Jo Walton's Lent - First Impressions and Considerations

Finding the crossover between Gothic and religious iconography

If you’ve picked up a copy of Jo Walton’s Lent as part of the Gothic Book Club February selection, this article should help in attaining a sense of place and orientation. If you haven’t got the book yet, perhaps it will persuade you to do so. The following is an introduction and analysis of the first few chapters, kept as spoiler-free as possible. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below, as I’d love to hear them, and they can generate such enriching conversation. A few prompts and jumping-off points have been included at the end of the piece.

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Is Lent about a real person?

Yes! Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), a Dominican friar, was at his most active and powerful in Florence during the Renaissance. This was a time in which art and consciousness were expanding, something which Savonarola saw as an extension of sin. He was a man for whom penance and suffering were the only true path to salvation. He also used his persuasive and commanding manner to attain a powerful position within the city, taking over from prominent influencers of the age, such as the Medici family (famous patrons of artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci).

He grimly disapproved of jokes and frivolity, of poetry and inns, of sex (especially the homosexual variety), of gambling, of fine clothes and jewellery and luxury of every sort. He denounced the works of Boccaccio, nude paintings, pictures of pagan deities and the whole humanistic culture of the Italian Renaissance. He called for laws against vice and laxity. He put an end to the carnivals and festivals the Florentines traditionally enjoyed, substituting religious festivals instead, and employed street urchins as a junior gestapo to sniff out luxurious and suspect items. In the famous ‘bonfire of the vanities’ in 1497 he had gaming tables and packs of cards, carnival masks, mirrors, ornaments, nude statues and supposedly indecent books and pictures burned in the street. The friar also disapproved of profiteering financiers and businessmen. - Richard Cavendish, History Today

Savonarola, to employ an appropriate Irish idiom, was ‘absolutely no craic whatsoever’, and it’s clear why Jo Walton felt drawn to this character, as well as the life and times in which he lived, as the basis for this Gothic fantasy novel. The fire and brimstone preaching, filled with talk of torments and demons, makes fertile ground for the fantastical and the macabre, and Walton embraces this to the full in her 2019 novel Lent.

How is this a Gothic title?

As the story of Lent opens, we see the world through Savnarola’s eyes, although for the purposes of the book (and from hereon in) he is referred to as Girolamo. We accompany him as he traverses the cloisters and chambers of Florence, attending to the spiritual needs of the holy and wealthy alike. It is with barely hidden repulsion that he provides his services to the latter, but therein lies his opportunity for greater influence.

Girolamo can see demons, and is engaged in an unending conflict with them. They are described in the most abominable, ungodly forms; overtly lascivious and antagonistic. Either granted some divine sense of perception, or else cursed with the presence of these grotesque beings, he also has the power to banish them back to hell.

These conflicts, and way in which they are written, add a sense of decadent flair to the narrative styles utilized by Walton. They are rich, powerful glimpses into the horrors which hell purportedly contains, and Girolamo is placed within the narrative as a bastion of all that is pure, just and righteous. He is framed as a protector in the mind of the reader, at least at these early stages.

Yet, in the historical sense, we know Girolamo as a fanatic, so could it be that we are being indoctrinated by Christian ideology? Well, we shall have to venture a little further into the book to find that out, but it’s possible that we’re being offered a glimpse into how Girolamo sees the world, and perhaps the external view of him is very different indeed.

It’s certain that more will be revealed as we progress. In the meantime, Walton delights with rich, Gothic imagery in abundance, but remains economical with her world-building, a trope which can belabor many otherwise great works of fantasy. One one hand, world-building can greatly enhance a literary world in which a reader can become lost (think Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast books, or Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi), but it’s not a prerequisite. For each of those aforementioned classics, there are a hundred bloated pieces of fantasy, weighed down by the unnecessary complexity of their authors’ indulgence.

Thankfully, Walton is skillfully deft in her use of place, providing just enough to provide grounding, whilst pivoting quickly to the action, which revolves (for now) around Girolamo’s placement within society, the church and his own family (who we learn he is largely disapproving of).

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Personal Reflections

This was a book I selected due to its roots in both classical Gothic writing, such as Lewis, Eco and Blake, but also in the way that it uses deeply impactful religious themes and imagery, without which the Gothic could not exist. From its roots in grandiose architecture, to the graveyard poets and early novelists of the form, religion was the aesthetic and tonal source of all that is Gothic, and it’s a joy to follow Walton’s journey into that, as well as observing her clever use of this rich palette in crafting such an engaging, curious and initially ambiguous story.

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Considerations and Conversation Points

• Did it take you long to settle into the place and time of the novel?

• Do you find Girolamo to be a sympathetic character?

• Are the demons which Girolamo sees real or a figment of his own imagination?

• Do you feel a certain sense of repetition to the way in which the opening chapters are written?

• Would you prefer to see a longer build-up, or more world-building, or do you feel that the book gets right to it in a way you find enjoyable?

• Have you read many other books like this? If so, could you recommend any? If not, would you be tempted to explore this genre further?

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Thanks, as always, for reading, sharing and participating in the Gothic Book Club. I look forward to exploring the remainder of the book with you all in the coming weeks.