Sacred Hearts - Sarah Dunant

This months treats were brought by Sarah B, chocolate dipped shortbread petticoat tails.

Not everyone managed to finish this months book by the meeting, however, it was a larger book than we normally pick. There seemed to be a slight divide to the group with this book, some people dove straight into the story but others felt it took a long while to get to any kind of point. To some in the group the book was very slow moving, maybe this was a reflection of the convent life? However, this had the effect that not everyone could sit down to read much of the book without drifting off. Having said this the end of the novel was very fast paced with lots going on, but for some this was too little action too late.

We discussed how we would feel if we had been a woman in the age portrayed in the novel, whether we would prefer to go into the convent or be married off. Initially we all felt very sorry for the nuns being sent off to live this life, however, we changed our minds a little when we compared their relative freedom to that of married women. We decided we weren't able to really decide because we have the freedoms of today which don't compare to the times this book was set.

The life within the nunnery, we felt, was portrayed as very frivolous and political, more so than we would have at first guessed. Nuns were able to bribe various people in the nunnery to make their lives easier, they could also bring in "home conforts". We felt that it would have been more peaceful and religious than it was portrayed, maybe this would be so if the nuns had actually chosen to be there rather than been sold into the life. It seemed that one of the main jobs for the nunnery was to make money to ensure a comfortable life for the nuns and other religious people attached to it.

Not all the nuns were very religious in the book, for example, Zuanna tried her best but had more belief in her science background than in God. Umiliana was desparate to have some kind of religious vision but seemed unable to, so lived her religious fevour through the younger nuns. She was meant to be caring for them but it seemed she cared more for what they could do for her than about them as individuals. She wanted so much for a religious vision to occur that she may have instigated Serafina's anorexia. We found this particularly interesting because it is often felt that obsessions with food are a recent phenomenon, not so apparently.

We decided that the ending felt wrong, a little too happily-ever-after.

Overall we decided the book deserved 7 out of 10 and we were mostly glad to have read it but wouldn't have chosen to read it through otherwise.