A novel in sonnets would not normally be my first pick for anything. It’s an interesting idea but I’m not versed enough in the form to fully appreciate it and I’d worry that the effort to conform would be too great to really let a story sing. But something about the press release for Beyond Where Words Can Go by Richard Smith called to me and I’m delighted to say the book showed me how wrong I could be. The themes of the book also helped me think more deeply about some topics that are forever on my mind: serenity, sensuality, and schism.
Serenity and Slowing Down
A monastery is, of course, a natural setting to seek serenity and a slower pace of life. Smith’s beautiful descriptions of the lives of monks in 16th century England gave me a model to strive for as I’m remaking my own life and (literally) planting our garden anew for the next season. Depictions of monastic life aren’t new to my library, but there’s something about the spareness of the form and space constraints Smith was working with that let air into the work in a way that The Name of the Rose could not. And I found peace in the ordered life, much in the way I’ve found peace in Pico Iyer’s Aflame, and the freedom to open my mind.
…”Grace can only dawn
upon our hearts, our minds, our souls when we
immerse ourselves in God’s simplicity.”
– Richard Smith, Beyond Where Words Can Go
Sensuality versus Viscerality
Of course one of the things that opens up when you slow down is attention, specifically attention to the body. Smith actually starts the novel there:
The first thing that I notice is your hands:
big knobby knuckles, long thick fingers made
for work but spared so far—unscarred, untanned,
as if some dream-fogged toolsmith carved a spade
of ivory…
– Richard Smith, Beyond Where Words Can Go
Not having read the book’s description too deeply (lest I spoil it for myself), this careful attention spoke so loud of love that I immediately wondered about what would come later, carnal love (including gay love) not being usually welcome in a monastery. The withholding of the text, though, mirrors the withholding Simon (the narrator) must go through as he finds desire in a place and person incompatible with his chosen life, and we are immediately switched into the history of how Simon got to the monastery. But the feeling of sensuality lingers as Smith attends to all of our senses and Simon continues to long for Philip. The way Smith ends the book with a bookend image (that you’ll have to read yourself) is especially poignant.
The sweetness of all of this is darkly contrasted with visceral descriptions of the lives of the saints (“Bodies splayed / out on an icy pond until they froze. / Eyes filled with molten lead”) and the acts of the Tudor king against those he’d newly declared heretic (“The hangman slit him open, groin to chest, / and reached inside to sift through what was there.”). Thankfully, these moments are few in the book, but their rareness makes them ring all the louder (and more effectively).
Schism
I’d wondered early on why this book was set when it was, but this is as carefully chosen as the rest of the book. The roiling tumult of a capricious king raises the stakes (sometimes literally, sorry) for the rest of the story and it forces Simon, Philip, and all the other monks we come to love to make choices between serenity and devotion. Henry VIII’s increasingly petulant and self-serving acts as he shifts from Catholicism to Protestantism mean nothing is stable, regardless of what choices are made, and it’s instructive to watch the characters try to weather the times just as it’s instructive to watch the characters’ coded speech.
I’d like to tell you more about this book, but mostly I want to leave the unfolding to you as a reader. If it calls to you (as it did to me), know that you will come out of this book with a wider perspective and (if you’re like me) a deeper resolve to commit to the life you were meant to lead. Mike, I think you especially will love this book.
To experience your own awakening, Beyond Where Words Can Go is available now from Bookshop.org. If you use those links to purchase, you’re keeping indie bookstores in business and I receive a commission.
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