of various historical figures, particularly the members of the Bloomsbury Group who influenced Beatrice at home (the Woolf sisters, Clive Bell and Lytton Strachey among them) as well as the idealistic Jewish settlers who befriend her in Palestine, most notably the famous agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn. It is even more a measure of Megged's uncanny skill and respect for his reader that, at the end, some readers will be persuaded that they have witnessed Beatrice's complete psychic breakdown, while others may find grounds to conclude that she emerges triumphant and whole. The book's chilling climax forms the basis for a poetic mystery that is a stunning fulfillment to a heartbreaking and visionary novel.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
