A Stolen Tongue

by Sheri Holman

It is 1483. Father Felix Fabri has set sail from Germany to Mount Sinai on a pilgrimage to venerate the relics of the spiritual bride he took when he first swore his vows, the martyr Saint Katherine of Alexandria. Joined by a disturbed young woman who claims that Saint Katherine speaks through her, and her older brother whose intentions are never clear, Felix soon finds his expectations for a pure and holy journey crushed.

Following a tempestuous sea voyage, Felix's group comes ashore to pay homage and celebrate Katherine's life in Greece and Palestine. Each time they come to worship, though, they find that the remains of Katherine's body are being stolen in bits and pieces; her hand, her ear, and then her tongue are missing from their holy resting places.

Desperate to discover the thief and save his saint from such a brutal fate, Felix is thrust into a deep and strange mystery that takes him across the desert and plumbs the depths of his soul. Based on the historical Wanderings of Friar Felix Fabri, this suspenseful and thrilling novel is an irresistible look at how history resonates in the present landscape, and how heaven, through the follies and passions of men, constantly reinvents itself.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Mystery, 15th Century, Fantasy, Mystery Thriller

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Sheri Holman graduated from The College of William and Mary in 1988, mastering in Theatre. From there, she became an assistant to a literary agent. In that time, she began to write her first novel, A Stolen Tongue. It was published in 1996. She then went on to write "The Dress Lodger," which was published in 1999. Sheri Holman also wrote "Sondok, Princess of the Moon and Stars," which was published in 2002; and "Mammoth Cheese," which published in 2003. Sheri Holman now lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family.

Reviews

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review forthcoming (maybe w/ pictures, if I can find a good one of Saint Catherine).
_____________________________________

I have now read Sheri Holman's entire oeuvre (as of June 2011) and can say that she remains one of my favorite authors. This, her first novel, is also my favorite among the four she's written so far. I suspect that's because of its medieval milieu; by interest and education, the Middle Ages is my historical era.

The narrator, Felix Fabri, is a historical figure - a German monk from Ulm who wrote of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land and surrounds in Fratris Felicis Fabri Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti peregrinatoniem , in 3 volumes. In Holman's hands, Felix comes alive as a living, breathing man. As she managed for the 19th century in The Dress Lodger, so Holman manages here - putting you into 15th century Europe and the Middle East. None of her characters think or act like transplanted 21st century people yet Felix's crisis of faith will be familiar to most.

There are moments where your skin crawls with sympathetic lice and fleas:

"Seven ladderlike steps lead downstairs to the fetid, cavernous pilgrims' deck. All along the floor, in even rectangles, we chalk off our berths, side by side, with the ship's curving wall as our headboard and our trunks, placed toward the ship's center, serving as footboards. Only the Homesick stay belowdecks out of choice, and it depresses me even more to move among them. They love the dark, rotting wood that blocks this foreign sun and magnifies what few familiar Western smells remain: smoke and European piss, beer sweat, pine pitch. When the rest of us roll up our mattresses in the morning and suspend them from the rafters, the Homesick turn over and imagine their wives' hair on the pillow next to them, or the smell of their pet roosters' feathers on the windowsill, or the sound only their dog makes when his paws skid in frosty winter horse manure. They tell each other long detailed stories about their backyard cabbage gardens and their children's agues, but rarely listen to anyone's but their own."

The story is told from Felix's POV as he maintains a travel diary for his brothers in the monastery. He journeys to Jerusalem and Mt. Sinai as the confessor of Lord Tucher and his son, Ursus. His other companions are John Lazinus, a Hungarian archdeacon, and Conrad, a fellow German and barber (which, as anyone familiar with medieval history understands means "surgeon" as well).

Felix is a devotee of the cult of St. Catherine of Alexandria*, who was struck from the Roman Church's Calendar of Saints in 1969 because there's no evidence that she actually existed (likely she's a Christianization of the Hypatia of Alexandria legend). Such doubts did not exist in 1483, however, and Felix has been visiting Catherine's shrines along the pilgrimage route. In Cyprus, he finds that someone has stolen her relic, and - as he progresses - he realizes that someone is stealing all of Catherine's relics. The chief suspect is Arsinoe, a disturbed young woman who has been channeling Catherine since she was a child and is known as "St. Katherine's Tongue," in consequence (many times Felix simply refers to her as "the Tongue"). She is pursued by her brother, Niccolo, whose motives are by no means pure. Despite both men's efforts, Arsinoe is always one step ahead of them. The novel's climax comes at St. Catherine's monastery on Mt. Sinai, where the saint's body was miraculously translated after her murder at the hands of the Roman Emperor Maxentius.

