Mariette in Ecstasy

by Ron Hansen

The highly acclaimed and provocatively rendered story of a young postulant's claim to divine possession and religious ecstasy.

In 1906, a beautiful seventeen year old postulant enters the convent of the Sisters of the Crucifixion in upstate New York. When she begins to bleed from her hands, feet, and side, the entire community is thrown into turmoil. Is Mariette a cunning sham, or sexually hysterical, or does God stalk her like a pitiless lover?

Mariette in Ecstasy is a stunning immersion into the society of a small convent at the turn of the century, where a mysterious and ultimately harrowing world lies beneath the lovely, placid surface of everyday life. With Mariette In Ecstasy, critically acclaimed author Ron Hansen again powerfully demonstrates his gift for brilliantly recreating time and place. As intriguing as The Name Of The Rose, as sensually hypnotic as Marguerite Duras' The Lover, this is an intimate portrait of a fascinating young woman in the grip of an intractable fate, and it raises provocative questions about the complex nature of passionate faith.

Exquisitely crafted, Mariette in Ecstasy is a spellbinding novel that marks a new level of achievement in one of our most gifted writers.

~ from 1991 hardcover dustjacket

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Religion, Book Club, Novels, Literary Fiction, Catholic

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Ron Hansen is the author of two story collections, two volumes of essays, and nine novels, including most recently The Kid, as well as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film. His novel Atticus was a finalist for the National Book Award. He teaches at Santa Clara University.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mariette is a strange, beautiful young (20) woman who has just entered a convent, the second daughter of a wealthy doctor to enter that order, to dad's chagrin. There is the cut and paste of varying timelines, as we jump back and forth between a later interview with and about her, juxtaposed with earlier events as they unfold. The writing is lush, incorporating rich color set against a plain background, scents permeate the senses. A splash of red on the young woman's bathrobe offers the merest hint. Poetic understatement illuminates each chapter and verse, as do the hints of undercurrents of things less than pure. This gives the book an almost painful level of suspense as we wonder just what is the strange revelation toward which the author is building. Mariette manifests stigmata that seem to heal, or vanish, far more quickly than nature unaided would allow. Is she a saint or some sort of somatizing lunatic?


Ron Hansen - image from PBS

This short novel is not so much about events but ideas. What is the nature of faith? What role does it play in our lives? What is Mariette in the absence of her beliefs? Hansen was inspired by two 19th century saints, who also manifested the wounds of the crucified Jesus.

I developed this idea of the stigmata as a kind of metaphor for a passionate love affair with Christ, and that was the stumbling block for the other nuns. - from the PBS interview

The structure is organized around the names of each day's Mass. I do not know if this is merely an affectation, or if there is meaning behind the names of the saints for whom a given Mass is said, relative to the actions within that section. I suspect the latter. Something worth checking out on a second reading.

Ron Hansen is a beautiful writer, offering intelligent considerations of real human issues with a poet's appreciation for language. He is a big fan of the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and it shows in his prose. Mariette in Ecstasy is not a book for everyone, but if this sort of writing appeals, it is a delectable treat and a religious experience.

Review Most Recently Posted – 3/21/2025

Publication date - 1/1/1991

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s Wiki and FB pages

An interesting item - On Being a Catholic Novelist: Questions for Deacon Ron Hansen - by Sean Salai, S.J.

A fascinating PBS interview - Catholic Writer Ron Hansen - by Bob Faw

A must-read interview with Hansen in Image - A Conversation with Ron Hansen by Brennan O'Donnell - it covers several of his books, including Mariette

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Travesty of Love

I have a small apricot tree against a wall in the back of my garden. Two of its branches cross in front of a decorative mirror. Yesterday a great tit ( parus major to be more precise) arrived on one of these branches. His reflection in the mirror clearly appeared to him as a rival and he became increasingly enraged at its presence, obsessively tearing leaves off the two branches. My wife and I shooed him away several times without permanent result. This morning both branches were bare and the bird had targeted his wrath on yet other parts of the dwindling tree. Senseless destruction, of course, and a complete waste of energy.

In the midst of this garden drama, I was engrossed in Mariette in Ecstasy, the story of a girl (I suspect loosely based on that of Therese of Lisieux, who had died with some notoriety 7 or 8 years before the book was published) whose only desire was to die - effectively at her own hand - for the love of her life, Jesus Christ. Hers is a story of narcissistic rage against... well, herself. Or, more precisely, the reflection of herself in the mirror of her religion. She has been taught throughout her short life that this reflection is reality and to attack it vigorously by continuously gazing at it and despising it for its inherent evil. Pain, deprivation, opportunities self-denial are all sought after in order to destroy the image of sin which she has of herself.

The community of cloistered nuns in which Mariette has chosen to live normalises her ambition for self-extinction. As the mate of the great tit in my garden watched and undoubtedly encouraged the bird in his insanity, so the other nuns find Mariette’s desires for union with her beloved Jesus to be not just praiseworthy but also saintly. Many envy her steadfastness in pursuit of her religious fantasies. Some even envy her advanced state of delusion as they watch her transport during routine household tasks. She becomes the centre of the community despite her young age.

