The Beauty and the Hell-Fire: Charis in the World of Wonders
The Beauty and the Hell-Fire: Charis in the World of Wonders
by Marly Youmans
Ignatius Press, 2020; 332 pp., $17.95
[I]n meetinghouses, I have listened as the ministers raged against the wilderness, the lair of Satan, and though I know more of both the beauty of the trees and the burning-flax flare of hell-fire than any of them are likely to know, I do not deny the power of the gloom lodged in groves or the mystery that flashes behind the leaves, eager to devour us, eager to transform us. For this is the world of wonders, an enchanted place of dreams, portents, and prodigies.
Charis in the World of Wonders is set in Puritan Massachusetts on the eve of the famous Salem Witch Trials among a people whose religious faith abhors all superstition yet greatly fears its power; a people whose lives are entwined with and dependent upon nature, yet who fear the wilds of a continent as yet barely explored. They live in tension between the known and the unknown, between God’s love and the devil’s mischief. This is not a fantasy world where mermaids and unicorns are real, but rather a real world where mermaids and unicorns might as well exist because no one knows for sure that they don’t.
In this world that is eager both to devour and transform, the young narrator Charis suffers the tragic loss of her family during a brutal attack by French and Indian fighters on the settlement of Falmouth. Alone except for her horse, she must flee into the mysteries of the wilderness, and then attempt to reestablish herself among “the godly,” as the Puritans call themselves—no easy task for a woman without father, brothers, husband, or property. But Charis does survive; and while some of her new acquaintances consider her escape heroic, others are convinced that only Satan could have led her safely through trials that were clearly of his own making. Charis walks a razor’s edge between judgement and mercy, finding both wherever she goes, often unsure which one she truly deserves.
Marly Youmans’s prose is a joy to read, lyrical and lush, the language as well-researched and suited to the period as the story itself—although, because it is so well-crafted, the few modern words that escaped her pen jolted me out of the story. But that quibble is minor, and her depiction of life among the Puritans, a people who have often been the subject of derision and prejudice, is charitable without being blind to faults, truthful without being judgmental. The intricate details of their pioneering lives are wondrous to discover, and the way the tensions of the society mimic Charis’s own internal struggles is masterfully handled. However, some of the characters and their decisions that affect the plot are less well-drawn. At least two major events hinge on sudden, inexplicable choices by characters other than Charis; and although Youmans, through Charis, tells us that these choices are confusing and seemingly unfounded, that did not help me to accept them.
Still, this world of wonders holds no lack of adventure: from the hideous violence of the destruction of Falmouth to the cozy domesticity of life in Haverhill and Andover, from women’s prayers to calmly accept death in childbirth to their vengeful accusations of witchcraft against romantic rivals, this is a world built on shifting sands, where demons and destruction lurk even in children’s playthings—yet also a world where a moose is as magical as a dragon, where kindness and prayer can vanquish the nightmares of a tortured soul. Marly Youmans has added a gem to her growing catalog of award-winning works, and although this is the first I’ve read from her, it likely will not be the last.