Customer Reviews

Sacred Hearts: A Novel

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Fans of Sarah Dunant will not be disappointed! Like Dunant's Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan, earlier works in what now is her trilogy of historical novels, Sacred Hearts has authentic roots in the Italian Renaissance. And it's a page-turner, a meticulously crafted story of love and devotion. Via a convent full of compelling female characters, Dunant cuts right to the soul of human relationships as we continue to interrogate them today. Dunant's young heroine, Serafina, is determined to escape the convent where she has been placed against her will. Through Serafina's struggles Dunant reveals the transformative powers not only of prayer but also of art, music, and medicine. She invites us to distinguish true spirituality from the threat of a rigid and dehumanizing fanaticism; to appreciate the vibrant life of women who refuse simply to obey; and to know both the ecstatic joy of song and the wondrous gifts of science. Rich with details that enable us to see, hear, and taste the city of Ferrara in the 16th century, Sacred Hearts is a big story with multiple marvelous crescendos.

Dunant immerses her reader in 16th century Ferraro, in the convent of Santa Caterina, where devoted nuns spend their days in work, prayer and song, isolated from the temptations of the world. Holiness perfumes the halls of this convent, a group of woman dedicating their lives to the service of God. One would assume the usual human troubles have no place in God's house, but behind the thick walls and locked iron gates of Santa Caterina, human failings intrude on a regular basis. Meanwhile, the Council of Trent moves to further separate the nuns from the outside, fearing contamination from the world.

While the abbess, Madonna Chiara, weighs the implications of the Counter-Reformation and interfaces with life outside the convent, other personalities dominate convent life in Renaissance Italy: the fierce mistress of novices, Suora Umiliana, who heartily believes that starving the body will bring the soul closer to God; Suora Zuana, a healer whose herbs bring comfort to ailing nuns; Suora Magdalena, who is visited by visions in her humble cell; and Suora Perseveranza, who espouses "the music of suffering". All of these characters are impacted by the new novice who wails against her fate. Serafina resists her imprisonment in the insular world of convent life, a pawn of fortune and her father's will. Suora Zuana attempts to comfort the grieving novice, touched by Sarafina's palpable despair.

As in her previous novels, Dunant doesn't disappoint, breathing life in to 16th century Italy behind thick convents walls. In Santa Caterina, even the holy nuns cannot escape their flaws, exacerbated by the tortured days of the reluctant novice, who suffers the unimaginable torments of her isolation from the world and the man she loves. Even in the realm of the sacred, temptation insinuates itself, ambition to be closest to God, to experience the exhilaration of pain. The prayers, hymns, incense and yearning for God are tangible. All the more painful for the healer, Suora Zuana, to question her conscience, her own precious serenity at risk by the actions she considers.

Sacred Hearts is all the more powerful for its sense of isolation, a separateness from the world and the subtle balance between pride and humility that is integral to such a vocation, interior struggles all the more intense for the imposed silence and watchful eyes of others. Dunant has an exceptional ability to translate such an existence, to make familiar the daily offices of prayer, small sacrifices and the quest to be one with God. This is a rare and beautifully wrought tale of exquisite intelligence, the private landscape of the soul and the permutations of choice in the religious life. In the holiest of places, the sacred territory between the promises of heaven and the joys of the earth, prayers are answered. Luan Gaines/2009.

I didn't know quite what to expect from this novel about 16th century convent life. I really like good historical fiction, but the convent setting wasn't all that appealing. I'm so glad I read it anyway.

This was a wonderful & thought-provoking book. The characters (even the minor ones) are fully fleshed. The setting is used to the greatest advantage in the telling of the story - the claustrophobia of it, the beauty of it, the sense of the town & the outside world pressing against the convent walls. I loved learning about the day-to-day lives of these nuns & the ways they learned to live fully (or not so fully) in their world. The story of the dispensary sister, her garden, her remedies (learned from her doctor father) was also fascinating - I loved learning about how all kinds of cures were made. It's interesting to realize how many of these cures are still in use today in one form or another.

It is sobering to note that many of these women were walled up in convents against their will, to increase the dowries of a sibling or because they were disfigured, or just not very pretty, or not very smart or - perhaps worst of all - far too smart & talented. We've certainly come a long way. & yet despite the narrow confines of the nunnery & the narrowly defined roles assigned to these women they created full & rich lives & found ways to govern themselves, to make music & art, & to in many ways remove themselves from the world of men.

This was a moving story & a fascinating look into another world. Highly recommended.

From THE NUN'S STORY to IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE, from BLACK NARCISSUS to MARIETTE IN ECSTASY, novels about nuns have been an enthusiasm of mine since girlhood. The spare, contemplative life of the convent, the "marriage" to Christ, the drama of doubt and temptation: All this was inconceivably romantic to someone raised without a drop of religion. Although I hadn't yet experienced love or sex --- those mysterious objects of desire still hung in the misty, hypothetical future --- I was fascinated by the decision to forgo them entirely. It seemed enviably pure.