But to call this group of women a community is to stretch the term. They do work together, have distinct roles, and pray together. But their purpose is entirely individualistic. Each is only interested in exactly what Mariette is interested in: personal transcendence. They have no shared communal goal at all. Their regard for each other is purely formal except for the frequent flirtations about their love for the Master. They are Pharisaic in the extreme, believing that ritual behaviour is the key to their bliss. When they pray, it is not for the world or for their families but for their own death. Mariette succeeds in this self-absorption in what can only be called a travesty of love.

I covered the mirror behind the apricot tree with a fleece. The tit returned to the branches with marked confusion, pecking at the fleece occasionally as if daring the supposed intruder on the other side to show himself. Eventually the ‘therapy’ of the fleece took effect. He and his mate went on to more constructive endeavours. If only there were such a simple therapy for human beings to rid them of their reflective delusions!

Postscript 3May21: For the last two days I have repeatedly tried removing the fleece from the mirror. The bird returns immediately, even more insane and violent each time. So much for my avian therapy.

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

She sings a song to God, who listens. God in return gives her pain, sadness, loneliness, and above all else, love. God cherishes the martyrs and Mariette walks the martyr way, a thorny path and a bloody one. She sings a song about her love for God, and some of her sisters listen while others turn away, or seek to silence her song. She will sing on, relentless, to believers and disbelievers, true and false friends alike. She cannot help herself: she embraces her ecstasy, her martyrdom. Perhaps she was born to sing, to suffer, and so transcend.

Hansen sang his own song when writing this pristine novel. Each bride of Christ is given their moment, each moment is given its due. Their humanity is on display, small moments and large ones, generous gestures and mean ones, all are small pieces of the larger whole. The natural world is on display as well: the land and the seasons, the blooming of flowers, the coming of frost. Hansen exults in the minutiae - no act or thought or bloom or blade of grass is too small.

That is the lesson I took from this book: the living world is as alive with meaning as the spiritual world. And just as vital. Not a battleground, but a staging ground, or a testing ground. A journey as important as the destination. If our world is a consequence of God's will, an enactment of God's plan, then this world is as holy a place as God's land beyond.

[booklady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible story. I'm still not sure if I can write a review of it as I just finished it less than an hour ago. It's the kind of book I would have LOVED to have read in a devout Catholic book group, but only a prayerful group of practicing Catholics who actually live what they believe.

But then on further reflection, I try to imagine really discussing the book in a group setting and I think it would ruin it. It's such a deeply personal book, as is Mariette's experience in the story and yours when/as you read Mariette in Ecstasy. Is this from God? Or is it a farce? Really good and powerful Catholic fiction isn't plentiful these days ... if it ever was.

Hansen's book is a spiritual Question Mark from start to finish, as is all of Life, as is God Himself.

A book to be savored. A book I will definitely read again. And again. I'm looking for more books by this author.

[JFN · Rating 1 out of 5]

A few weeks ago I was walking on my street and came upon a book sale on a neighbor's stoop. It was surprising what they were unloading -- not the usual unpopular, unloved cast offs but stuff you'd actually heard of and would want to own -- and all at a gleeful, hands-rubbing-together 25 cents a pop. Crazy.

Impressed with the collection, I got to talking about books with the neighbors, a couple who were moving to the west coast where they are both planning to pursue PhDs in lit. A few minutes into our chat about what we love to read, the male half of the couple picked through the pile and produced a thin paperback.

"This one's on me," he said. "I want you to have it. Best. Ending. Ever."

I was excited. Wow. This so fit in with my superstitious-in-spite-of-myself belief that our most treasured books come to us out of nowhere when we need them most. I looked down at the bronze-and-gold toned cover bearing the chiseled face of a woman, eyes closed, mouth open, head thrown back in ecstasy. Fitting, considering the title, Mariette in Ecstasy. Beneath the title it said "'Exquisite...a cliff-hanger of a story...the finale is a stunner.' New York Times Book Review."

Between the NYT's and my neighbor's enthusiastic endorsements, I had full confidence that this was going to be the perfect summer read and just what I was in the mood for. So I took it home and delved in that night.

Humph.

Let's just say I only stuck with this book for two reasons: One, it's only 179 pages of easy-on-the-eyes, wide leading and two, the promise of the delivery of Shawshank-like satisfaction at the end. It did not, to say the least, deliver. Honestly, now that I'm done, I can actually say that this books sucks. I have no idea what my neighbor or the NYT or, for that matter, the Chicago Tribune or the San Francisco Chronicle or the LA Times or Entertainment Weekly are talking about on the back cover of the book with all their glowing reviews about how "astonishing," "compelling," "fascinating," and "hypnotically beautiful" this book is. Did they read the same book I read? Are there pages missing from my copy? I'm not kidding when I say that after I finished I inspected the book for torn out pages and actually fanned it and shook it to see if something good that I overlooked would fall out.

