Perhaps - if you are of a certain age - you may recall the 1964 Disney movie of this name. The novel by British writer Mary Stewart was published in 1962.
This lyrically written novel opens with Nicola ("Nikki") Ferris, an attractive young British woman employed as a secretary at the British Embassy in Athens, having arrived on the island of Crete - today a popular tourist destination but at the time of this novel's publication it was not yet developed as such. Therefore Nicola's arrival is viewed as somewhat of an intrusion by the island residents. She is there to spend a holiday with her Aunt Frances, a London botanist who wants to collect some of the island's native plants.
Before meeting up with Frances - who is not due to arrive until the next day - Nikki runs into trouble around which the story then unfolds. Up in the hills, away from town she encounters a young Englishman named Mark Langley who has been shot and whose condition is deteriorating while he is hiding in an old church. The church is being guarded by a Greek man simply called Lambis, who right away arouses suspicion. Despite that, Nikki's first and unrelenting instinct is to help her fellow Brit survive his assault, and she happens to have the necessary first aid skills and a brain for improvisation in a less than ideal setting for this kind of challenge. In doing so, she learns that Mark's teenage brother Colin was kidnapped in the assault on Mark, who now fears that Colin has been murdered. Once medically stable, Mark warns Nikki to go on with her vacation plans and forget ever having met him and Lambis. But of course she cannot. She becomes more deeply involved in an increasingly dangerous escapade that leads to a breathtaking conclusion.
In producing the Moon-Spinners film, Walt Disney took numerous liberties with Stewart's plot, simplifying it for young movie-goers of the 1960s and changing some of the characters' roles. So even if you saw the movie, the novel is well worth reading as it differs in so many ways from the Disney creation. Since I had seen the movie at age nine and had retained only a vague and enthralling impression of dazzling water, danger and suspense, and a plucky heroine played by a luminous young Hayley Mills - and the magic of the film's name itself - most of the characters and every turn of the plot were new to me.
Stewart's gifts include an ability to create interesting problems, complex characters, compelling plots, evocative and even transportive descriptions of unique and unspoiled places and cultures, and a skill for making a reader feel the physical sensations and emotions experienced by her characters. The Moon-Spinners enabled me to feel variously the island's cool sea breezes, the joy of exploring a new place, the sensation of a cool drink trickling down the throat at the end of a hot, adventurous afternoon, as well as the terror of being chased by a villain into a trap in the middle of the night. Meanwhile the complex plot is tightly constructed, with every detail explained plausibly.
It was pure coincidence that coworker Michael and I were both reading our first Mary Stewart novels at the same time. Feeling equally enthusiastic about this writer, a joint review of these two novels seemed called for. As for the title of this one, you will have to read the novel to learn its meaning.
- Marianne W.
My friend Maggie got this for me on a whim, thinking I'd appreciate the pulpy cover art and a mystery set in a remote convent. I brought it to work for my lunch break and Marianne said she was reading a Mary Stewart book, too!
Our intrepid hero Jennifer leaves her cloistered home in England to visit her cousin in an actual cloister in the French Pyrenees. However, when she arrives she is told that her cousin is dead! The details don't add up, but trying to find out what is the truth leads her into a dangerous mystery.
I found this to be a diverting romantic thriller. The writing drew me in quickly--there is some really beautiful description of nature, like this, when Jennifer first hears the bells of the convent:
"She heard, floating out of the thyme-laden wind, the silver sound of a bell. She tilted her head to listen, smiling, her whole being pierced, rinsed through, tingling with a keen delight."
Also, on the other end of the spectrum, humorous descriptions of English tourists, like here: "Miss Moon dug into her trout with the dogged efficiency and artistic appreciation of a bulldozer."
Sensuality and celibacy are ever at odds in a convent story (I had Black Narcissus on mute while I finished this), and Stewart finds a way to show both the romance and the twisted through the story of a beautiful orphan being raised by the sisters. For romance, we have a fiery Spainard astride a sweaty stallion. On the twisted side, we have the convent's bursar Doña Francisca, a super fun character. The Mother Superior refuses to let her take the vow but she still dresses like a nun, only her black robes are silk and her crucifix is bejeweled. Immediately, Jennifer distrusts her. There is a fantastic description of Doña Francisca polishing candlesticks:
"The bursar, who sat above Celeste in what must be the priest's chair, was polishing one of the candlesticks from the altar, her long fingers loving each curve, as they caressed, rather than rubbed it, into brightness. But she was not watching what she was doing; her eyes were fixed on the down-bent head of the girl."
Staring at the beautiful girl while positioned in the masculine seat of authority, practically masturbating a phallic object. "Maybe," Jennifer lamely posits later to Celeste, "She's trying to live through you?"
Sure, Jennifer.
This, and another element that is revealed later in the mystery, seem to be too risque or disturbing for Stewart to fully explore in 1957, but the undercurrents are still fascinating.
-Michael G.
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