Title: The Anchoress Author: Robin Cadwallader
Published: May 12, 2015
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 320
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:England, 1255. What could drive a girl on the cusp of womanhood to lock herself away from the world forever?
Sarah is just seventeen when she chooses to become an anchoress, a holy woman shut away in a cell that measures only seven by nine paces, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing a much-loved sister in childbirth as well as pressure to marry the local lord's son, she decides to renounce the world--with all its dangers, desires, and temptations--and commit herself to a life of prayer.
But it soon becomes clear that the thick, unforgiving walls of Sarah's cell cannot protect her as well as she had thought. With the outside world clamoring to get in and the intensity of her isolation driving her toward drastic actions, even madness, her body and soul are still in grave danger. When she starts hearing the voice of the previous anchoress whispering to her from the walls, Sarah finds herself questioning what she thought she knew about the anchorhold, and about the village itself.
Robyn Cadwallader brings a great deal of academic work in medieval England to her debut novel, The Anchoress, and it shows—not so much in rich historic detail or a vivid establishment of setting, but rather the authority with which she delves into the minds of her characters and represents the ideals and thought-patterns of the period. More than anything else, this novel is a character study, and in this it excels, though in other areas there are things lacking.
By necessity of its protagonist and her vows, The Anchoress gives readers only a small window in the world of 1255 England. Like Sarah’s own view is limited and constrained, so must be the reader’s. Sarah’s own information can come only by word of mouth, through the stories of the women who visit her parlor and converse through a curtain. But what’s remarkable is how Cadwallader is able to create a world through such a sense barrier. The book does not immerse readers into the culture and society of rural 13th century England, and that is one of my greatest complaints about the text, but the author is still able to offer the sense of a world beyond Sarah’s walls, the idea of a village and farmlands and a manor house. I feel that the author did what she could, even if she didn’t satisfy me completely. That being said, I was disappointed by how little the book felt like a medieval novel; for some strange reason, it felt almost modern, which, as I said, is odd, considering how caught up Sarah was in ideals concerning the inherent sinfulness of woman and the superiority of man in all aspects that, though still reflected amongst certain segments of today’s society, are by and large no longer upheld.
In many ways, the characters are almost foreign. Sarah, a very young woman, has cast herself into a “living grave” to spend her days in constant prayer as she “hangs on the cross with Christ”. Her concerns seem far removed from the reader’s. Yet when it is revealed that Sarah has secluded herself so totally because she believes she is responsible for a sexual assault and is ashamed both to have “caused” a man to sin against her and also because she responded to him in spite of herself…does not this internal turmoil seem recognizable to 21st century readers? This idea that women “cause” men to rape, that they are inherently evil, that they are less capable than man—are these things not relevant today?
And I think that, as Sarah deals with these issues of faith and womanhood, struggling to reconcile what the Church tells her with what she believes, there is a subversive element to The Anchoress that Cadwallader introduces. In the end, Sarah and her confessor, Father Ranaulf, turn away, only slightly, from the dogma of the Pope and find peace in doing so. For modern readers, this seems only right—how could a woman, who has undergone what Sarah has within the supposedly safe walls of her cell, truly accept and submit entirely to an authority that dismisses her worth and accuses her of sin where instead she is a victim? It’s a fulfilling end, for both Sarah and the reader who has traveled with her through loss and grief, despair and depression. Is Sarah’s epiphany perhaps too informed by 21st century ideals and the feminist movement? Possibly. I’m not sure how likely Sarah and her journey are, but I liked them. I like this story. Sarah doesn’t turn her back on her faith—she grapples with it, but in the end it sustains her. She does not break her vows or abandon her God. She merely begins to view herself and her role in the Divine plan differently than she did before.
The Anchoress is subtle in how it operates, how it takes Sarah from one mindset to another. Robyn Cadwallader’s exploration of this woman’s mind, her faith and her fear, is deftly done. Some aspects of the book did not satisfy, but Sarah’s character carries the book, and with her and her portrayal, I found no fault.
