Holy Fools

Circa 1610, the rocky shore of Brittany houses the dilapidated abbey of Saine-Marie-de-la-Mer, the nuns having made restive peace with their uncompromising land, barely eking out their meager sustenance. One of the newer sisters, Soeur Auguste, lives quietly at the abbey with her five-year-old daughter, Fleur. Formerly known as Juliette, a player with a gypsy caravan of traveling performers, Soeur Auguste has sought respite from the world at large in the harsh confines of the hardscrabble convent life, content to toil side by side with the sisters, who have all come to this place with reasons of their own, from the beautiful Clemente to the religious hysteric, Marguerite, and Soeur Antoine, an overweight baker who assuages her personal sorrows with gluttony. The relative contentment of the abbey changes suddenly with the death of its ancient Reverend Mother and the installation of a new abbess, a mere child of thirteen, Angelique Sainte-Herve Desiree Arnault, Mere Isabelle ("that dreadful little girl"). Accompanying the spoiled and arrogant Mere Isabelle is Pere Colombin, a Reform priest with an agenda of his own, "for all those to whom he has fed the pieces of his bitter heart". It is only Soeur Auguste who recognizes the charismatic priest as her lover from the past, the deliberate and coldly-efficient Guy LeMerle who left her to languish with the traveling troupe when they fell afoul of the law. Whatever LeMerle's reason for disguising himself as a man of God at Saint-Marie-de-la-Mer, Soeur Auguste knows his arrival portends danger for her and her child: "Our time in the sunlight had finally come to an end." As Mere Isabelle begins a rigid reformation of the daily religious practices of the nuns, Pere Colombin dissembles in ever more mysterious ways, banking the embers of hysteria with exquisite exactitude, biding his time until the moment of perfection, carefully orchestrating a subtle power struggle with Mere Isabelle, his little pawn betraying a brittle intelligence, rising up to challenge his authority. Whatever LeMerle's goal, Mere Isabelle and the nuns are putty in the hands of the master, who has devised a grand revenge on them all. Because Guy has kidnapped Fleur to ensure her silence, Juliette balances her appeasement of the false priest with clandestine attempts to uncover and derail his terrible plans, a contretemps between the seducer and the seduced, Juliette conflicted by a mixed feelings for her former lover. For all her cleverness, Juliette is no match for his inherent dishonesty, but he underestimates the strength of her commitment to recovering Fleur, thereby denying him a last triumph. In a grand finale that exposes the desperate fervor of religious hysterics with a lifelong quest for recognition, a battle is waged between God and the Devil, the abbey ablaze with the reckoning of good and evil. Luan Gaines/2007.

Having read all the books by this author, I consider Holy Fools to be her best effort since Chocolat. This work has all the intensity and mystery of the earlier bestseller: the disdain for religious hypocrisy, the secrets of the past, and the uncertainty of malicious intent. The delicious sensuality and humor are replaced by aerial acrobatics and macabre apparitions. The story takes place in 1610, and is recounted by a gypsy named Juliette. (Are we surprised that she reads tarot cards, creates herbal charms, and brews medicinal concoctions?) She recounts her previous years as a traveling performer in a troupe led by the charismatic Guy LeMerle; haunted by memories of his ultimate betrayal, she seeks refuge and anonymity in a forgotten abbey. When a disguised LeMerle unexpectedly turns up there, the intrigue, and battle of wits and wills begins. The writing is wonderful, evoking strong images. And the characters are complex, torn between warring loyalties. As we have come to expect from Harris, this is a compelling tale, told in her trademark style.

Holy Fools is written much in the same vein as Harris's first book, Chocolat- with great depth and insight. However, Harris takes her craft to a new height as she explores human passion in this tale of a 17th-century abbey. The book follows the story of Juliette, who becomes reborn as Souer Aguste. Going from the life of a street performer, in which holy fools, or dwarves, perform, Juliette is betrayed by the man she adores- La Merle. As she flees to an island convent with her young daughter, Juliette changes into Souer Aguste. When the Mother Abbess dies, a new one is sent in her place- a woman who turns out to be a child who instigates a Great Reform of the abbey. Her confessor, who oversees Mass everyday is none other than La Merle, who quickly has every nun at the convent except Juliette wrapped around his little finger. This is a poignant tale, about love, loss, betrayal, and the inablity to forgive. Souer Aguste must make decisions which affect deeply herself and the child she loves. This was a touching book, beautifully written and not easily forgettable.