This book left me completely cold. I was thoroughly unimpressed with the shallow development of the story and characters and the flat, threadbare quality of the writing. Ever read a few pages of a script? You know those sections between the dialogue that set the scene? Every single line of this book reads like that, every line the same droning tenor. I love clean, spare writing more than the next person, but this was ridiculous.

I suspect the author was trying to capture the monotonous tone and pace of life in a sequestered convent in upstate New York in 1906 by reflecting it in the monotonous tone of the writing, but as an exercise it failed miserably. It was just frustrating and boring. I also found it to be an incredibly cheap move that he broke up every few paragraphs by noting what special mass or prayers the sisters were saying as a means of transitioning from scene to scene. Creating smooth transitions that make sense and do credit to your story is probably the most challenging thing about writing, and this guy skirted that whole issue by breaking this thing up like it's an outline.

I can't say enough bad things about this book. I think it's contrived and hollow and pretentious. Toward the end I was hoping that the whole convent was going to go up in flames and kill everyone in it. The End. Now that would have been a satisfying "stunner" of a finale for this incredible waste of my time. This book is touted as some kind of religious mystery novel. The only real mystery here, as far as I can see, is how anyone could like this fucking book.

[Suzanne Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's my belief that very varied reviews, by readers and professional critics, are sometimes signs that something really interesting is going on--that an author has taken a real risk, made a really strong commitment to a particular style, story, strategy. Such is the case here. Folks will, and do, have strong reactions in both directions to the sparseness of the prose, the emphasis on imagery, and of course the author's refusal to answer the novel's most obvious question, the legitimacy (if one can call it that) of Mariette's stigmata. This isn't a middle of the road book, and that's one of the wonderful things about Hansen in general and this novel in particular.

Personally, I loved the beauty of the meticulous language, the sparseness and compression of the book's shape, the tension between the sacred and the mundane, the unresolved mystery at its heart; I was gripped by its world and its otherworld all the way through to the perfect and yet complex ending. Ultimately, for me, this was a novel about (among other things) the complexity of perception, the way a startling range of valid perceptions on something can co-exist and compete, the truth that some questions have no clear or single answer.

To misquote Zora Neale Hurston, there are books that ask questions and books that answer. This does the former gorgeously, to my mind.

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

The complexity of this novel belies its simplicity. We are inside a Benedictine class of monastery, and a new novice, Mariette, has been taken in, a young woman of seventeen, passionately devout but filled with all the other fervors a young woman would have. In the course of a few months, Mariette starts having extreme religious experiences (or perhaps the continuation of such experiences from before she entered the priory), climaxing with physically formed stigmata followed by a coma-like ecstasy. Is this real, faked, or a psychosomatic induced phenomena?

For much of the novel the reader is in a state of ambiguity and suspense. To understand the novel, the key I think is to understand why the novel is set in 1906 going into 1907. By 1906 medicine has developed to an understanding of germs, vaccines, and x-rays. By 1906, psychology was the rage; Freud published Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in 1905. By 1906 religious experiences were being located inside the mind; William James published The Varieties of Religious Experiences in 1902. And perhaps more importantly, in 1907 Pope Pius X published, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, the encyclical refuting modernism. You the reader are placed inside the world of the novel to discern a supernatural phenomenon with a modernist worldview. But mind you, if you believe the author leaves it at the end for the reader to decide the nature of the phenomena as some reviewers have stated, you have misread the novel. Hansen is quite clear.

There are several major themes that stem out of the novel: the ambiguity of religious experience, the shift to a worldview based on empiricism, the unwillingness of people to change their habitual lives even if Christ has entered it. But for me I think the most profound theme in the novel is the theme of achieving holiness through humiliation. For Mariette, the stigmata and ecstasy are not the culmination of holiness but steps on the way to reaching a fuller holiness. We see at the end her pride extinguished, and the death of the old self into a new creation.

This is a novel of high craft, fine prose, even poetic prose, complex characters, especially Mariette the central character, profound ideas, and the beautiful creation of an original world. In short Mariette in Ecstasy is a work of art and Ron Hansen's masterpiece.

[giada · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

This is one of those books that has no apparent defect and the lower rating is simply because it didn't appeal to me personally.
It was in my to read list because I'd found it recommended in a literary journal I think, or a list of I-don't-know-how-many shorter books to read before you die, so the interest in the book itself was driven by the fact that it would be a quick read. Which I slogged through anyway.

Mariette in Ecstasy is the story of a young woman that is so devoted and God-fearing that she wants desires needs to become a nun, but alleged visions of Jesus and miracles of his favours split the convent in two: the nuns who believe and those that want her out.
It's an interesting view of a convent's daily life, which reminded me a lot of Lauren Groff's Matrix minus the lesbian relationships, while the discussion behind the miracles themselves made me think of Emma Donoghue's The Wonder; the position the stigmata put Mariette in is an unenviable one, whether we believe they are true or she is a sham, fabricating the miracles in order to appear more holy. The author does a great job in creating an oppressive atmosphere in quick snapshots that coincide with specific masses or moments of prayer in the convent.

