Mariette in Ecstasy

by Ron Hansen

Paperback, 1992

Status

Available

Call number

Adult > Fiction

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Harper Perennial (1994), Edition: 1st HarperPerennial Ed, 192 pages

Description

The highly acclaimed and provocatively rendered story of a young postulant's claim to divine possession and religious ecstasy.

Media reviews

Seattle Times

But a palette so intentionally limited requires great patience of the reader, and the obsessive nature of the story tends to tax endurance even further. The book's ultimate effect is beautiful, but bleakly so. I found myself wishing Hansen would cut to the chase - or, at least, to a more accessible

world, like the ones he created for the James Gang and the Dalton Boys.

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New York Times

With "Mariette in Ecstasy," Mr. Hansen has written an astonishingly deft and provocative novel.

New York Times (Arts Section)

The finale is a stunner that takes the novel out of its absorbing period setting, leaping into a world we know to be our own and making it impossible to read the book as something that takes place safely long ago and far away, something that's simply foreign.

Publishers Weekly

In this quiet and forceful study of religious passion, Hansen … places an extraordinary spiritual experience in the center of a deftly evoked natural world, namely, rural upstate New York just after the turn of the century.

Kirkus Reviews

Hansen sets Mariette's preternatural experiences against the rhythms of priory life and the all-encompassing rhythms of the natural world. He is particularly good at dramatizing the central tension of priory life: the nuns' need for mutual affection, ruled impermissible because it distracts from

their ``grandest passion,'' Jesus Christ.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member ctpress

An attractive seventeen-year-old girl enters a convent in upstate New York. Mariette is full of passion and devotion - but soon she begins to experience the stigmata - bleeding from her hands, feet and side.

She’s met with suspicion and envy by some sisters - others are inspired and want to share

in the experience. Their priest is trying to find out if the stigmata is real or self-inflicted.

A fascinating novel - written with restraint in sparse prose. We don’t know quite what to make of Mariette, saint and sinner, yes - but a fraud? Ron Hansen keeps the reader in suspense and brilliantly portrays the underlining tensions in the convent - tension between devotion and fanaticism, humility and pride, secrecy and confession.

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LibraryThing member janemarieprice

A beautiful and haunting tale of the appearance of the stigmata in a young postulant. All that delicious Catholicism, how could I not love it.

LibraryThing member NauticalFiction99

In my opinion, Ron Hansen is one of the finest and most under-appreciated novelists writing in America today. With little fanfare or hoopla, he has been publishing a remarkably broad range of eloquent, consistently powerful novels. Don't expect the self-indulgent pyrotechnics of many modern

American authors who seem far more interested in showing their skills than actually writing good stories. Rather, Hansen is a craftsman--a careful, meticulous story-teller who clearly agonizes over every sentence and every word. His goal is not to demonstrate how he can write long sentences or channel Faulkner, but instead to move his narrative forward and construct compelling characters. Mariette in Ecstasy, a short, spare novel, is one of his best. The story is simple enough: a postulant who may or may not be receiving the stigmata. Hansen does not offer a definitive answer one way or the other and, had he done so, the story would have been a far lesser work. Rather, the uncertain nature of the "miracles" allows for an exploration of both the nature of faith and the dynamic of the community of faith. Also, by leaving the nature of miracles unresolved, Hansen invites the reader to draw his/her own conclusions, thus drawing them into the fundamental dialogue that frames the novel. In other words, the question of faith posed to the convent is ultimately posed to the reader. Remarkable book. Great choice for a book club.

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LibraryThing member KLmesoftly

The format of this novel was interesting, framing Mariette's story arc with the unofficial investigation into her stigmata. The secondary characters really make this novel what it is; each is a complete, intriguing individual, however short her or his time on the page.

LibraryThing member lindaspangler

fascinating book about a nun

LibraryThing member BookConcierge

This is an odd book. Strangely compelling. The language is simply beautiful. But I am full of doubt at the end, and I don't think I will recommend it.

LibraryThing member Ccyynn

Disturbing (it left me feeling a bit depressed - but I grew up Catholic, and what very young Catholic girl doesn't want at some point to become a nun, a "bride of Christ"? Thank the goddess, I'm way past that). Provocative, beautifully written. Looking forward to reading more of Ron Hansen's.

LibraryThing member datrappert

Oddly enough, this was mentioned by John Waters in one of his books in a list of Catholic-related books. It is strange and well-written as it tells teh story of a 17-year old girl joining a convent as a postulant who soon begins to show the signs of stigmata. The reactions range from those who

think she is a fraud, to those who think she is a saint, to those who think she may be a saint but hate her for being singled out by Jesus rather than them. The day-to-day life of the convent, in all its repetitive masses for one martyr or another and the petty jealousies and tiny acts of rebellion by its inmates, are interesting. In the end, the book is about religious hysteria at all levels, and for the non-believers among us, yet more evidence of the of the bankruptcy of religion in all forms.

I listened to the audiobook, which has gaps between sections that are way too long.

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