Synopsis of Novel

Chapter

Summary (events, characterisation, important passages)

Quotes (and points to amplify or pursue)

(Prologue)

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the nevados
-earning a living in harsh conditions

the shepherds
alarmed by something taking the sheep

capturing the 'monster'
Jaime recognising just before the creature is killed that it is a human child
Jaime's reactions: That it would be wrong to kill the child - God would know;
horror that a human being could be no more than this.

- relate the beginning to the end
(begins with the nevados climbing the mountain; ends with Amara climbing back up, but alone)

Warming up as they worked, the dancers began to sing. Their voices dispersed in a vast silence. They were sustained by the thought that a little straw basket of ice..would sell for a king's ransom in the towns, in the heat of summer p14

-the glimpses the book provides of 'ordinary' lives (earning a living in harsh conditions, living in the group - in a way all the main characters don't have to)

It was well known that thin air and solitude drove the shepherds crazy after months aloft. By September they would come down burned as brown as walnuts and barely able to speak... p16

-this is what Amara has lived in all her life - without any social contact. (-being able to live with others is something learned, not given)

Something which they might have risked doing if they had been alone....was far too risky with a mawkish youth as witness, one with a tender conscience, the smell of his mother's piety still hanging round him
p21

He was thrown into the pit of dejection by the knowledge that a child could become no more than a wolf - worse - less than a wolf, for a wolf at least is natural. p22

'thumbnail' description of island
(the 'geographic' range of conditions, ranging from the 'ample undulating plain' to the snowcapped mountains)
the life of the fishermen
(contrast to the nevados and the shepherds - the fishermen were 'somnolent fellows, plying their trade in leisurely fashion')
the fishermen rescue Palinor from out of the sea

the prefect interviews Palinor
the prefect characterised as a 'typical bureaucrat - worried by the formalities, sensitive to questions of status and hierarchy
the question of Palinor's religion

He was a splendidly built man of middle age, bronze-skinned and dark-haired, fully bearded..
..Lazaro dipped a sponge and held it to his lips..
..He said, with a musical and marked accent, but perfectly intelligibly, "I will reward you." It was so unexpected, and so preposterous in the mouth of a nearly naked man lying helpless and wholly destitute, that the fishermen laughed...
...They put him on the donkey..
He emerged to be led to the tavern with uncertain steps by a crowd of triumphant women and girls, every one of whom knew more about the stranger than their menfolk by the width of a loincloth; unfavourable comparisons would be made for many years.
p26-28

-two things informing these early descriptions of Palinor:

idealisation - in terms of his masculinity
the allusions to Jesus (obviously ironic, in relation to the story which will follow)

Both of these aspects of the characterisation perhaps show the author too obviously 'using' the character. Perhaps characterisation is being made subordinate to argument?

"You can be Christian, Saracen or Jew," he said.
"I am none of those," said Palinor.
"What are you then?"
""Nothing. Myself." p31-32

"A man of no religion might do anything,' said the prefect. 'What is to restrain him? But while you are in my province you won't get the chance.' p32

Jaime in the Cathedral in Ciudad
description of the Cathedral

Jaime's confession to the priest

first description of Severo
The description emphasises his attitude to the power he holds - which is exceptional, uniting, as he does, 'in one person both worldly and spiritual authority.'

Severo's conversation with Jaime regarding the wolf-child
- the treatment of the wolf-child, being shown around as a freak at market fairs.

- Jaime's horror at the child

Severo orders Rafal to locate the child - but not yet baptize it. 'I would first like to see what made the priest of Sant Jeronimo refuse his duty.'

One might have thought the same building had been occupied in successive centuries by adherents of two different religions p33

- sense in the novel that one religion - Christianity - can have quite different styles of belief, so that, later, there will be clear differences between the Christian belief of Beneditx, Severo - and Murta. Even within one belief system, there is not necessarily one monolithic orthodoxy.

'People die every day, and there is nothing to be done about it,' he said to the youth, taking in his poverty, his helpless demeanour.
'But she will die unbaptized,' the boy cried.
p35

- the casualness about bodies, earthly life - as opposed to the seriousness given to eternal souls. (If the child was to die unbaptized, she would go to Hell - or at best Limbo). The section ends on Jaime's cry - but the next section has him seeing Severo: the priest, so apparently casual and complacent, must have referred him onward and upward.)

relate this to the later treatment of Palinor: his body is tortured so that his soul might be saved

Compared to the power itself, any benefit he might draw from it in personal comfort, or in gorgeous ceremony, seemed to him almost comically vulgar and trivial. p35

Note the emphasis on 'taste' - his dismissal of ceremony is more aesthetic than moral, perhaps.