The ending is somewhat bleaker than those of Holman's later work. Felix's symbolic marriage to Catherine is shattered and his faith sorely tested. As he writes: "We are only happy in ruin, brothers, for only then can we be sure we have nothing to lose" and the book ends with this passage from Isaiah:

"We grope for the wall like the blind,
and we grope as if we had no eyes:
we stumble at noon as in the night,
we are in desolate places as dead men.
We roar like bears, and
mourn sore like doves: We
look for judgment, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far off from us."

Highly recommended, as are all of Holman's works.

* NB: St. Catherine is the St. Katherine of Gene Wolf's The Shadow of the Torturer, patron of the Guild of Torturers.

** And here's the promised picture. I chose Caravaggio's because it was the most attractive in my opinion. Be assured you can find a wealth of other examples to choose from:

[Snow White · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this book up because I loved The Dress Lodger so much. Unfortunately, I couldn't get through this one. I didn't recognise Holman's writing at all. It was just too dense and incoherent, and lacked the power to really convey the scenes. I had a hard time picturing what was going on; the filmic effect which I normally get from books I like, was completely absent . Often I found myself surprised as to the location or physical pose of the characters, having thought they were sitting down rather than standing up, inside rather than out on the street etc. Perhaps it was because of the narrator, a fifteenth' century monk. Shame, because the concept in itself was very original.

[Bryn Greenwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This made for a very interesting train trip read. A small cast & linear plot made for easy stop & start reading. I enjoyed the prose & the characterization, especially in terms of making the main character a man of his time & religious convictions. That said, the ending was depressing as shit. Sooo ... I warned you.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, with its fascinating and unexpected subject matter, and its gorgeous, evocative writing style, creates and strong emotional impact, building up to a climax and conclusion of startling intensity. It chronicles the pilgrimage of Friar Felix Fabri, who has been spiritually 'wed' to Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and, writing through his eyes, author Sheri Holman skillfully describes the intricacies of Felix, his incredibly interesting fellow travellers, their very humans emotions and decisions, and the drastically different perspectives on Medieval religion that bring them all together. The real power of the book comes in the empathetic and balanced portrayal of religious beliefs that Holman gives us, the writer's magic of understanding without either condoning or passing judgment.

[Logophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know anyone to whom I could recommend this book, but it has stayed with me years after reading it. It's possibly the most repellent book on my all-time favorites list. It's grotesque, compelling, and quite unlike anything I've ever read. The plot involves a monk devoted to St. Catherine of Alexandria, his patron, a sinister translator, a young woman who is either a lunatic or a saint, a medieval pilgrimage, and holy relics including the titular tongue.

[Venetia Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flicking through previous reviews, it seems readers either love this book or loathe it, with a constant see-saw between the extremes of 2 and 5 stars. I'm on the love it end, although not unconditionally.
Holman manages to borrow Felix Fabri's 'tongue' fantastically well. She creates an utterly unique narrator, one capable of translating us readers uncomfortably back into the mentality of late medieval saint veneration. Ever seen a relic, boys and girls? A brownish, crumbling bone housed in gorgeous crystal and gilt, adored by those who desire a miracle or communion with the divine. It's a weird, macabre headspace, and Holman dumps us directly in it. Correspondingly, the book is chock-full of deep reflections and insights, at times distinctly twisted. I loved the way Holman takes a genuine historical record of pilgrimage and radically reimagines it.
Less positively, I was irritated by the character of Ursus Tucher, a 14 year old who was continually made to act and sound like a 9 year old. Then there were some to my mind unnecessarily grotesque elements, particularly in the last quarter of the book. (No spoilers here.) Lastly some of the other secondary characters were more caricature than believable 'human beings'. But maybe, in the spirit of medieval allegory, that was the point.
Highly recommended for those not squeamish and desirous of immersion in a delusional medieval mindset.

[Jamie Collins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this because I loved Holman’s novel The Dress Lodger. The prose here is just as beautiful and vivid (and not for the squeamish) and I enjoyed some parts of the book, but I did not like the actual plot very much. It was too surreal for my taste.

This is a fictional account of the pilgrimage of a 15th century German friar, Felix Fabri. I enjoyed the details of his voyage to the Holy Land, especially the excerpts which the author took directly from a translation of his account, such as the “Rule for Pilgrimage” which cautions against antagonizing the local Saracens and forbids chipping off fragments from the Holy Sepulchre; and the Five Reasons why the Sacrament of Eucharist may not be celebrated on board a ship, which include the potential for the Host to get moldly or be vomited up by a seasick traveler.