The book goes on with a steady rhythm and comes to a heady halt, and the prose is immaculate and polished. On paper the book is Very Good - yet I found myself wanting to finish it as quickly as possible because I was immensely bored.

I'll be sure to recommend it to all my great aunts who love to go to church to get the latest gossip, though.

[Celia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mariette Baptiste is a 17 year old girl, in very deep love with God, who becomes a postulant in the Order of The Sisters of Crucifixion. The day she enters is August 15, 1906. The convent is situated in New York and has French culture in its history and background.

It seems that immediately upon Mariette's entering the convent, there is a faction who is enthralled with her and a faction that is jealous of her. After a period of time, Mariette experiences the stigmata (the wounds of Christ showing up in her side, hands and feet). Some believe she is honestly suffering these wounds; others believe she is faking it.

From Crisis Magazine, A Voice for the Faithful Catholic Laity, I read the following excerpt from Jane Clark Scharl's review of this book:

"For Hansen, a devout Catholic, writing this novel must have been a profound act of courage. In order to tell the story truly, it had to run the grave risk of being totally misunderstood (not unlike the Gospels). Hansen’s willingness to be misunderstood in order to respect mystery is what elevates the book to an entirely different plane than most contemporary novels about religious life. "

This book for me was somewhat upsetting. The division within the convent about Mariette's intentions made me feel uneasy. I must admit it took an act of courage for me to read it and contemplate it. But I still rate it 4 stars as it is a thought provoker.

4 stars

[Sonia Gomes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book overwhelms me... It guides me towards pity and compassion for after all what are religions?
Nothing but compassion and love for another Human Being...

I thank Marc Monday for suggesting this immensely beautiful book. His amazing review is what led me to Mariette. Thank you Marc.

‘We are like the tides here. We come and go. We don’t hurry; we don’t worry; we try not to wrestle too much with our inner torments and petty irritations’

‘Ever since I have grown older, I have forgotten all my hard penances and fasting and have given particular attention to our Redeemer, in whose presence we live. And I have realised how much simpler it is to pray and keep united with God when I see Him as the source and sum of everything I do. When I walk, I owe it to God that I still can. When I sleep, it is with His permission. My breathing, my happiness, even my being a woman, are all His gifts to me. So it is my prime intention that whenever I do these practical things, they will be contemplative acts of praise and thanksgiving repeated over and over again. Even when it seems impossible to believe that some pain or misery is from God, I try to believe it and thank Him for it.’

You should try such prayer Mariette!

But Mariette does not have the patience for such Prayers, Mariette wants more than being a simple contemplative. She wants to be the Prima Donna in an Opera, the one that stands out amongst the Chorus. Who wants to be in a Chorus when you can be the Prima Dona?

When Mariette had come to the Convent and spoken of her desire to be a nun, Mother Saint Raphaël had not been there, but she has not been the Mistress of Novices for nothing, without learning something of a person’s character, so at the opportune moment Mother Saint Raphaël gives her exceedingly frank opinion.

‘ Our postulant has been too proud. She has been the princess of vanities. She has sought our admiration and attention in a hundred of ways since she has joined our Convent. She hopes we will praise her for being pretty and fetching and young. She is slack in her work and lax in her conscience. She has been a temptation to the novices and a pet to all the professed sisters. Ever since I have been her mistress, she has been a snare and a worldliness to me and a terrible impediment to the peace and interests of the Holy Spirit.'

Mariette begins with small acts, nothing that will smack you in the face and always when she has an audience, kneeling on her fingers when praying as she swabs the floor.
All the Nuns pray whilst at their different chores but they pray to themselves, most of the times for others, for lay people. Mariette, however always prays only for herself, for she is important unlike the others. Poor Mortals.
Then when the Nuns have seen that she prays in a ‘special manner’ she goes into ecstasies, at Mass she never looks elsewhere but at the Tabernacle. Her attention on the Blessed Sacrament, her attention totally captivated by Jesus.
Every Nun now prays that she will be able to be as immersed as Mariette in the Blessed Sacrament.

And then Mariette goes for the Biggest Prize of the Catholic Church. Stigmata. Something reserved for Saints like St. Francis of Assisi.
Of course Mariette has been preparing for this event for a very long time. She knows quite a bit of Chemistry and pilfers stuff from the Infirmary when her sister, Mother Celine is ill.
She mortifies her flesh with chicken wire so that blood drips down to her feet and her palms and everyone can see the dripping blood.
When she walks it is with a particular gait because of the wounds on her feet.
The gait she has practiced as can be evidenced from the calluses she has on her heels and the sides of the feet. Oh yes she has been practising for a long time...

