TITLE: Burial Rites
AUTHOR: Hannah Kent
GENRE: General Fiction
PUBLISHED: September 10, 2013
RATING: ★★★★★
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon.com
MOBILISM LINK: Mobilism
Description: A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.
Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.
Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?
Review: Last fall, I saw several requests posted here at mobilism for Burial Rites. Intrigued, I did some research and learned that Hannah Kent took ten years to write this book, and researched it for two years, spending six weeks on location in Iceland. I also learned that her mentor was Geraldine Brooks, a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Armed with these two facts, I greatly anticipated this book's release date. Then, when beginning to write this review, I learned that Kent first formed the idea for the book when she visited Iceland as a high school student. Unfortunately it was in January, days consisted of nearly 24 hours of darkness, her host family rarely spoke to her and she was lonely and isolated. The landscape looked like this:
Through her characters in Burial Rites, Kent describes her environment...
“Now comes the darkening sky and a cold wind that passes right through you, as though you are not there, it passes through you as though it does not care whether you are alive or dead, for you will be gone and the wind will still be there...”
Depressing, right? Well, instead of plotting her escape, or worse, her suicide, Kent sought solace in a pile of English language books in the library. Eventually, she made friends in Iceland and her life there improved. While there, she visited a place called Vatnsdalshólar and heard about Agnes Magnusdottir, a servant who was beheaded in 1830 for her role in the murder of two men. This case sparked Kent's interest, and years later the book Burial Rites eventually became her PhD project. The result is an amazing novel that her website says is “about personal freedom: who we are seen to be versus who we believe ourselves to be, and the ways in which we will risk everything for love.” Kent did such an excellent job writing this book, with such a difficult subject, stark setting and unfamiliar characters. The details of everyday life in Iceland were fascinating and embedded into the story so seamlessly the research felt invisible, though it must have been extensive. The result is a compelling novel, although of course, the mood of the book is as bleak as Iceland's landscape.
Once I grew used to the unfamiliar language, the story felt oddly familiar to me. I realized that even though it was based on a true story, it felt strongly reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, another excellent novel inspired by the events of a true life murder. However, an important difference was that both took place in the early 1800's but Alias Grace took place in England, while Burial Rites took place in Iceland. For an English speaking reader, this makes the book a little harder to relate to, the place names and character names were sometimes difficult and incomprehensible. Thus I found pace at the beginning to be a little slow. But even months after finishing, the story and characters still haunt me. And with more time to ponder it, I am impressed with the way Kent filled the gaps in the scant information she was given about the original case.
In the preface, we begin with Agnes contemplating her future:
“They said I must die. They said that I stole the breath from men, and now they must steal mine. I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a grey wreath of smoke.”
Agnes has been convicted of the brutal murder of two men, she awaits her execution not in prison, but on the farm of a government official, his wife and two daughters. Unsurprisingly, the family is not overjoyed to have her there, although the daughters are curious and intrigued by her, the father stoic, the mother antagonistic. Her only visitor is Toti, an assistant reverend.
It is through her conversations with Toti that we learn Agnes’s wretched life story and how a desperate desire for a happier existence – and, inevitably, for love – led to her downfall. There was a man she loved - there always is, right? And at first everything was good:
“He knew me as one knows the seasons, knows the tide.”
But later things went south (and are we surprised, dear readers? I know I'm not)
“It was only later that I suffocated under the weight of his arguments, and his darker thoughts articulated. It was only later that our tongues produced landslides, that we became caught in the cracks between what we said and what we meant, until we could not find each other, did not trust the words in our own mouths.”
So somehow after this love affair gone wrong, through a series of betrayals, Agnes becomes involved in a murder. Letters and extracts from official documents relating to Agnes’s conviction have been translated and adapted, and are at the start of each chapter. Their cold, emotionless tone contradict the descriptive prose of the novel, in which confidences shared with Toti, where we begin to sympathize with Agnes. This is where the fiction comes in - the information available to Kent was sparse, she adds her own interpretation of Agnes, making her a haunting and sympathetic character.
All throughout the book, Kent captures the raw desperation, isolation and grief of Agnes with stunning clarity. Agnes' inner thoughts are the most vivid, full of striking imagery. I must remind you though - this book is not a feel good novel. It's also not an easy read, but I think it's worth reading for the writing alone, which is exemplary.
“Those who are not being dragged to their deaths cannot understand how the heart grows hard and sharp, until it is a nest of rocks with only an empty egg in it. I am barren; nothing will grow from me anymore. I am the dead fish drying in the cold air. I am the dead bird on the shore. I am dry, I am not certain I will bleed when they drag me out to meet the axe. No, I am still warm, my blood still howls in my veins like the wind itself, and it shakes the empty nest and asks where all the birds have gone, where have they gone?”
Geraldine Brooks, Kent's writing mentor, writes a very nice blurb recommending the book. If you’re a fan of historical novels like Brooks’ own (March, People of the Book, Year of Wonders, Caleb’s Crossing), you’ll certainly enjoy Burial Rites. 5 stars.