THE MIRROR OF SIMPLE SOULS, who knew from "beguines"?

THE MIRROR OF SIMPLE SOULS
ALINE KINER (tr. Susan Emanuel)
Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A captivating story of love, jealousy and faith, set amid a community of independent women in medieval Paris — the perfect summer read for fans of historical fiction

This thrilling, sensual evocation of medieval Paris sold over 100,000 copies in France and offers a fascinating insight into the world of the beguines — communities of women who lived independently of men and successfully managed their own affairs all the way back in the Middle Ages.

A heretical text, a vengeful husband, a forbidden love...

It's 1310 and Paris is alive with talk of the trial of the Templars. Religious repression is on the rise, and the smoke of execution pyres blackens the sky above the city. But sheltered behind the walls of Paris's great beguinage, a community of women are still free to work, study and live their lives away from the domination of men.

When a wild, red-haired child clothed in rags arrives at the beguinage gate one morning, with a sinister Franciscan monk on her tail, she sets in motion a chain of events that will shatter the peace of this little world-plunging it into grave danger...

This rich historical drama makes a great summer read for fans of Hamnet, The Lost Apothecary, The Wolf Den, and The Yellow Bird Sings.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I read "beguine" in the book's description and immediately began humming. This is not, obviously, the beguine meant by the late Author Aline. I had not heard of this particular religious movement prior to encountering the story told here. I strongly wish these people had left descendants of the soul in the larger religious landscape. The world would be a better place had they done so.

Be that as it may, the setting and the background are of such interest to me largely because the characters were...out of focus...to me. I got more of an atmosphere, an ethos, than the sense of getting to know real people. At first this felt slightly distancing, removing me from the immediacy of the unfolding conflict with The Church℠ that monolithic squasher of all liberty.

Then it hit me...of course! That's part of the point! A beguine, in this sense, is a community united in serving a purpose, answering a calling, that transcends monadism. By taking the unstated risk of diffusing the emotional connection readers make to individuals, Author Aline pointed up the real purpose of a beguine, to think and act as a member of a collective. It also sets a background whose textures are suggestive of a reality we in this century can only grasp at never fully grasp...the world is so very different now.

It also works to make the terrible central conflict with the Franciscan over the wild little redhead the more stark. In a sense it's the technique of Steven Spielberg's use of the one girl in a vivid red coat as the one colorful image in Schindler's List. It carries so much more impact, freighted with all the meaning you, the viewer, can conjure and thus heap on it.

I can't quite offer a full five stars. For all I found a key to comprehending Author Aline's purpose in making the collective the focus, it still made my reading experience...less intense, more of a read than a ride when it could have been both. I think anyone who liked Hamnet would like this story as well. The women in this beguine reminded me a bit of Agnes's world in that read, the not-quite-complete depersonalization.

A fascinating introduction to a world I'd never encountered. Recommended reading.