But is Mariette the fraud we feel she is? Of course not.
Mariette has the Call. Jesus has called her to be His Spiritual Bride.
But Mariette does not have the desire to wait; she does not want to be a simple contemplative Nun.
She wants to be a Star...The Prima Dona of her Convent even if it brings terrible attention to this Order which seeks only to live simply, in Prayer and solitude. She never ever thinks of the awful attention she and her deeds have brought the Convent...

Put in the words of Mother Saint Raphaël,
‘I personally believe that what you say happened did indeed happen. We could never prove it of course. Sceptics will always prevail. God gives us just enough to seek Him and never enough to fully find him. To do more would inhibit our freedom and our Freedom is very dear to Him.

‘God sometimes wants our desire for a religious but not the Deed itself.’

Many years later in her own house, Christ always speaks to Mariette, he has not forgotten her.

‘And Christ still sends me roses. We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me.

[Pamela (Here to Read Books and Chew Gum) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written book that explores the deep connection between a young postulant and her faith. It is written in a rather minimalist style evoking through its use of language, a true sense of convent life. A deep and touching exploration of religious fervour and the social issues that come with being cloistered.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 1 out of 5]

One and a half stars for this book which does an incredible job of hiding bricks under hats. The choppy, telegraphic writing "style" (inverted commas intended) makes it seem more like an aborted screenplay; in fact I first thought that was what it was. The book resonates heavily with other, earlier works by other authors: think The Nun's Story (from which two scenes are lifted, practically entire), think Agnes of God, think Extramuros, and certainly many phrases, events and even names taken from the memoirs and conversations of Thérèse de Lisieux.

Much is implied, little shown or told. Does the author wish the reader to believe that Mariette was sexually abused by her father, for example? Why do all these American women in a Benedictine order monastery in upstate New York have French names--and the protagonist and her sister had them, and a grasp of French, before joining the order? And why would they listen to the rule of the Augustinian order during meals? Surely the reader would concentrate on the rule of St Benedict. In 1907, would a small monastery in the open countryside have electricity--and why in the working areas, but not in the church? Why would anyone be mending a winepress in midwinter, in the middle of a snowstorm? It won't be wanted again until the autumn, surely it could be mended in better weather. So many of the details of conventual life were wrong for the period: not least speaking of the prioress' golden hair "gushing" or "streaming over" the pillow; even I know that prior to the changes brought about by Vatican II, nuns wore their hair cut very short after profession. And all of these carpets and soft chairs and sofas we're told about; has the author ever been inside a contemplative monastery? The ones I've seen (which are many) are stark in their simplicity and creature comforts nearly unknown.

And then there's the prose. Oh dear. Hanson describes a crucified Christ as "softly breasted and feminine and redly willowed in blood." Willowed? What does that mean? His trees "shift their feet like hired hands" (really? trees have feet?). At one point "Mariette whose penance it is to lie down on the floor like the shoe-black door to a dank, dark cellar where fruit blooms in the jars" (p. 117). Shoe-black, meaning as black as a shoe? Or as black as shoe polish? Or what? I think the author's attempt at poetic language got away from him there. Not to mention that flowers bloom, fruit does not. "She simply waits, like an intricate memory." Well which is it, Hanson--simple, or intricate? Do make up your mind. What exactly is that "winter shag" that blows over the Morgan horse near the end of the book? Not even Mr Google seems to know.
(And what's with the lipstick-wearing nun on the cover?)
Oh dear.

Not content with that, nothing is developed: not the characters, and certainly not the plot. When he's done playing with it (and with the reader) he simply tacks on an ending that skips merrily through time in about 2 pages, explaining nothing, resolving nothing.

This is certainly one of MacBeth's tales full of sound and fury--signifying very little.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As another reviewer put it, "spare, lyrical and devotional." The story of Mariette, postulant in a convent in upstate New York at the turn of the century, progresses through the liturgical year. The stark, descriptive prose gave me an almost visceral feel for the rural locale. Mariette brings an innocent ferver to her prayer life and that of the order, until she begins having trances or ecstasies followed by stigmata that heal almost as spontaneously as they appear. This eventually causes division among the sisters as they are alternately inspired or skeptical of her experiences. The book never attempts to resolve the question of the authenticity of Mariette's stigmata. It is more about our hunger for mystery in our spiritual lives. And yet when we are faced with it, our lack of belief. This is not a book of plot and intrigue. Those to whom this book would appeal are probably small.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) Set in an upstate New York convent mostly in 1906–7, this is a story of religious fervor, doubt and jealousy. Mariette Baptiste is a 17-year-old postulant; her (literal) sister, 20 years older, is the prioress here. Mariette is given to mystical swoons and, just after the Christmas mass, also develops the stigmata. Her fellow nuns are divided: some think that Mariette is a saint who is bringing honor to their organization, but others believe she has fabricated her calling and is vain enough to have inflicted the stigmata on herself. A priest and a doctor both examine her, but ultimately it’s for the sisters to decide whether they are housing a miracle or a fraud.

