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Mariette in Ecstasy (1991)

The Image Top 100 Books of the Century

    We seem to mystify people who are slaves to their pleasures. we often work too hard and rest too
    little, our food is plain, our days are without variety, we have no possessions nor much privacy, we
    live uncomfortably with our vows of chastity and obedience; but God is present here and that makes
    this our heaven on earth.
        -Mother Superior to Mariette, Mariette in Ecstasy

In this spare novel Ron Hansen succeeds brilliantly at what must surely be one of the most difficult tasks for any writer : he makes the miraculous plausible. In so doing, he raises fascinating questions about how we would react to miracles, were we to witness them, and about why those miracles might occur.

In 1906, seventeen year old Mariette Baptiste enters an upstate New York convent, joining the order of The Sisters of the Crucifixion. Pretty, pious, and personable, she quickly becomes the darling of the place, even though these same traits, and the fact that the Mother Superior is her sister, inspire some jealousy and even forbidden lusts. Since her confirmation, at age thirteen, Mariette has had a calling and has heard the voice of Christ speaking to her, preparing her for some great events. So she, and some of the nuns who love her, are prepared when, upon the death of her sister, Mariette is afflicted with stigmata. But others, particularly those who have resented her anyway, are less willing to accept the miraculous nature of these happenings, suspecting Mariette of an attention-seeking hoax. And when the wounds are healed just as suddenly as they appeared, both sides see this as confirmation of their own, very divergent, beliefs.

Hansen recreates the atmosphere and daily life of the convent in convincing detail. He allows the remarkable occurrences to speak for themselves for the most part, and allows just enough wiggle room for more dubious readers to question whether Mariette is a saint or a charlatan. One of the most unlikely facets of the story, for a believer, is that this young girl in the middle of nowhere would be chosen as the recipient of these manifestations of God's presence. Equally perplexing is why these signs should be made so ambiguous and left open to doubt. Hansen answers these questions as Mother Saint-Raphael explains to Mariette why, even though she personally believes in Mariette, she is willing to let the matter be dismissed by church officials :

Skeptics will always prevail. God gives us just enough to seek Him, and never enough to fully find
him. To do more would inhibit our freedom, and our freedom is very dear to God.

This idea, that God purposely leaves the decision of whether to have faith in the hands of men, rather than to force them to believe, is fundamental to the view of Man as having Free Will. Of course, it can also be easily ridiculed as an easy way out of ever proving God's existence. Regardless of which side of the argument you come down on, this is a beautiful, thought-provoking, novel about the awesome power, and the inevitable limits, of faith.

(Reviewed:19-May-01)

Grade: (A+)

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Mariette in Ecstasy (1991)

The Image Top 100 Books of the Century

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