For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie – Book Review
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain was my single favourite read of 2022.
I have apparently got a taste for a certain breed of author. By strange coincidence, my favourite reads of 2020 and 2022 had a curious thing in common. Both authors were recipients of Scottish Book Trust’s New Writers Award!
I wasn’t aware of the fact when I requested Victoria Mackenzie’s novel on NetGalley. Instead I was drawn in by the fascinating title, beautiful cover, and the promise of a thoughtful exploration of the lives of two fascinating medieval women. So, thank you Bloomsbury for the ARC!
Welcome to For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain.
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain is a truly wonderful gem of a novel. I was immediately enthralled by the premise, and the two distinct narrators; Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe.
These two were real religious figures simultaneously active around the 14th and 15th centuries. Julian was an anchoress, mystic, and author of one of the earliest surviving English-language works penned by a woman. Margery Kempe was a pilgrim and mystic whose life and divinations she recorded in The Book of Margery Kempe.
But did the two women ever meet?
Victoria Mackenzie’s novel is magically written. It’s a careful exploration of the big ‘What if’ question. The two women are on very different life trajectories.
Margery resents her role as wife and mother, and seeks acceptance for her religious outpourings. Instead, she travels the length of the country preaching about her visions, and receiving a good deal of ill treatment for her troubles.
In Norwich, Anchoress Julian has been willingly sequestered. Dogged by a tragic history, she has ‘taken the veil’ so to speak, and committed herself entirely to the church. So much so that she is sealed within its walls, cut off from humanity at large.
Both Julian and Margery have stories to tell
Julian can feel the slow creep of her mortality. Her serving lady has been sneaking paper and ink into her chamber, but her words will die with her.
Margery is pushed from pillar to post by a world which does not like what she has to say. Pointed in the direction of the Anchoress, she hopes to receive advice to make clear her path.
But what the will become of both of their lives has yet to be seen . . .
It’s a novel led by its characters
I adore a dual perspective novel where both perspectives feel truly distinct, and the frantic outpourings of Margery and the stolid, steadfast words of Julian work in beautiful tandem.
The two narrators’ voices build and weave together as their stories draw closer and begin to entwine.
Margery is a particularly strange character, fascinating in her peculiarities and religious fervour. Due to her visions of the divine, she is mocked, and decried, treated as a heretic. Men in particularly despise her for stepping beyond her ‘place’.
Julian is a quieter and introspective woman, but I was equally as compelled by her words. Where Margery is passionate and ‘hysterical’, Julian is a woman of quiet fortitude, her sorrows buried deeply but felt equally sharply.
Their complicated experiences with grief, family, and religion make them kindred spirits in many ways. Their divine visions are equally dangerous.
A modern exploration of medieval mysticism
The book really grabs you and pulls you back in time in a great many ways, forcing you to try and get inside the heads of these two women whose lives were both outside the norm for society at the time.
Their religious visions lead them down different paths, and it’s fascinating to consider what that meant for both of them and the directions their lives went at a time when women’s options were so limited.
You can sense the respect Mackenzie has for both women. They are trailblazing figures, after all, and their original works give us incredible insight into their lives.
What For Thy Great Pain does so marvellously is take these medieval women and weave a tale around them that that makes their stories disturbingly modern and relevant.
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy For My Little Pain is out now!
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