The short sections are headed by the names of feasts or saints’ days, and often open with choppy descriptive phrases that didn’t strike me as quite right for the time period (versus Hansen has also written a Western, in which such language would seem more appropriate). Although the novella is slow to take off – the stigmata don’t arrive until after the halfway point – it’s a compelling study of the psychology of a religious body, including fragments from others’ testimonies for or against Mariette. I could imagine it working well as a play.

Favorite lines:

“We have had entirely too much mysticism here and too little mortification.”

Father Marriott: “We don’t have to understand what God is doing for God to be able to do it. … I don’t believe it’s possible. I do believe it happened.”

[Padraic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jinkies! Nun so black!

Well, if you can write as well about nuns and Jesse James, you're already one hell of an author. I would probably read Hansen's shopping lists.

[Josephine (Jo) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book lays out the experience of Stigmata for us to view and question, it is on one level a story of great religious inspiration (if you are a believer) and on the other hand, it raises all the questions of the sceptics and doubters.
Mariette is a nineteen-year-old girl who enters the local convent where her blood sister, 20 years her senior is mother superior. Mariette has been brought up to be extremely religious and devout and entering the convent seems to her to be the most natural and desirable life choice she could make. She is so very happy on the day that she gives herself as a bride of Christ, radiant and ready to give her life to prayer. From the start, Mariette stands apart from her fellow postulants and novices, she is so blissfully happy and they all love her. When Mariette starts to exhibit external signs of her inner state of bliss she becomes a problem for the convent, she is questioned closely and treated quite unkindly by some of the sisters who doubt her sincerity and truthfulness. I loved this story and found it really inspiring and touching and as a Catholic, I do believe that this phenomenon is sometimes bestowed on a person who is truly holy. The author also shows the other side of the story, people displaying signs of Stigmata have always been doubted and vilified and from a non-believers point of view they are simply either attention seekers or hysterics. I was very interested to see the subject tackled in this way and found the book really good.

[Alison McLennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the diversity of reviews. At the risk of sounding wishy-washy I understand and agree with the perspective of both the lowest and the highest of ratings. The reason I read this book is because it is on a list of must reads for my MFA program. Hansen breaks conventions. All through the book I wondered why it was written in present tense. Many of his descriptions just totally lost me. Yet others created movement and life so lyrical the words created a strange routine-like movement that brought the convent to life despite its mundane repetitive nature. I've had less than positive experiences with nuns and Catholicism. However, I felt the appeal of the simple yet exquisite rhythm of the order. Hansen is a master of language and description. Too often authors get carried away with beautiful language and forget the story. There is a fine line between story telling and descriptive masturbation. A good novel needs both. Too much flowery language and the story seems pompous and contrived. Too much simple language and we say the novel lacks depth. I will read more of Hansen's novels. Even though this plot is weak, his writing is beautiful and the descriptions take on a life of their own.

[Michael Vidrine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a vivid and somewhat minimalistic story about the enchantment and distress that results from real encounters with sanctity; it is an immersion into the intense, holy, sometimes petty, sometimes mundane, reality of religious community life. I’m impressed by the beauty of the prose and the level of understanding of Christian spiritual theology on display. It is thought-provoking and inspiring, and I didn’t want it to end.

[Amalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As it is evident here among the Good Readers, some may not like this novel. Non-Catholics may not understand some ideas in this book. If you are hoping for a gripping and compelling plot, you'd probably get disappointed because, my opinion, this is a novel that explores the diverse nature of religious faith: how people always long for mystical spiritual experiences, yet when they are faced with it, they lack belief.

Perhaps the best part of this book is its ambiguous ending that leaves enough space for multiple interpretations. So this book is more about questioning than finding an answer or providing a satisfying ending.

The plot: Mariette is a young postulant of a Sisters of the Crucifixion convent. She is educated, virtuous, and very pretty. Other nuns admire her humility and kindness. However, these views change when Mariette goes into ecstasy during one of her prayer sessions and experiences stigmata. There onwards, the story focuses on how the different individuals of the convent understand and react to her possible mystical stigmata.

Ron Hansen is a good writer. I want to read more.

Explanation of terminology:

*Religious "ecstasy" refers to an altered state of consciousness(trance-like state) of an individual, where the person experiences expanded emotional (even spiritual) awareness. This can be accompanied by visions as well.

*Stigmata (normally) refers to the Five Wounds Jesus is said to have endured during his crucifixion. (in the hands or wrists, feet, and side). Such persons are called stigmatics. No medical explanation so far has been able to consistently explain them (keep in mind that many cases normally turn out to be frauds), thus many Catholics regard them as miracles. Medical science explains a different type of 'stigmata' called psychosomatic wounds, which means the person's mind creates the physical wounds in the body.

