Customer Reviews

Mirabilis

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

A beautifully-written story of a provincial French town in the late 14th-century. Our main character is Bonne, the bastard daughter of a woman who was said to have performed miracles. Twenty-two years later, Bonne finds herself as a nursemaid to a wealthy woman. When the town of Villanueve is besieged by the English, and the townspeople are starving, Bonne finds herself feeding most of them with her milk.

This is a strongly sensual book- but, oddly enough, it is not sexual. The act of breastfeeding is treated with matter-of-factness. Bonne is a fascinating character, and I enjoyed getting "inside her head" in this powerful book about love and longing during a time of famine and plague, at a time when it was a sin to be a dwarf or a Jew. We also see the viewpoints of some of the other major characters in the book.

Wonderful! An engrossing tale of a medieval wet nurse that follows her from an inauspicious birth into worthlessness to a lauded position in her village, where she has been and continues to be viewed by some with suspicion. Through dark and tangled forests, carefully maintained bright castle gardens, streets covered with thorns and excrement, and places spiritual and secular that are simultaneously consecrated and unholy, Susann Cokal has written a novel that uses archetypal figures and locations in a way that transcends symbolic confinement and creates a unique and often erotic world that is deeply rooted and alive. Her characters, especially the titular Bonne, are fascinating, psychologically complex, and so well developed that they remain conscious in your mind both between readings and after the novel ends, causing you to wonder about them and their current lives as one would think of a friend. This is a world that I will continue to hold in my mind and a book I will revisit often.

Fall back in time, before the Enlightenment, the Restoration, to the mentality that surrounded the Inquisition, when the Catholic Church was immolating heretics and unbelievers, when myth and witchcraft are as familiar as fervently whispered prayers. In 1357 France, a small village is overwhelmed on every front, long under siege by the English, threatened by the Black Death that is decimating cities and subject to the fickle judgment of an angry God. This is a world of poverty, where people live by their wits, exchanging services for goods, coin a precious commodity.

Shrouded in superstition cloaked in religion, Bonne Tardieu, daughter of Blanche Mirabilis (Blanche the Astonishing), ekes out a meager existence as a wet nurse, knowing that a patroness would change her world drastically. The illegitimate Bonne is used to life as an outcast, her once-sainted mother immolated in a church fire. Fate looks kindly upon Bonne, in the person of Radegonde Putemonnie, the town's wealthiest woman, who commissions Bonne as the wet nurse for her unborn child. Radegonde must carry this child to term in order to inherit her deceased husband's fortune, opening her opulent home to the wet nurse, providing for the breasts that will feed the coming baby.

In a starving village, the young woman is an object of intense scrutiny as she is plied with food to enrich her milk. The bountiful Bonne, in an effort to assuage the villager's envy, allows them to nourish their starving bellies on her milk. Bonne develops an attachment to the woman who offers her this island of security, but gossip prevails. Eventually Bonne is hailed as a saint when a Madonna appears, bearing Bonne's likeness. Unfortunately, the town turns against Radegonde, proclaiming her for a witch.

This is a fascinating tapestry of class differences and the rampant superstition of fourteenth century France. Both sensual and spiritual, the images are lush, filled with the contrasts of poverty and wealth as scandal spreads like wildfire, the village fueled by fear, tales of witchcraft passing from tongue to tongue. Cokal captures the iconic spirit of a Medieval French village, its population decimated by lack turned brutal, urged by primal needs more urgent than religion, an unstoppable force of mob mentality. All is chance if one is not born to nobility; Bonne Tardieu is the essence of fertility in this tapestry of primal needs, where salvation requires more than a willing back bent to hard work. This world requires good fortune for survival. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

Mirabilis is a triumph of a story that is, in fact, much more than just a story. Reading this I thought of the sexual strategies used by Angela Carter in her novels, and at the same time, I pictured the French landscape Cokal uses as her setting, as something out of a Peter Greenaway film. Lush, brilliant, vibrant. Cokal raises serious questions about the Body and its representations. One of the better novels of the year.

Mirabilis is a magical romp (and sometimes a leisurely bask) in medieval France ... I'd never read a book about a wet nurse before, but Cokal makes what seems to us a bizarre profession into a delightful contemplation of how a woman can be strategic with her body and her social position in a difficult world. The supporting characters are engaging and sometimes hilarious--the naughty, crazy dwarf, the saintly, crazy sculptor, and the beautiful, erotic, and probably crazy woman who hires Bonne and makes love to her ... I've never read anything quite like this!

Bonne La Mere was a wet nurse who, history tells us, fed the entire town of Villeneuve, France, for weeks during a siege by the English in 1372. Susann Cokal takes the few snippets of information available about Bonne's life, and uses them to skillfully embroider her lush novel, Mirabilis. Cokal appears to have a firm grip on her time period, enough to thrust the reader into the sights, sounds and smells of medieval life. She's particularly adept at portraying the bizarre mix of superstition and faith that characterized medieval religious belief. The only false historical note, for me, anyway, was the supposition that Bonne, a poor girl and illegitimate to boot, would somehow have picked up the skill of reading and writing. That one was tougher to swallow than a heroine with miraculous breasts.

