This was the book club choice for January and I got a Readers Group copy from the library in like November or something, I dunno, a long time ago. The book was a bit intimidating as it seemed long, and I was concentrating on queer books in January, so I decided to listen to the audiobook instead. Generally in a week I might have a couple of hours where I'm driving and can listen to an audiobook, so I knew I could finish it before the 21st when our meeting was. But then I ended up finishing it in only a couple of weeks as I really liked it and ending up listening to it while I was working too. Listening to it was a joy too because three of the four main parts were narrated by friendly Geordies which was nice. My experience with this made me decide to listen to February's choice for book club, too! More on that later...
So, Cuddy is the nickname of St Cuthbert, who is the patron saint of Durham Cathedral. This was about the sum total of my knowledge about Cuthbert before I read this book (audiobooks count as reading and it's ableist to suggest otherwise as some people CAN'T read paper or electronic books!) and I expected it to be a novel about him and his life, not dissimilar to Haven by Emma Donoghue which I read back in 2023. Margaret at book club thought the same thing, but no. This is not really a book about St Cuthbert.
There's a lot of scene setting with quotes about Cuthbert's life and the settling of Durham and the start of the building of the cathedral. I found this a bit dull but I made my way through it to Book 1.
Book 1 is about Ediva, a young woman who is with the band of monks that are taking care of Cuthbert's coffin. When Cuthbert died his body was put inot a stone coffin and removed from Lindisfarne, where he had lived, to the mainland, because of the Viking invaders. Ediva is cook, healer, general dogsbody for the monks. She is somewhat friendly with a young boy, who is also an outsider from the monks, and who has large owl eyes. He is a recurring character through the book, in an odd way. Ediva has visions of where they will set Cuthbert's body down and build a chapel for him - there will be a clearing with a cow. Indeed, this comes to pass, at the bend in the river Wear where Durham Cathedral now sits.
I liked Ediva; it was interesting to hear her back story and her place within the bank of monks. I liked the faith that they all had that they would find a place worthy of Cuthbert's shrine. I love religious stories like this because I just don't have that type of faith. This book is set in the tenth century.
Book 2 was my favourite of the four and lots of people at book club felt the same. It could have been a book in its own right! It's about Eda, a woman who is married to Fletcher Bullard, an archer for the king. This book is set in the 1300s. Fletcher is great at his job, a great archer, well respected etc, but he's also abusive towards Eda. He kicked her so hard once that she has been unable to bear children. She likes it when Fletcher is away from home fighting. She makes beer and takes it to the stonemasons working on the walls of the cathedral. There she meets Francis Rolfe, a mason, who woos her and charms her. I thought that the story would end really badly but loved how it worked out. This part was written in the second person which really gave it immediacy and drew us towards it.
Book 3 was maybe my least favourite but I still liked it a lot. It's a ghost story set in the 1850s or something like that. A professor at Oxford is invited to Durham to be there when some clerics open Cuthbert's tomb. There's a myth that Cuthbert's body has never decayed and that in the stone coffin it is still whole. The professor is disdainful of the north but arrives in Durham and is greeted by a boy with eyes like an owl's who leads him to his lodgings. But his host, one of the vicars involved, doesn't know this boy. The professor is haunted at night by strange singing in his room. This part owes a lot to writing like The Woman in Black and so on. I didn't love it but it is compelling.
Book 4 is about Michael. It's set in 2019. Michael is around nineteen years old and is caring for his dying mother. He works as a casual labourer doing back breaking work and he budgets every penny - eating nothing but Pot Noodles - while also kind of wishing for something outside of himself. He gets a job working in the cathedral where talented masons and so on are working on repairs to the ancient building. His life is very much a portrait of Tory Britain at the time which I thought was very effective. I felt really sorry for Michael. At book club, we liked the ending too, and we liked the through motif of Cuthbert spraking to the protagonist of each book.
In all I'm giving this five out of five, I absolutely loved it and it was a joy to keep me company on my drives!
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