Pure is not the word that comes to mind when the reader is introduced to the sisters in SACRED HEARTS, the third of Sarah Dunant's wonderful historical novels (her previous two took place in Florence and Venice; this one in Ferrara) --- they are altogether more worldly souls. In the late 16th century, it seems, extraordinary faith was not a prerequisite for taking vows; often nuns were women who were simply losers in the marriage market. Perhaps they suffered from physical disabilities (cleft lip, twisted spine), or they were from families that couldn't afford to see them properly wed (in an Author's Note we learn that dowries had become so inflated that by 1600 nearly half of Italian noblewomen were destined to become nuns!).

Although some convents at the time were humble affairs, Santa Caterina, the fictional setting for SACRED HEARTS, is hardly a closed-off spiritual enclave. One nun has a pet dog; others write plays and compose choral music; all are able, on designated occasions, to meet face-to-face with family.Their cells, often containing such amenities as books, carpets and satin sheets, are cleaned by lay servants. The community is a business entity, producing and trading in illuminated manuscripts and painted religious figurines, herbal medicines and embroidered church robes, as well as a political one, competing with other convents to win patronage and fame.

Suora Zuana, the dispensary mistress --- the closest thing Santa Catarina has to a doctor --- makes the ironic point that women are often better off within the convent than they would be in the outside world: "[T]here are no fathers to bully or rage at the expensive uselessness of daughters, no brothers to tease and torment weaker sisters, no rutting drunken husbands poking constantly at tired or pious wives." And in the remarkably democratic institution of the chapter meeting, each nun "has a voice and a vote" on everything from what they will eat to whom they will have as Abbess.

The daughter of an enlightened medical man whose sudden death left her nowhere else to go, Zuana is essentially a scientist plopped down in the middle of a religious community. For 16 years she has wrestled with the demands of faith and her own conscience, although she has also found a certain tranquility at Santa Caterina. She is the person the reader will most identify with: open-minded, self-doubting, curious, caring and practical --- a modern heroine underneath her habit.

She finds herself caught between two opposed convent philosophies. On the one hand there is the mysticism and orthodoxy of Umiliana, the sharp-tongued, frighteningly intense sister in charge of the novices (those who haven't yet taken final vows). But there is also the penchant for realism and diplomacy epitomized by the Abbess, Madonna Chiara, a natural politician who sees no conflict between serving God and glorifying her family. This power struggle --- isolation and repression versus worldliness and liberality --- mirrors the one taking place in the Catholic world of the late 1500s in the wake of Martin Luther's accusations of sin and hypocrisy. Change is looming, and Zuana, Umiliana and Chiara are fighting, each in her own way, for the survival of Santa Catarina in troubled times.

They are also fighting for the soul of Serafina, the newest novice. This high-born young woman has been sent to the convent as punishment for falling in love with her music teacher, and her angry presence rocks Santa Catarina to its foundations. Although reputed to have a stunning voice, she uses it to scream in the night, not sing in the choir; with her desperate plots, anorexic extremes (she is, after all, a teenager), quick wit and personal charm, she tests the limits of Chiara's pragmatism, Umiliana's fanaticism and Zuana's compassion.

The drama of SACRED HEARTS is intensified and distilled by Dunant's decision to set the novel entirely within the convent walls and to alternate her narrative between Zuana's point of view and Serafina's --- the ambivalent veteran and the ardent, angry newcomer. The color and detail of her writing is, as always, astounding; by the end of the book I felt that I knew Santa Caterina intimately and could sense the solemn rhythm of the convent's daily offices, from Lauds to Matins.

I won't go into the denouement, because Dunant's plot is as riveting as that of any thriller. But it isn't giving anything away to say that, ultimately, orthodoxy wins out, as the Abbess anticipates (she tells Zuana to memorize her medical books, for soon she won't be allowed to have them). By 1600, says the Author's Note, new convent rules were being imposed. Contact with the outside world was "brutally restricted"; plays and music were banned, and luxuries and private possessions confiscated.

There is a modern echo of such a shift in the Vatican's recent investigation of American nuns, who are apparently suspected of being overly secular and insufficiently devout.* Zuana and her Abbess would, I am sure, take a dim view of this development. SACRED HEARTS suggests that it is possible, though difficult, to follow a consistent spiritual practice while using your brains and talents to engage in work that makes a difference in the world. It says that sisterhood is powerful.

--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman

Could there be a more lyrical writer than Sarah Dunant? In her first historical novel, The Birth of Venus, I was swept away into the world of the Italian Renaissance and Savonarola. Now, with Sacred Hearts, Dunant returns to Italy in the 1500s to tell the story of a passionate young woman forced into a convent against her will. She has been separated from the man she loves by a father who places her in the convent of Santa Caterina. While most readers might think that this was the end of this young girl's life, it is actually only the beginning. For it is in this convent that Serafina, the protagonist, becomes a woman and learns who she truly is.

The novel has all of the ingredients of an epic tale - long lost love, religious quarrels, attempted escapes and, no surprise here, the prerequisite herbalist which features in so many historical tales. The writing is beautiful, and the author allows the reader a glimpse into a shuttered world where many, many women spent their lives because their fathers either wouldn't or couldn't afford a dowry for them to marry.

Very well done and highly recommended.

