Credo

This is a good portrayal of Orthodox Christianity in the West before the Great Schism. The ascetic struggles of holy men and women formed the core of Christian spirituality in Ireland, as elsewhere in the West, before the corruption spread from Rome and turned the Church into a worldly organization bent on wealth and power. Just compare the saints portrayed in the book with holy men as described in modern Eastern Orthodox writers like Dostoyevsky; you will then get an idea of what the Christian faith is really about.

Armed with careful scholarship and a deep insight into the personalities, tragedies and triumphs of his characters, Melvyn Bragg weaves an engrossing and remarkably authentic tale of the struggle to save Christianity in its original purity as it barely clings to life during the dark ages of the British Isles. This is an historic tale of true triumph through great tragedy of real people and the communities they served - or cruelly dominated - deftly mirroring the eternal struggle we all face between our dual natures of godliness and devilry. The background and locale of the story is historical, as well as most of the characters Bragg summons from the dead pages of history. The protagonist herself is a mysterious and only partially mythical figure known as St. Bega. Her intense inner conflict between her most deserving earthly desires and her ideally pure devotion to God serves as a personal parallel for the historic struggle between Christianity and pagan ritual which had hitherto served, yet chained mankind to a barely sustainable earthly existence. As in true life there are no pure heroes, only men and women doing the best they know how to do in the circumstances they find themselves. In the face-off between Bega, servant of the new "one God," and the priestess of the old gods of stone and sky, druids and druidesses are portrayed - quite accurately - as largely benevolent and wise stewards of an ancient magic, and whose advice the sometime fanatical Christian monks and abbesses would have been better off to accept on occasion. The Celtic Church, though clearly superior in true devotion and spirituality, cannot match the necessary pragmatism of the falsely pious and worldy Roman church, whose demands that the Celtic church accede to the authority of Rome have much more to do with a raw lust for power than they do with saving souls. Indeed, the religious enemy is clearly not the pagan druids and priestesses, but the enmity between professed followers of Christ. Finally, this is a story of sacrifice. True and noble sacrifice born of faith and love for one's fellow man no matter how undeserving they may be. This is not your Sunday School version of sacrifice where, in the end, God rewards the valiant with all the glory and worldy riches they had denied themselves in His service, but the true, Christly sacrifice where one gives up his or her most cherished dreams to bring about a better world for others. Then, finally perishing in the struggle, as they realize those dreams will be left forever wanting, the only reward they are left is a knowledge that such a sacrifice has been acceptable to God and has, indeed, brought a measure of divinity into a world which so desperately, though ignorantly, needs it.

Bragg has done very well to recreate the atmosphere of Dark Age Britain when Christendom was still an infant in the isles. Although the plot itself isn't riveting, Bragg has welded his words together strongly enough to keep you interested. He is very articulate and creative, a veritable word-monger. The reader is subsumed into this strange world of miracles, superstition, and barbarism on the edge of the post-Roman world. The characters are very real and face curious conflicts which may seem very foreign to the modern reader, but the sheer atmosphere which Bragg infuses into his work is what really captures. After reading it, one feels like they have actually journeyed to Dark Age Cumbria and breathed the dank air which the Arthur of history (not of legend) breathed. And no, the book is not about Arthur - it is about Bega the Irish princess who would be a saint.

Melvyn Bragg wrote a very interesting and moving novel. The construction of the story is a model for other authors. The story, characters and action are so well presented that this big book never seem too long. Althought french is my mother tongue, it is very readable. I strongly recommend it.