He had a palace in the cool of the mountains, where plentiful springs of fresh water flowed unfailingly, but he had never lived there for more than a few days in the hottest weather. p35

There is something deliberately ascetic, self-denying, about Severo. An ease with comfortable living - a civilized life - is part of what Palinor will seem to suggest to Severo. (See Chapter 19)

He lived from day to day in a simple black soutane, like one of his village priests.

Above the bed...where he could contemplate it day and night, was a painting of the Harrowing of Hell. p36

His choice of painting suggests something of where he places his emphasis in his understanding of his religion, and in the carrying out of his role. The Harrowing of Hell is when Christ, at the time of his crucifixion and entombment, went down to Hell to release all righteous pagans hitherto confined to Hell since they had not acknowledged God (even though within their cultures they would not have not known of his existence). His characteristic emphasis is on mercy and saving. This will obviously inform his relation to Palinor.

The awe in which his subjects held him was greatly increased by the impression that he lived austerely and plainly; in fact he had provided himself unstintingly with all that he needed. p36

The last phrase suggests a note of scepticism, a tone of critical shrewdness, in the narrative: Severo is perfectly comfortable in his asceticism, his responsibility, his apparent 'self-denial', even complacent. The story will test this comfort - will upset that complacency, and enlarge his notions of what he is and wants.

Gravely Severo took a hunk of bread, broke it in two, and gave half back to Jaime. Nobody he had ever broken bread with, such was his vow, would be less than a brother to him, or would want while he had substance.
p37

Severo's generous, self-imposed moral code.
(And like Palinor's - this has no necessary reference to any religious belief. He believes it is right to do - because it is part of his sense of himself)

She is terrible...Everyone turns away, but I do not blame them. If I could stop thinking of her, I would. Holiness, when you see her, blackness..it is blackness in your heart. You are cast down, you cannot bear it. It is the worst thing you could ever know... p39

Why is Jaime's reaction so strong? Something to do with both cruelty and categories: the cruelty that a child could be driven beyond the category of what constitutes a human being. The horror is both at the discovery that Life could be so cruel, and perhaps also that our categories are so fragile.
(Note that Palinor also exceeds the categories available - but, opposite to Amara, the cruelty will be in forcing him back into the available categorisation.)

Palinor has been incarcerated for months.
Two minor officials processing Palinor's case
- reader is informed that atheists are burned
Order for Palinor to be taken to Severo is received.
Palinor's condition - pale, but not starving.
The relation between Palinor and the prefect:
-the prefect annoyed by what he takes to be Palinor's 'insolence'
-but on the long ride to Ciudad, they begin to talk as if they were equals. The prefect is surprised by this - but it is an effect of a kind of 'instinctive' need for sociability.

The prefect advises Palinor to lie when asked about his beliefs.

Palinor is questioned by the Consistory Court
-how he came to fall in the sea:

The court's difficulty in understanding that a society could value somebody working with their hands, or that Palinor, a prince, would take the wheel of a ship.

The Court refuses to accept Palinor's confession that he is an atheist. 'Only a servant of the devil could be an atheist.' Palinor appeals to the highest authority - ie to Severo

Lazaro's mother, out of a blend of hope and charity had fed him every day. p42

..he wondered why he found that the man insolent, and realized that it was simply that the prisoner was not cowed.

He realized that he was talking to the man like an equal. Yet there was a need to talk. The hardships of the long ride were shared; while they rode there was heat, dust, thirst in common, and that was all.
p46

This sociability is natural even to so unsympathetic a character as the prefect. It is something that Amara will lack.

'I thought God had proscribed lying,' said Palinor.
'But you do not believe in God, you say.'
'You do,' said Palinor. 'And lying would demean me.' p47

Palinor's face, though he did not know it, was blotched with a splash of carmine light cast by the wound in the side of Christ, portrayed in the central light, crucified.
p48

As with Palinor's first appearance in the novel, there seems to be deliberate allusions to the figure of Jesus - here, with the questioning of Jesus before the crucifixion.