I just cannot agree with all the raves. In fact, I don't even get the raves. "The Birth of Venus" is one of my favorite books ever. It just swept me away. I felt I was in Venice, tho I've never been there, and I was so taken with the characters. I couldn't put it down, and when I did, I couldn't wait to pick it up again. I have so looked forward to Dunant's next books, but felt that neither of them delivered near as much. With "Sacred Hearts," I was about 100 pages in before I even got interested. Ther were parts that dragged and seemed overwritten. It wasn't until about the last 150 pages that things got interesting. This book could have used some editing. For me, a page-turner (as some have referred to it) needs to zip along more.

I expected a book about sixteenth century convent life and its nuns to be boring. What I did not expect was Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant her third (and probably her best) novel set in the Italian Renaissance (following In the Company of a Courtesan and The Birth of Venus). I was instantly captivated by the sisters of Santa Caterina, a fictional convent comprised of a group of highly sophisticated women as embroiled in politics, scandal, and deception as their courtly counterparts. Dunant achieves for nuns what Ken Follett did for monks in his epic Pillars of the Earth.

This novel opens with the newest novice sixteen-year-old former noble, Serafina. More rebellious teen then a dutiful daughter, Serafina is too expensive and too much of a liability to marry off, so she is passed over in favor of her younger sister, and forced to take the veil. (This practice Dunant notes is very common though cruel). Serafina is highly valued to the convent both for her beautiful singing voice, and the generous dowry her family has promised. However the only vow Serfina makes is to herself--promising to escape at her earliest opportunity.

Serafina is contrasted with Zuana, a once defiant and now compliant nun. Zuana takes Serafina under her wing to try and ease Serafina's transition from court to convent. Both women soon become embroiled in the shifting alliances of the convent and rapidly changing religious atmosphere which could forever alter Santa Caterina as they know it.

Dunant's sumptuous rendition bestows life into the convent and the time. The setting becomes an examination for the roles of women. The convent offered a surprising amount of freedom and protection for those within its walls--a truth which Dunant does not fail to capture. The plot is secondary to the historical context of the book, but still remains engaging. The only disappointment is the story's ending which not only borders on blaspheme but also seems out of the character for the women as the reader knows them. And so, I'll be recommending it to everyone except my intensely Catholic grandmother. Still, Sacred Hearts is an obviously well researched and breath-taking work of Historical Fiction.

I'm still scratching my head wondering how such a well-written book could be so incredibly boring. I loved the concept: a convent in Renaissance Italy at a time when many wealthy families could only afford to pay one exorbitant dowry, so additional daughters were often sent to convents whether they wished to go or not. Such is the main character in Sacred Hearts. The first 100 or so pages enthralled me....I loved the concept and the descriptions of a 17th century convent.

Unfortunately, the story never really went beyond that. It stalled out with the protagonist not wanting to be at the convent. There were some in-house political maneuverings by the nuns within the convent, but even that really went nowhere.

Dunant is clearly a superb writer....I just wish she'd given us more material (ie, plot) to work with here.

I will be the first to admit that I had no idea women were forced en masse into convents. I knew that women who disobeyed their parents or ran away could be sent to one, but I had no idea just how many women were sent kicking and screaming into convent life. And this book is illuminating for so many more reasons.

The story of Serafina, who is separated from her beloved and taken to a convent, is heart-wrenching at times, and peaceful at others. While the world and its politics rages on outside, life in the convent, at least at first, marches steadily on. Not allowed out and locked away like a criminal, Serafina longs to escape. She doesn't wish to make peace with what has happened to her the way some of the older nuns have.

Although life in a convent sounds like a boring plot for a book, it's actually quite thrilling. Will she or won't she escape? Will the nuns ever be given a freer life? What will happen to the convent as radical religious reforms sweep through?

I would recommend this for all fans of Sarah Dunant - of which I'm sure there are many - as well as fans of good fiction, Italian history, and historical fiction.

Ferrara, 1570. A young woman of noble family is forced to enter a convent against her will. This was a common enough story when a marriage could not be arranged, for lack of a dowry or for political reasons. Although the novel begins with the struggles of the unwilling novice, it is soon apparent that Sarah Dunant is telling a much bigger story. Within the walls of medieval and Renaissance convents, women had independence and opportunity impossible in the secular world; they exercised managerial skills, functioned as doctors, composers, artists and teachers, and enjoyed a certain degree of democratic self-government (at least on internal matters). But as the story opens, the Council of Trent has just concluded, and part of the agenda of the Counterreformation is "reform" of convent life. The "reforms" seem to the modern reader to be designed to put women in their place, but the changes did not occur without a struggle. The rebellious novice soon becomes a pawn in the political conflict that touches every aspect of convent life.

This is a carefully plotted and extremely well researched historical novel. The use of the present tense gives it a sense of immediacy. In an epilogue, the author notes that the Vatican has recently announced an Apostolic Visitation of women's religious orders in the United States, with the purpose of examining the quality of religious life. While Sarah Dunant is not a "feminist writer" (whatever that may be), she writes brilliantly about 16th century women who face challenges that are both different from, and very relevant to, those of our own time.