Hunger’s Brides : A Novel Of The Baroque

I heaved a huge sigh last week when I finally finished reading Paul Anderson’s historical novel Hunger’s Brides : A Novel Of The Baroque  (2004.  FIC AND).  This is a great door-stopper of a book, coming in at 1358 pages.

The story in a nutshell.  A disgraced Calgary academic digs through the papers of his former student/lover, uncovering the tale of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a seventeenth-century Mexican nun, poet, writer, and early feminist, who abruptly signed a vow of silence and died helping plague victims. (The nun is real. The academic and his student are fictional.) Baroque it definitely is.

Sometimes you don’t know if you are coming or going.  Anderson has divided the work into six books which may or may not help.  He took twelve years to write this and it shows with all the marginal notes, footnotes, references to Greek, Egyptian, and Mayan mythology, Spanish New World history, Inquisition history, Sor Juana’s poetry and drama, and the fictional story of the professor and his student all worked into the narrative.

Gregory, the professor, is the unwitting accomplice of Beulah, the beautiful student, who sinks more and more deeply into some kind of psychotic state where she becomes like Sor Juana in some respects.  Gregory is drawn into her obsession to re-enact a Mayan ritual and ends up under police scrutiny.  Her diary entries read like stream-of-consciousness exercises written by someone who is completely unhinged.

If you only read some of this book, the beginnings that deal with Sor Juana’s childhood and youth before she enters the convent are quite interesting and enjoyable.  Once you pass the convent door you have to keep your wits about you because this is where the stories start to intertwine.  You might find, like I did, that you will need to refer to the notes at the back (I kept a bookmark there so I could do quick reference - just a little tip for you).  It was interesting and I did learn something but oh the work it took.  Good luck to you if you decide to tackle this.

>> Find this book in VIRL’s catalogue

Taken with permission from Gloria Novak’s “Good Reads at the Library”