'How do you expect us to believe that a man of rank would attempt to repair a rudder himself, with his bare hands?'
'My eminence is as an engineer. I think it no shame to use my hands, although usually my weapon is a pen....'
'For a prince you have a strange disposition towards menial tasks..' p50

Description of the monastery of Galilea
- its isolation, its history of austerity, piety and learning. Both Severo and Beneditx had attended the oblate school at Galilea as boys; both there had 'learned humility.'
First Description of Beneditx.

Beneditx's vision of the World as full of angels
- just as he receives Severo's summons to come to Ciudad as a 'hard thing must be decided' -ie what to do with Palinor.

More extended description of Beneditx's character. The emphasis is on Beneditx's learning, his clarity of mind and gifts of explanation - but above all, on his humility.

Beneditx's arrival in Ciudad.
- a brief glimpse of Severo's midnight prayers: 'stretched out prone, arms extended, upon the floor.'

..[He spends his days] bent over the works of the fathers, day by day, indifferent to his fame for sanctity and learning, having long withdrawn from teaching and disputation, devoting himself single-mindedly to his great treatise on the knowledge of angels
p53

He saw visions of angels at work in every moment of creation. Their hands flexed the tops and branches of the trees to raise the wind; their hands carried each single snowflake in the myriad storms and laid it softly down...... p54

Read the whole passage. The writing is deliberately 'poetic', emphasizing delicacy and care (..laid it softly down...delicate fingers unfurled the scrolled leaves..). Beneditx's religion is a poetic vision of the World - something which Palinor can acknowledge and appreciate (see the end of Chapter 20), even if he cannot share it. This perhaps goes for the book as a whole; in so far as it appreciates the force of religion it is as an aesthetic vision rather than a system of beliefs.

He wrote,' Moreover, Origen says," The world needs the angels.....

Given the mistakes that the sympathetic characters will make in the novel, this is true, but sadly ironic - since, for the novel, no such angels exist.

But it was the work, not the glory and influence it could bring, that Beneditx desired...
It never ceased to astonish the abbot that Beneditx was humble. Not a trace of scorn disfigured his soul for any, even the stupidest student. He would sit on the bench beside any baffled novice and sweetly and eagerly expound, explain, resolve the most elementary difficulties, his face luminous with joy at his powers of clarity.... p55-56

Is there a similar irony in that last phrase as there was in the description of Severo? Is there a kind of self-complacency - which the novel will test?
Even if there is, one would not want to overstate it. The novel goes out of its way to make the two most important Christian characters appealing and sympathetic.

Severo's first conversation with Beneditx about Palinor's case: the question is: Could an atheist conceivably be in good faith? (that is, could such a declaration of belief in the non-existence of God be simple and sincere, or must it be another term for a deliberate rejection of God and a desire to serve the devil?)
Beneditx is clear that an atheist must be condemned - because

Beneditx's 'concrete' demonstrations of the innate knowledge of God.
- the new-born baby

Severo shows the untamed wolf-child to Beneditx
- 'That also, you see Beneditx is an unbaptized child.'
When the two return to Severo's cell, they witness the baby being breast fed by its mother.

'..knowledge of God is inborn. Innate in every human soul...'
'And a man who worships nothing...'
'Has darkened knowledge; refused enlightenment. Is one who has once known the truth and has reneged on it. Is a heretic.'

The issue of reneging has an importance as part of the book's contemporary background. The fatwah pronounced against Salman Rushdie owed some of its Islamic legitimacy to the claim that Rushdie had insulted the religion deliberately, having been brought up within Islam.

'Look at her eyes,' Beneditx told him. 'What do you see?....Beneditx said,'Later, they focus on the world. Later, they see the visible universe around them. But what do you see there now?'
''Infinity,' said Severo.
'At first they see only God.' p63

'Have you ever seen that before?'
'Never,' said Severo.
'Nor I, my friend. Or, rather, only in paintings....'
'There is such a painting in Piedmont. I saw it when I travelled as a young man. It shows that little jet of milk as the child turns its head...I took it to be an allegory. a representation of the flow of human kindness from mother to child. It never occurred to me..'
'That it could be real?'
'That it could be true in the flesh. But then, I would have doubted the possibility of either an atheist or a wolf-child...'

The book surely is poking some fun at these male intellectuals who can discuss knowledge of God - but who don't know anything about breast-feeding. Allegorical interpretation is closer to them than actual knowledge of simple (female) biology. This is perhaps more than 'fun' - since people's fates in the book will turn on intellectual theories.
(Incidentally, for Severo and Beneditx to be so surprised they must never have read St Augustine and St Jerome.)

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