false 252669 8 A novel about convent life at the turn of the century? Hardly the makings of a page-turner, yet Ron Hansen's <I>Mariette in Ecstasy</I> is a gripping, even life-changing book. For the Sisters of the Crucifixion, each day is a ceaseless round of work, study, and prayer--one hardly separate from the other. Their daily life is itself an act of devotion, caught here in a series of illuminated tableaux: hundreds of yellow butterflies alighting on eight gray habits, moving through a field; a sister praying as she "turns over a great slab of dough that rolls as slowly as a white pig"; nuns warming their hands on the flanks of horses, swinging scythes through timothy grass, crushing grapes with their feet. <p> Into this idyll comes Mariette--young, pretty, devout, but, as her father says, perhaps "too high-strung" for the convent. Prone to "trances, hallucinations, unnatural piety, great extremes of temperament, and, as he put it, 'inner wrenchings,'" Mariette scalds her hands with hot water as penance, threads barbed wire underneath her breasts while she sleeps, and is convinced Jesus speaks to her. Her very glamour disturbs the gentle rhythm of the nuns' lives. But when she begins bleeding from unexplained wounds in her hands, feet, and sides, the convent is thrown into an uproar. Is Mariette a saint? Or just a lying, hysterical girl? Where do we draw the line between madness and faith, mysticism and eroticism, the life of the spirit and that of the world?<p> It's to Hansen's credit that he never provides easy answers. Mariette's stigmata may or may not be genuine; the novel's achingly gorgeous prose is the true miracle here. <I>Mariette in Ecstasy</I> is a brief, precious book, not a single word in excess, not a single word left out. <I>--Mary Park</I> 1024474 1991 Mariette in Ecstasy total:451|5:108|4:160|3:134|2:39|1:10| 451 1670 663 70 1 3 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 18 11:18:46 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 18 11:24:25 -0800 2007 anything to surface. Nothing did. No character development, no plot development, no meat....more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jun 20 21:13:07 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 20 21:13:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Apr 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 20 04:55:13 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 20 06:01:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Sep 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 16 13:57:44 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 10:45:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Aug 16 10:37:18 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 17 06:16:08 -0700 2007 0 1 false false Fri May 09 11:19:40 -0700 2008 Fri May 09 11:21:12 -0700 2008 5 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1996 Fri May 23 13:03:37 -0700 2008 Fri May 23 13:04:57 -0700 2008
Well, if you can write as well about nuns and Jesse James, you're already one hell of an author. I would probably read Hansen's shopping lists.]]> 4 1 false false Tue Nov 13 18:42:10 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 13 18:43:12 -0800 2007 5 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Fri Sep 28 02:40:40 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 22 04:06:50 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Thu Jun 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 07 08:21:30 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 14 19:08:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 05 18:07:16 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 10 12:17:29 -0700 2009
Our title character is a young woman who has joined a convent and is in the probationary period at the be...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Fri Sep 14 19:00:54 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 14 19:00:54 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 true false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 26 16:12:16 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 13 18:16:51 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jul 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 16:55:53 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 16:57:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Sep 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 15 06:46:33 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 19:18:26 -0700 2009
One of the other reasons is it i...more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon May 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 05:38:58 -0700 2008 Mon May 12 16:58:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 0 false false Sun Mar 09 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 03 07:52:23 -0800 2008 Sun Mar 09 09:40:28 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Jul 11 15:28:41 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 15:29:45 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Feb 21 05:59:08 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 21 06:01:31 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Tue Mar 03 13:26:26 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 08 14:25:33 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=252669