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short novel rests on the reader’s attitude toward and perception of mystical religious experiences. In 1906, in an inconsequential cloistered community of nuns, a young postulant arrives claiming ecstatic trances and religious locutions. In the months that follow, these become more dramatic, including the stigmata. But are these genuine mystical phenomenon? Or are they self-induced injuries, are they psychosomatic manifestations of some form of hysteria? The question is left to each reader to decide.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'I have been troubled by God's motives for this,' the prioress says 'I see no possible reasons for it. Is it so Mariette Baptiste will be praised and esteemed by the pious? Or is it so she shall be humiliated and jeered at by skeptics? Is it to honor religion or to humble science? And what are these horrible wounds, really? A trick of anatomy, a bleeding challenge to medical diagnosis, a brief and baffling injury that hasn't yet, in six hundred years, changed our theology or our religious practices. Have you any idea how disruptive you've been? You are awakening hollow talk and half-formed opinions that have no pace in our priory, and I have no idea why God would be doing this to us. To you'" (159-160).

[Claire]

I liked this—shoutout Milla, your thesis will be great, thank you for inaugurating my year catholically. I liked all the looking-at and the blood-as-handwriting (lol) and that there are biological and religious sisters simultaneously, how fun! The sisters are all fixated on Mariette’s particularity, but she insists her own experience of ecstasy transcends and absolves the self. Ron does articulate an interesting question: why are experiences of the stigmata so often by women and not men? For some reason throughout this book I was thoroughly unconvinced it was the early 1900s but who am I to say

*

“She’s impossible. She’s too many people. She’s too many shades and meanings.” (Sister Céline, of Mariette)

“She is the stillness that ends their prayers. She is as present to them as God.”

“She is a daily temptation to intimacies and particular attachments.”

“Mother Saint-Raphaël tells her, “God sometimes wants our desire for a religious vocation but not the deed itself.”

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mariette, a 17 year old postulant in an upstate New York nunnery at the turn of the last century develops stigmata upon arriving. The meat of the book is devoted to how this divides the nunnery’s residents into two camps, one blind with adoration, the other bristling with spiteful envy.

This is a very odd book. I enjoyed reading it, largely for the author’s extraordinary skill as a stylist. In a novel in which not very much happens -- well, except stigmata-- and in a setting to which this secular reader is indifferent, the musicality of the Hansen’s language carries you, and it is very pleasing. It is obvious on every page that Hansen has labored with great skill over every sentence. Here’s an example, a very trivial one.

“Everything slants up into hillsides of green fir and cedar and the gray-blue haze that slurs the horizon.”

The word “slurs” there is both pleasing and poetically exact. Hansen does that continually and is such a master of the image that in the whole of the novel, he dropped only one metaphor that seemed labored (I forgot to highlight it). One reviewer on Amazon said the book had about it the feel of an ambitious MFA effort, but that’s unjust; an MFA student that could write this well would not need an MFA program.

Yet, I still do not know what to make of this book. It would be worth reading with a group just to clarify and test my own perceptions. Among the things that baffle: the narrative is divided into short sections where each section is named after a Catholic feast. Why? Is there something about a specific feast that makes it especially appropriate to the section it heads? No idea. Is it intended, like Saturday cartoons in the 1970s, to function on two levels? If so, it’s hard to see how it succeeds, since, to operate on two levels, the audience who can appreciate it on one of those levels should be blissfully unaware of the other..

I also invite further consideration of the author’s skill at character creation. I finished the book two weeks ago, and the only character that really stands out to me is Dr. Baptiste, Mariette’s father. Of the thirty nuns in the nunnery, only a dozen or so of them play into the story, and I don’t remember the traits of more than two of them. They don’t seem to matter, but I am not convinced that’s how the author meant things to be. It seems more likely the case that where Hansen excels most at conjuring nature and scenery, he’s just less sure-footed when conjuring people.

Still, a largely worthwhile read.