The other characters in the book are strange and yet somehow believable. There's an ascetic sculptor with a penchant for self-flagellation, a manic-depressive dwarf, and a voluptuously pregnant noblewoman, all of them vying for Bonne's attention. Although I was prepared for just about any plot twist in this novel, the sexually charged relationship that develops between Bonne and her wealthy patroness struck me as somewhat gratuitous. It wasn't necessary for the plot, although my cynical take on the publishing industry tells me that it may have been necessary in order to get a manuscript about a dubious medieval saint into print. That, and the often impenetrable bits of narrative supplied by the dwarf, marred the book for me. Nevertheless, the novel is strangely compelling, and worth reading for the startlingly clear window that Cokal provides into another time and place.

A beautifully written story about love, loss, faith, and desire, Mirabilis is set in the mystical town of Villeneuve--a place populated by mischevious dwarves, mercenary priests, magicians, and so-called saints. It is a place of magic and miracles, sickness and cruelty, and from the first sentence, this novel will transport you to the dark, ruthless world of medieval France. Cokal is a captivating story-teller, and this is one of the best historical novels that I've read. I highly recommend it.

In Anno Domini 1349, the Black Death has plagued the beleaguered the villagers of Villeneuve, France for two years. As the morale sinks lower, a miracle occurs at the Saint-Porchaire Church to provide hope that God has not abandoned the faithful. At the first communion of a teenage girl, Blanche Mirabilis levitates above the stunned townsfolk. Nine months later, she gives birth that many villagers believe is an Immaculate Conception.

However, years later, the church burns the miracle girl at the stake for committing heresy. As a teen, that infant Bonne Mirabilis becomes a wet nurse, but with her heritage no one will hire her, treating her like a pariah.

Wealthy Radegonde Putemonnoie is pregnant with her deceased spouse's child. If she gives birth to the heir she inherits her late husband's fortune. Radegonde hires Bonne as her wet nurse. As the town is under English siege and food becomes scarce except in the home of Radegonde, Bonne allows the less fortunate townsfolk, who previously avoided her like a leper, to drink from her ever flowing breasts.

Mirabilis is a powerful medieval historical fiction that vividly brings to life the period as few books do. The story line flows deeply and graphically so that the audience tastes, feels, and smells the mid to late fifteenth century yet not all the descriptions are quite glowing and upbeat as is typical of novels depicting the period. However, the theme is not to turn Villeneuve into the Eerie, Indiana of fourteenth century France, but instead through a strong cast show how every body needs someone to care and cherish them. Susann Cokal presents a wild, wacky, but wonderful debut.

Harriet Klausner

This is the most wonderful thing I've read all summer--reminds me of Jeanette Winterson and Angela Carter, but it's entirely its own world and voice. The characters are warm, the setting is superb, and I could never tell what would happen next. I'm going to read it again!!

The novel MIRABILIS tells a strange story, and it tells that strange story beautifully.

Author Susann Cokal has done impressive research on the early medieval era in France, a moment in time when the Church--the original Catholic Church--promised heaven as the sole reward for life's difficulties. This was a time, remember, when the only difference between rich and poor was that the rich usually had enough to eat. There were no medicines, and it was normal to share one's quarters with one's animals.

Even mirrors were virtually unknown, more of a myth than a reality--and anything not understood and not able to be explained was attributed to witchcraft.

Mirabilis, also known as "Bonne Anne," is a girl born of a young woman who may have been a virgin mother. Yet was there really a second virgin birth? And, if there was not a second Immaculate Conception why, then, was the entire town convinced that they had witnessed the impregnation of this particular virgin?

Because, here, the insemination of the mother of this Bonne Anne may have taken place during a church service. She may have been carried high above the heads of the congregants while she was being impregnated. Or--maybe not.

The connotation of the phrase "Bonne" probably is tantamount to the English word "Goody," which was a medieval honorific meaning "Goodwife." This was a term of respect, but less respectful than "mistress" or "lady" would have been.

The "Bonne Anne" herself may be a witch. Or--maybe not.

The grandmother of Bonne Anne, who survives her daughter, also may be a witch. Or--maybe not.

The patroness of Bonne Anne may be a witch. Or--maybe not.

Maybe not. Maybe, they just are lesbian lovers. Yet by the standards of that day, were lesbians all considered to be witches? Did they consider themselves to be witches?

And what about the dwarf who grows, and the self-flagellating priest? And does the statue really look that life-like?

Cokal gives us many mysteries. Still, she offers no hard answers except for the fascinating way in which Mirabilis rescues her town from the famine that results following a siege brought by the English.

This is a weird and wonderful book, and even the afterword is mysterious. Is the scholarly note about the heroine on the level, and did she actually exist, or is this note fiction as well?

Read MIRABILIS and decide for yourself.