Ms. Hen reviews The King's Nun

 

The King's Nun

Catherine Monroe

New American Library

2007

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she picked it up a while ago at a Little Free Library near where she lives. She does not read a lot of historical fiction, but she does like it sometimes. She felt that she needed to read something light and breezy after working through DUNE.

This novel is about a young novice, Amelia, who lives in Munster-Biltzen Abbey in the year 793. She is on the verge of making her final vows, and she is studying farming and architecture in the abbey's library. King Charles comes to visit, and the Abbess offers Amelia to take him on a guided tour of the abbey. They are in dire need of assistance of books and lumber, and the abbess thinks Amelia could persuade the king to help them. Amelia and King Charles have a lively conversation, but she is eager to get back to studying. He is impressed with her, and sends for her to come to the palace for advice.

Amelia has no idea what the king would need to ask her advice on, but he thinks he needs a woman's ear on the subject of his son, who is trouble. She tells him that his son should be sent to an abbey to become a monk, and that would help him. Charles and Amelia talk and enjoy themselves. She does not think she should be attracted to him, since she is about to become a nun, but she can't help it. She discovers the next day that Charles' daughter is supposed to become to new abbess of Munster-Biltzen, which Amelia hope would be her position. She is upset, but tells Charles that she was sinful in coveting becoming the abbess.

Ms. Hen did not know what to expect from this novel at first. She thought it was a romance novel, or a fluffy women's fiction book, but it is not like that. She does not know how realistic it is, because she has not studied the history of this era in depth, and some of the female characters seem a little too progressive to have lived in that time, but Ms. Hen is not sure how they actually thought and behaved themselves. Ms. Hen was pleasantly surprised at how this turned out, because she was not ready to have it turned into a fairy tale. Life is not a fairy tale, and Ms. Hen knows this is true.

There are some decent example of the use of a "Chekov's gun" in this novel. That is, what is expected to happen does happen. The idea is, if you mention a gun in the first act, it has to go off by the fifth act. The Vikings are mentioned as dangerous men who should be feared, and Ms. Hen would have been disappointed if none had showed up, even though when they did, it was horrifying.

There are some hens mentioned in this novel, which Ms. Hen liked. Amelia stayed with some Jewish people while building a church in their village, and helping them with farming, and she would assist the wife, Judith, with housework, and they would talk while they worked. Judith said to her, "One cackling hen is tiresome, two can send a man to eternal rest." Ms. Hen thinks this is charming, if not quite true.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is a nice, sweet book about a nun in the Middle Ages who tried to find her own way in the world. It was based on a footnote in history, so there was some truth to Charlemagne seeking the advice of a nun. The author spun a story out of a small piece of history, and whether or not it was true is not important, it's the hints of truth that speak to the reader and let her uncover what could have been.