He comes across as moralistic, cold and possessive and I rather struggled to understand what could have been attractive about him to Dora. ‘It was as if, for her, this was to be magical act of shattering significance, a sort of rite of power and liberation.’ĭora’s husband, Paul, remains a rather peripheral figure. I tended to sympathise with her friend’s advice that ‘You must either knuckle under completely or else fight him.’ My view did change once she and one of the young visitors to Imber Court, Toby, embark on an enterprise together. I have to confess I found Dora irritatingly passive about her situation for a lot of the book. ‘That was marriage, thought Dora, to be enclosed in the aims of another.’ Having broken free once, she now feels compelled to return to Paul and Imber Court is the scene of their reunion. However, as the Abbess sagely observes, “Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed.”ĭora is dissatisfied with and feels trapped in her marriage to Paul, but can see no alternative. The most obvious is Catherine, who is spending her last few weeks before entering the Abbey as a nun.
Imber Court is described as ‘a buffer state between the Abbey and the world’ and it does seem that many of its occupants are in transition. “Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.” In many ways, The Bell is a book about actions and unintended consequences. *links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme Published: 2 nd August 1999 Genre: Literary FictionĪ.uk ǀ ǀ .uk (supporting local UK bookshops) Originally published in 1958, this funny, sad, and moving novel is about religion, sex, and the fight between good and evil.įormat: Paperback (352 pp.) Publisher: Vintage And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean. Meanwhile the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority.
A new bell is being installed when suddenly the old bell, a legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an order of sequestered nuns.
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