[Alika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like throughout the book, there were several lines that were so brilliant and sparse and beautiful. Usually this occurred during the beginning of sections when describing nature or simple movements. He used words to describe in unique ways that were right on point, not confusing or obscure, just crisp and sharp and clear. [“turns over a great slab of dough that rolls as slowly as a white pig” 4, “A nickel light is just above the horizon” 5, “holding grapes like a half-pound of pearls” 38, “The moonsweep is sliced with ripples” 47, “Fruit trees shift their feet like hired hands” 64, “A yellow thumb of flame” 93, “Chill winds flute through the chimney flues” 111, “pale blossom of steam” 112, “skin like the moon” 120, “flesh-pale skies and pinkish trees without hunters in them” 128, “milky chute of sunlight” 135, “Haystacks have softened into breasts” 145, “gray braid of smoke” 170, etc] I felt like during the whole book I could really see the characters and setting like a film. Feel the coldness, the hardness. The book told you how to read it, I got used to the religious terms after awhile, even if I didn’t know what certain parts of the church were, or what mass was what, I got the gist.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I thought it was interesting that we didn’t see Mariette with the stigmata until halfway into the book, yet after reading it, I felt like it had been going on for quite some time. I appreciated that the truth was left ambiguous. There was definite evidence for both sides of the case. It seemed hard to believe that she could fake it so many times and in the way that she did it, but the note about the priests not trusting her character, her knowledge of science, the bloody vile, her disappearing wounds, they all made the case that it could’ve been a hoax. I feel like it depends on each reader’s personal beliefs on what he/she thinks really happened. In real life, it would be the same, there would never be any complete proof one way or the other. And yet, aside from trying to crack the mystery of whether she was telling the truth or not, I feel the ending paragraph is key to the whole book: “And Christ still sends me roses. We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me.” 179 Those ending words, “surprise me,” were actually surprising to read, seemed to deviate from the tone of the rest of the book in a playful, exciting, secular kind of way. The notion of freedom wasn’t discussed before, it was always about sinning and doing everything for Jesus and offering up pain for those in purgatory, etc. There was so much suffering and sacrifice. So this shift at the end comes as a surprise in a way, although we see the years fly by rapidly in those final pages and Mariette is now an older woman looking back. This is what she’s learned over the years.

[Tom Kopff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a treasure. It is the story of Mariette, a young postulant in the convent of the Sisters of the Crucifixion. Set n 1906, this story has a bit of the feel of visiting a lost world, but on the whole I think it transcends the dated setting. Mariette is a source of controversy as soon as she enters the convent. Is she as saintly as she seems, is she delusional, or is she putting on an act. The sisters are divided, and there is no easy way to determine the truth.

Mr. Hansen is clearly well versed in Catholic spirituality, and treats his subject without over-dramatization. The prose is sparse and wonderful. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

[Rebecca Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry, but this book was just stupid. It turned out the person who recommended it to me hadn't even read it himself. What a tragic waste of time when there are so many worthwhile books out there waiting to be read and so few opportunities to read them!

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is gorgeous and effortless. In a kind of literary pointilism, Hansen builds a convincing portrait of a 1906 monastery of Benedictine women. The house has French/Belgian origins and a strict enclosure. Mariette Baptiste is received by the community as a 17 year-old postulant. She is also the actual sister of the Mother Superior, and Hansen occasionally offers a delicate hint that Mariette's vocation may be, in fact, following her sister's example.

He has a jeweler's eye for community life and the facility of emotions within a religious house (I was a Benedictine monk for four years). But because the style is allusive, once the "plot" gets going it can be heavy going. Is Mariette experiencing religious ecstasy? Is she posing? Can the stigmata be self-inflicted? How is the reader to understand the discord that Mariette's experiences cause within the larger monastic community? Mariette in Ecstasy was ultimately a frustrating read. To be fair to Hansen, he expects the reader to decide. I would have appreciated a bit more help.

But the writing itself is beautiful.

[Raquel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a strange and beautiful little book to which Lauren Groff's "Matrix" is heavily indebted. It traces the life of a small convent in 1906 that is unsettled by a new teenage postulant who exhibits intense faith and receives the miracle of the stigmata.... perhaps. Some nuns faithfully believe it. Some nuns doubt it. Everything in the highly ordered life of the convent is in turmoil. Mariette must be dealt with.

The book's language is highly lyrical and relies on a structure in which life's ordinariness and routines makes up most of the narrative. This is a book meant to show that when nothing much happens, there's a danger in anything happening.

This is not a book for everyone, as it's a story full of subtlety and nuance, but I was absolutely enthralled by it, and I will return to it repeatedly. Very happy to have discovered this talented writer (who is apparently Jesuit-educated and a Catholic deacon, and a lover of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins).

[b (tobias forge's version) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense that I, very much Not a Catholic, would get anything out of a book about a young postulant experiencing stigmata in an early 20th Century convent. And yet, I was drawn in by the image-heavy, poetic prose and the "is she a saint or is she a liar?" drama. It's beautifully written, tense, and brimming with suppressed urges not to be distracted by the beautiful new girl when you just want to be exactly like her and pass her embroidered handkerchiefs you've made and also touch her hair and watch her playact The Song of Songs... Ahem. Maybe it does make sense that I got something out of this, actually.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different kind of novel, this was. Short, cryptic, with short descriptive paragraphs randomly following each other at times. But beautiful in the prose.

In a nutshell, it presents the case of Mariette, a 17-year old postulant for a convent, who seems to be extraordinary in her spiritual fervour. She brings some intense controversy to the convent when she displays the stigmata of Christ. Some think its fraudulent chemistry tricks, as she is a narcissistic manipulator in their eyes. Others see mystical wonder in her and consider her a young saint blessed by God.

I did not sense the author was tilting his hand in one direction or the other and left the reader to decide. So there is some subtlety here and suspense.

Well-researched with lots of insider Christian terminology and names. It feels authentic much of the time. I would have to read it again to draw deeper from it, as I suspect there is more going on than I picked up.