My friend, Sally Thomas, recommended this book repeatedly, so I put it on my wish list and was thrilled to receive it for Christmas. It was the perfect book to read as I recovered from Covid, when I was tired of all the streaming videos, but not yet focused enough for anything beyond a delightful novel.
It's a beautifully evocative book set in Puritan New England as Charis wanders alone through a world of horrors and wonders, mystery and assurance.
The world was fallen, broken to shards like a clay pitcher. No, it was not the throne of an unchangeable will but the cross that hung in my mind with a glimmering, drowned light--the arms-out image of wide embrace that declared we were not alone in our sufferings. (p. 176)
I read it quickly, eager to know Charis's experiences and fate, and under the influence of illness, so I hope to read it again more slowly in the future.
To be quite honest, my recovery from Covid is not complete, and my ability to put my feelings about this novel into adequate words is entirely lacking. I loved every page of it, but here are some more reliable reviews if you want to know more before investing a few days of your time to read it yourself:
- The Catholic World Report: 2020’s Best-kept Literary Secret
- DarwinCatholic: Charis in the World of Wonders, by Marly Youmans: A Review
- The Wine-Dark Sea: Charis in the World of Wonders (This one has some spoilers, so you may want to wait until after you read the book yourself.)
There are allusions to mature romantic themes, but I intend to put this on First Daughter's list of optional supplemental reading for early American history (which I think she'll start in tenth grade; her plan will be a little different than First Son's was).
God fashioned the waters and their salt, changeable secrets out of joy and pleasure, and likewise he formed me, and all he longer for me in my life was that I be alive, all the way alive and whole like the sea, doing what I was intended to do, being all of what I was meant to be--a woman rejoicing in creation and sensing another, better world next to our own, a mother and wife, a wielder of the needle, an apprentice to a goldsmith and a candle on fire. (pp. 313-314)
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