The Bell

Waterstones Synopsis: Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to live with her husband in a lay community encamped outside Imber Abbey, home to a mysterious enclosed order of nuns. Watched over by its devout director and the discreet authority of the wise old Abbess, Imber Court is a haven for lost souls seeking tranquility. But then the lost Abbey bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered, and hidden truths and desires are forced into the light.

Review: I am such a fan of Iris, she writes so intelligently and her characters always seem so real, she doesn't make them particularly likeable or striking, they're always fairly ordinary but with just a few words she manages to paint them into life and you feel as if you could pick them out anywhere, similarly she gives you such a great sense of location that you would know the place immediately should you come across it but she's never flowery or overly descriptive. She clearly loves delving into the psychology of her characters and finding out what makes them tick, that's always a major part of any Iris novel (or those I've read so far anyway,) she often makes her characters disagreeable, they do things or have done things that are distasteful but the author never seems to be judging them or condemning them .. she's merely observing them and, for the most part, the reader is inclined to do the same.

This story has multiple narrators, firstly we are introduced to Dora who, after a short separation (and I loved the first line .. 'Dora Greenfield left her husband because she was afraid of him. She decided six months later to return to him for the same reason.' ) is joining her husband at the mysterious Imber Abbey where he is working on the research of some ancient manuscripts. The Abbey is home to a lay community, with the addition of an adjoining enclosed order of nuns (why that should be creepy I don't know but there's something a little sinister about silent nuns.) What should be a place of calm is really a seething mass of repressed feelings and inner struggles .. nobody is saying anything out loud but they're all paddling like mad beneath the surface .. struggling to keep up a sense of normality with the nuns silently observing.

The other characters in the community are a mixed bunch .. most of them have secrets to hide and there is a lot of moral deliberation and soul searching. Apart from Dora, one of the main characters is Michael, the leader of the community who has all sorts of demons perched on his shoulder, the main one being a disgraced past involving a homosexual encounter with a teenage pupil at a public school where Michael taught. He felt he had put most of this behind him but that young teenager is now a dissolute young man and he has found his way to Imber seeking refuge. There is also young Toby, a newcomer to Imber, who has rekindled some of those old memories. Michael finds he is back in the struggle between the spiritual side of his nature and his sexual inclinations, it's a struggle that has never really gone away.

The community are awaiting the arrival of a new bell, the old bell having mysteriously vanished centuries before. After Dora arrives at Imber, Paul tells her about a legend surrounding the bell '...sometime in the fourteenth century, that was before the dissolution, the story runs that one of the nuns had a lover. Not that that was so very unusual I daresay at that time, but this order had evidently had a high standard. It was not known who the nun was. The young man was seen climbing the wall once or twice and ended up by falling and breaking his neck. The wall, which still exists incidentally, is very high. The Abbess called on the guilty nun to confess, but no-one came forward. Then the Bishop was called in. The Bishop, who was an especially holy and spiritual man, also demanded that the guilty one should confess. When there was still no response he put a curse on the Abbey, and as the chronicler puts it, the great bell "flew like a bird out of the tower and fell into the lake" .. the guilty nun was so overwhelmed by this demonstration that she forthwith ran out of the Abbey gates and drowned herself in the lake.' and this legend seems all the more thrilling when Toby tells Dora of an object, that he has discovered, buried deep in the lake which may well be the ancient bell.

I love the suspense Iris builds in this novel, it was palpable .. I was always waiting for the shock or jolt to come and it frequently gave me the shivers. I got a bit carried away at times (having seen too many episodes of 'Midsomer Murders' most likely) and expected the giant bell to come crashing down on an unsuspecting victim but Iris is subtler than that. Like all the novels that I've read of hers so far, the story is multi layered and it's almost impossible to give an accurate account of it .. it's the sort of book that has so much going on that a repeat reading is a must. I'm sure I missed lots of subtleties. I'm always marvelling at how clever she is, she doesn't make it complex but there's always lots to contemplate.

Like a really good episode of 'Cadfael'