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Christine Carpenter, the eighteen-year-old mystic who was walled into a cell attached to a church in Shere, Surrey, in 1382, has attracted a fair share of attention. The dramatist, Arnold Wesker, wrote about her in Caritas. An English film, Anchoress, appeared in the early 90s. And now we have Anchoress of Shere, which evidently first saw the light of day as a small-press offering appealing to a local audience. All of these works focus on two questions: how freely did Christine consent to her fate and why did she change her mind? Moorcraft seeks his answers by imagining a deranged priest in 1967, Michael Duval, who believes he can "channel" Christine's spirit as a source for the book he is writing about her by similarly enclosing young women and attempting to bring them to heightened mystical awareness through a combination of religious instruction and sensory deprivation. His techniques tend to prove fatal, however, and he has done in six young women before he starts once more on Marda Stewart, who made the mistake of petting his dog on its walk one day. Side by side with this modern narrative is the medieval tale of Christine, printed in an antique type face and written in a not quite successful attempt to imitate Middle English. The problem with this book is that its author has not altogether decided what it is. He wants to provide a solution to the Carpenter mystery, he wants to discuss religious questions (and does, at considerable length), and he wants to consider the vexed matter of the relation between perverted sexuality and mysticism. Regrettably, his technique is insufficient to the task he sets himself. He describes all of his characters from the outside, so that we are kept from identifying with any of them, his dialogue is awkward, and his plot resolution a bit dubious. The book contains several quite lurid scenes of violence and perverted sexuality that would be more disturbing if they were more effectively described. On the other hand, there is something about this particular form of medieval Christian mysticism that encourages even more technically accomplished artists to excess, so Moorcroft can not be altogether faulted. Christine herself is certainly intriguing and if you can get past the more evident weaknesses in this first novel, you might find Moorcroft's interpretation worth looking at.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, March 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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