Synopsis
One winter night in Prague, Helen Franklin meets her friend Karel on the street.
Agitated and enthralled, he tells her he has come into possession of a mysterious old manuscript, filled with personal testimonies that take them from 17th-century England to wartime Czechoslovakia, the tropical streets of Manila, and 1920s Turkey. All of them tell of being followed by a tall, silent woman in black, bearing an unforgettable message.
Helen reads its contents with intrigue, but everything in her life is about to change.
Review
Melmoth by Sarah Perry was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2019 and was the Observer Best Fiction Book of the Year in 2018. It is also the first in my new series ‘Shelf-Indulgence’ where I am trying to read more of the books that have been sitting on my bookshelves rather than new books all the time. Sarah Perry is best known for The Essex Serpent, and Melmoth is her third book. Very Gothic in feel this book looks at the legend of Melmoth the Wanderer. Dr Karel Prazan receives a manuscript that has testimonies to the sighting of Melmoth through history, and as he reads it he begins to feel her presence and becomes paranoid. He gives the manuscript to friend Helen Franklin to read, to give her opinion, and when Karel leaves Prague she finds her life changing and questions her own sanity. Dark, haunting and atmospheric this is the perfect novel for those cold winter nights.
Melmoth, the eponymous character, is said to be one of the women who entered Christ’s tomb and saw that he had risen. Melmoth was the only one who denied seeing this and was punished to walk the earth for eternity and bare witness to some of the worst events in history. In this book she is a menacing and provokes fear in the characters and makes them question their actions. What comes through is how as a so called humane and moral society we behave and witness and behave periods of persecution in history. In this book we see Melmoth at the religious persecution in the sixteenth century, the burnings of those who were protestants, she witnesses the treatment of the Jews in World War II and the Armenian Genocide.
The book is set in modern day Prague, but the setting in the historical centre of Prague, in the dark and cold of winter gives this a more gothic feel, as if it was set in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. In the present there is an unknown narrator, who invites the reader in, seducing them into sharing secrets and thoughts on the characters, making the reader complicit in the voyeurism. Helen is a translator, plain and unassuming, lives the life of a nun, in that she deprives herself all pleasure; she eats very little, sleeps on a rough mattress as a punishment for some previous actions. As she reads the manuscript you see fear begin to enter her mind, is she being watched, a manifestation of the guilt she feels. Through Helen and other characters we see that ordinary people, good people can commit terrible things in certain circumstances.
Melmoth is a deliciously dark and gothic read that seduces and compels you. There is a definite philosophical debate within the book about how people behave in extraordinary circumstances, and how, like Melmoth we should all bare witness to these crimes, and remember them so we learn and don’t forget. Beautifully written, atmospheric, and utterly brilliant, I am so glad I picked this off my shelf.
