Book-It '10! Book #7
Feb. 14th, 2010 07:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alivemagdoleneThe Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request under the subject "Pagan fiction".
Title: The Limits of Enchantment: A Novel by Graham Joyce
Details: Copyright 2005, Atria Books
Synopsis (By Way of Inside Flap): "Everything Fern Cullen knows she's learned from her Mammy -- and none of it's conventional. Taught midwifery at an early age, Fern grows up as Mammy's trusted assistant in a small English village and learns through experience that secrets are precious, men can't be trusted, hippies are filthy and people should generally mind their own business.
But when one of Mammy's patients allegedly dies from a potion prescribed to induce abortion, the town's people rally against her outdated methods, and Mammy ends up hospitalized, due to a bad fall and a broken heart. Now the county is threatening eviction if Fern can't come up with the overdue rent, and a bunch of hippies and a woman with hoop earrings with a mysterious connection to Mammy seem to be the only people with any answers. As Fern struggles to save her home and Mammy's good name, everything around her begins to transform, and she soon uncovers a legacy spotted with magic.
The Limits of Enchantment is at once a story of two women: one with a deep past and one who finds her history in the other. It is a tale of midwifery, alchemy, magic, truth and identity, from an author with the extraordinary ability to blend literature and fantasy with surprising dexterity."
Why I Wanted to Read It: On a search for "Pagan+fiction" at my local library lending system, this was one of the few offerings that isn't Mists of Avalon or a knockoff thereof.
How I Liked It: A beautifully convincing story about the persecution of a Hedge Witch (although they never call it that) and her adopted daughter is set... against the 1960s? The incongruity does chafe at times, but for the most part, the two worlds sit together surprisingly comfortably.
Joyce's storytelling draws you in close and his descriptions are wonderfully vivid. Unfortunately, the greater connection he tries to make in this novel doesn't quite click. The striving, though, is beautiful and the vignettes of both the maligned life of the village Hedge Witch (although they don't call it that) and the well-meaning hippie commune are more than worth the read.
Notable: A source of strife in the book is the fact many young women have sought out Mammy for herbal abortions (the alternative being to go "off to that gnome in Leamington Spa with his spikes" (pg 26) presumably a "backstreet" abortionist). The book is set in 1966. A year later (not mentioned in the book), sweeping reform by the Abortion Act 1967 would allow abortion to be a free service offered by the NHS, therefore nearly eradicating the need for women to seek out women like Mammy. Or maybe not. The book also discusses Mammy's skills as a midwife (and her adopted daughter's subsequent inheritance of those skills and efforts to get certification), a service that at the time was also provided for free by the NHS. Many mothers chose midwifes such as Mammy over more "modern" care due to what one character calls "the touch". The shame associated with abortion might as well drive women to seek "more discreet" means such as a visit to the local herbalist rather than a hospital stay. In a country with essentially free health care, the role of the herbalist becomes even more fascinating and more complex.
Title: The Limits of Enchantment: A Novel by Graham Joyce
Details: Copyright 2005, Atria Books
Synopsis (By Way of Inside Flap): "Everything Fern Cullen knows she's learned from her Mammy -- and none of it's conventional. Taught midwifery at an early age, Fern grows up as Mammy's trusted assistant in a small English village and learns through experience that secrets are precious, men can't be trusted, hippies are filthy and people should generally mind their own business.
But when one of Mammy's patients allegedly dies from a potion prescribed to induce abortion, the town's people rally against her outdated methods, and Mammy ends up hospitalized, due to a bad fall and a broken heart. Now the county is threatening eviction if Fern can't come up with the overdue rent, and a bunch of hippies and a woman with hoop earrings with a mysterious connection to Mammy seem to be the only people with any answers. As Fern struggles to save her home and Mammy's good name, everything around her begins to transform, and she soon uncovers a legacy spotted with magic.
The Limits of Enchantment is at once a story of two women: one with a deep past and one who finds her history in the other. It is a tale of midwifery, alchemy, magic, truth and identity, from an author with the extraordinary ability to blend literature and fantasy with surprising dexterity."
Why I Wanted to Read It: On a search for "Pagan+fiction" at my local library lending system, this was one of the few offerings that isn't Mists of Avalon or a knockoff thereof.
How I Liked It: A beautifully convincing story about the persecution of a Hedge Witch (although they never call it that) and her adopted daughter is set... against the 1960s? The incongruity does chafe at times, but for the most part, the two worlds sit together surprisingly comfortably.
Joyce's storytelling draws you in close and his descriptions are wonderfully vivid. Unfortunately, the greater connection he tries to make in this novel doesn't quite click. The striving, though, is beautiful and the vignettes of both the maligned life of the village Hedge Witch (although they don't call it that) and the well-meaning hippie commune are more than worth the read.
Notable: A source of strife in the book is the fact many young women have sought out Mammy for herbal abortions (the alternative being to go "off to that gnome in Leamington Spa with his spikes" (pg 26) presumably a "backstreet" abortionist). The book is set in 1966. A year later (not mentioned in the book), sweeping reform by the Abortion Act 1967 would allow abortion to be a free service offered by the NHS, therefore nearly eradicating the need for women to seek out women like Mammy. Or maybe not. The book also discusses Mammy's skills as a midwife (and her adopted daughter's subsequent inheritance of those skills and efforts to get certification), a service that at the time was also provided for free by the NHS. Many mothers chose midwifes such as Mammy over more "modern" care due to what one character calls "the touch". The shame associated with abortion might as well drive women to seek "more discreet" means such as a visit to the local herbalist rather than a hospital stay. In a country with essentially free health care, the role of the herbalist becomes even more fascinating and more complex.