As the clever and resourceful rope dancer L'Ailee of a traveling troupe of actors, Juliette begins her narrative with her own admission that the birth of her daughter, Fleur, five years earlier, has mellowed and changed her. Deeming her old life reckless, she had taken refuge at the solitary Abbey of Sainte Marie de la Mer as Soeur Auguste. For five years she has lived a predictable life of peace until now when the new Reverend Mother and her personal confessor Pere Colombin infiltrate her island retreat. But the good father is no priest, he is LeMerle, a seasoned actor from Juliette's past---the leader of the troupe of players who could have been Fleur's father---a man who has betrayed and murdered whom Juliette both fears and harbors feelings of helpless affection and deep regrettable love. Before Juliette can even imagine what he has come to the Abbey for, she and her daughter are caught as pawns in LeMerle's personal activation of an agenda fed on revenge and anger rooted in LeMerle's shady past. Like Joanne Harris' other leading ladies, Juliette of 'Holy Fools' delights in being a pragmatic woman on her own who does not hesitate to ameliorate good fortune or banish evil through unconventional means: her gypsy mother's charms, frequent readings of the tarot, the scientific alchemy learned by her childhood tutor and herbal potions galore. Certainly no wallflower, she has no qualms about using her body in lieu of her mind in order to reposition herself positively in the hazardous melange of religious fervor and superstition that defines her world of 16th century France. Her tales are told in flashback to fill the reader in on her assessment of her situation as LeMerle's plot unfurls. Harris masterfully and commendably conveys the poignant wishes of any mother along with the desperation and vulnerability associated with being responsible for another life while using Juliette's voice. While the reader has no problem understanding Juliette's motivation with regard to Fleur, I think her attraction to LeMerle could have been more chemically described, perhaps in the portions of the story where LeMerle's voice is heard. We hear him as a villain using the superstition of the time to feed old anguish and we comprehend that he does have regrets regarding his reliance on Juliette's reactions in the overall outcome of his plan. While we feel her pain with regard to the loss of her daughter, and her anger in terms of LeMerle's betrayal, we don't quite engage in the elemental love between these two main characters. Granted, the LeMerle character has a lot going on, as does Harris as she attempts to keep the master plan an overall secret, but I still would have liked to feel more of the magnetism between the two. This would have contributed much to the ending, which in itself came as a bit of a surprise only because Juliette shows a little too much of her anger for LeMerle and concern for her daughter rather than reveal that secret part of herse

Holy Fools marks a return to the Gothic theme of Joanne Harris' best novels, 'Chocolat' and 'Sleep Pale Sister'. It is also a triumphant return to form. Holy Fools is so richly Gothic that it must have Matthew 'Monk' Lewis cooing with pleasure in his grave.Juliette is a former travelling player who has sought refuge at the Abbey of St. Marie-de-la-mer with her daughter Fleur (and this novel makes you understand why theatre troupes were sometimes feared as well as clapped, as they could be bearers of disease, or just common thieves). Under Mere Marie, the regime at the Abbey is rather relaxed, helped by her skill in the nurturing of potatoes. However, after several years, the ageing Mere Marie suddenly passes away, and a new abbess arrives. Everyone is rather taken aback by the youth of the new mother superior, but more so by her prudish nature (she has led a very sheltered life, and thinks that the birds and the bees are mere fauna). Juliette is even more shocked to see the Abbess accompanied by an old adversary, LeMerle, the 'blackbird' that had been her first love, and who had betrayed her and left her for dead. LeMerle is obviously up to no good by posing as a cleric, for Juliette knows him to be a charlatan, and it's not long before he has kidnapped Fleur. Joanne Harris skilfully portrays Juliette's life prior to meeting LeMerle, and her adventures on the road with his theatrical troupe. As well as performing, LeMerle writes and directs. Unfortunately, his plays and ballets have more than a little satirical edge to them, as LeMerle delights in parodying the rich and famous (which is probably why the performances are so popular with the mob). Unfortunately, he goes too far, and he and his troupe are effectively thrown out of Paris at the height of their fame. But LeMerle does not seem to be downcast by his change in fortunes, as he takes to the road with something approaching glee. Juliette, for her part, reaches the apex of her skills by performing the rope walk, and it amuses LeMerle to see the men in the audience lusting after her. But trouble always seems to be LeMerle's constant companion: some of their caravans are burnt, and one of their troupe is murdered... They fetch up in Epinal and the plague breaks out, and LeMerle is arrested. Fortunately, Judge Remy, the infamous witch persecutor, is away on business, and LeMerle wins the crowd over by selling them an elixir against the plague. But such practices could be seen as diabolical, especially when the infamous pyromaniac judge returns home. LeMerle flees in the ensuing chaos, murdering one of the troupe in the process, and leaves Juliette his lover to capture and almost certain death.Joanne Harris has chosen her setting well: the Renaissance is full of tales of famous people who risked charges of heresy for their beliefs and actions from the thumbscrews of the Inquisition. One such person was Bruno Giordano, who was burnt at the stake, and whose surname Harris utlises for one of her ch