book year of wonders by geraldine brooks

The central story which gives the novel its power and unity effectively ends when the plague ends. And especially in the extraordinary sections of the village trying to make any sense of the plague and of the notion of a good, fair and just God in relation to this terrible event.

In the exceptional decision of the village to voluntarily wall itself off from the outer world in order to protect the surrounding countryside from the ravages of the black death the village is already suffering.In her treatment of healing, both during the plague and in normal times.In the development of the narrator, Anna Frith and her relationship with the Mompellions.The incredibly authentic language, giving distinctness to the period, and the compellingness of her writing style in general.However, author Geraldine Brooks elevates this simple tale to a high level of literature and human drama in five ways: The story itself is humble: village life and personalities, lead mining, the constant growing death and suffering, the struggle for existence as the plague, unstoppable, does its will. Young minister, Michael Mompellion and his wife Elinor are exceptions, being highly literate, relatively non-superstitious for this pre-scientific period, and liberally reformist in religion. The village is a simple place, lead mining and farming the center of the economy, the people primarily illiterate, startlingly superstitious, and habitually religious. Narrator Anna Frith comes to believe, probably rightly, that the “plague seeds” came along in the baggage of a young tailor who moved to the village from London, the disease being carried in the cloth he brought along as part of his trade. But come it did, wreaking its havoc for a full year and leaving 2/3 the village dead. It wasn’t very common for plague to hit such a remote and tiny place, a village of only 380 people. The plague has come to a small English inland village in 1666.

Book year of wonders by geraldine brooks