Jo Walton’s Lent
Jun. 14th, 2019 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenI have read Jo Walton’s latest book, Lent. It isn’t my favorite among her books, but it is good, and one thing I admire about Ms. Walton is that she writes quite different books; she doesn’t just do the same sort of thing over and over. Lent begins as an apparent historical novel about Girolamo Savonarola, assuming that he really did have the powers to see and banish demons, and to foresee the future, or else believed that he did. However, the book then takes a turn in an unexpected direction; I won’t spoil it by saying what happens, and happens, and happens.
Given the book’s assumption that Christianity is true (even if a certain non-mainstream theological idea may be true), I don’t find the later parts entirely satisfactory. If God’s mercy extends even to those whose choices have put them in Hell, then why would X not succeed, whereas Y would? And Ficino’s suggestion about Savonarola doesn’t sound orthodox to me, although I’m not the Inquisition, and the real Inquisition, back in the late fifteenth century, apparently didn’t take action against Ficino for making his suggestion. Sorry if this is hard to understand if you haven’t read the book.
Just considering the first part of the book, Walton portrays Savonarola more favorably than I would have expected. I have read some history mentioning him, and I’ll grant that things were more complicated than my first impression; however, my first impression was from a book with a title like “Tales of the Renaissance” that I read as a child, portraying Michelangelo later in life, and remembering how books and art had been burned at the orders of “this terrible Dominican,” a phrase I still remember. The famous Bonfire of the Vanities may not have been entirely like that — Lent isn’t the first source I’ve read to say that it probably wasn’t that destructive — and Savonarola is portrayed in the novel as a cultured and humane man, a friend of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and someone trying to provide for the poor and end the exploitation of juvenile prostitutes. To the extent that’s historically accurate, good for him!
Given the book’s assumption that Christianity is true (even if a certain non-mainstream theological idea may be true), I don’t find the later parts entirely satisfactory. If God’s mercy extends even to those whose choices have put them in Hell, then why would X not succeed, whereas Y would? And Ficino’s suggestion about Savonarola doesn’t sound orthodox to me, although I’m not the Inquisition, and the real Inquisition, back in the late fifteenth century, apparently didn’t take action against Ficino for making his suggestion. Sorry if this is hard to understand if you haven’t read the book.
Just considering the first part of the book, Walton portrays Savonarola more favorably than I would have expected. I have read some history mentioning him, and I’ll grant that things were more complicated than my first impression; however, my first impression was from a book with a title like “Tales of the Renaissance” that I read as a child, portraying Michelangelo later in life, and remembering how books and art had been burned at the orders of “this terrible Dominican,” a phrase I still remember. The famous Bonfire of the Vanities may not have been entirely like that — Lent isn’t the first source I’ve read to say that it probably wasn’t that destructive — and Savonarola is portrayed in the novel as a cultured and humane man, a friend of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and someone trying to provide for the poor and end the exploitation of juvenile prostitutes. To the extent that’s historically accurate, good for him!