As for the plot, well. Someone is stealing bits of the martyr St. Katherine from her scattered reliquaries. There’s a girl who might be channeling Katherine or who might just be crazy. There’s her brother, who might be evil or who might be trying to save his crazy sister. Felix does not know what to believe, and is in danger of losing his sustaining faith (bordering on obsession) in St. Katherine. I found it all weird and unsatisfying.

[Jennifer Sigman · Rating 1 out of 5]

The idea of the monk "marrying" the saint was so odd, and so different from anything else I had ever seen, that after 100 pages of the narrating character acting like an idiot about it I did a quick bit of research. In nothing I found, and in nothing I've read before, did the Dominican monks "marry" like the nuns did.

At which point I stopped reading.

[Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holman put me under a spell with this mystery about Catholic saint relics going missing in the 15th century. The unique voice of Father Felix Fabri -- a Dominican monk of Germany who is more obsessed with his "spiritual wife," Saint Katherine, than he is devout in the religion he represents -- and his pilgrimage to the Holy Land kept me reading into the evening, a time when most other books put me to sleep.

The real fun in this book is how Holman hovers on the line between curious happenstance and true, miraculous, higher-power-intervention. She keeps you guessing about how she will ultimately ground her story. Felix constantly turns in his mind whether events are playing out through Saint Katherine's will, God's, or perhaps no one's, if a secular "New Age of Man" is truly upon him.

If you're in the mood for a historical-fiction thriller that is more about character, point-of-view, and beautiful description than it is about cheap tricks or "gotcha" moments, I can't recommend A Stolen Tongue more highly.

p.s. I happened upon this book at a hiking hostel in Tennessee while hiking on the Appalachian Trail, and boy, I'm glad I did, moldy pages and all :D

[Monica]

So far so very good. If you know me, I suppose the fact that a book about Christian pilgrims in the 15th century as told from the perspective of a priest with a hardcore obsession with relics of Saint Katherine of Alexandria, all trying to get to Sinai by boat and then land, combined with a whodunnit kind of page turner mystery attracted me is not a surprise. The author has a sly kind of writing, and knows how to turn a phrase. Trying to read slow to savor it, but having trouble putting it down. Dense, odd, tough, funny, and clever. So far, it is a most fine $1 book bin score!

[bup · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished this one - it's intense, and a little dense (well, dense for my exercise reading), but has a great surreal, satisfying ending.

Plus, apparently the narrator, Friar Felix Fabri, was a real guy, so I feel edified.

Besides historical fiction, this author has also written a novel set in her own breeding ground of Virginia (The Mammoth Cheese), which I need to read - I know from Virginia, and I miss it too.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just re-read this and it's still a wild, funny and twisted caper. With lines such as, "Like a fart in the chapel, Ursus follows" (Ursus is a character's name, p. 74), Holman's brilliance shines. It's a 15th-century pilgrimage to the Holy Land told from the POV of a monk obsessed with his spiritual 'wife,' St. Katherine of Alexandria. His love, faith, life, and sense of self is put through the wood-chipper. Lots of unexpected plot twists and insightful gems.

[Madly Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A man (true life character) takes a wild fevered trip to the Holy Land and his life will never be the same. One of my favorite books of all time. It changed my life in some ways. For I finally understood the nature of the modern world through the madness of the medieval. Don't ask.

[Annalisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging historical drama/mystery. One is drawn into the lives and thought processes of martyrs and relic hunters from the early centuries of the Christian religion. There is a shocking ending....

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 stars)
This novel is set in 1483 and concerns Felix Fabri, a German monk, and his pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai. He has an intense spiritual relationship with St. Catherine and wishes to see her final resting place and repository of her major relics. Felix was a real person who did go on pilgrimage and wrote about it, and Holman uses him and his journey as the jumping off point for her story. Felix undertakes his journey under the aegis of the merchant John Tucher and his son Ursus, and in the company of John Lazinus, a Hungarian cleric. In the Mediterranean, Felix and his companions meet Arsinoe, a pilgrim who claims to be something of a medium for Catherine, and her brother Niccolo, who pursues her for shadowy motives of his own. As their paths cross and re-cross amid the trials of pilgrimage and things get stranger and stranger, Felix finds his faith tested and changed.
A Stolen Tongue is a tragic exploration of people's relationship to saint and sainthood, and the dangers of mysticism coupled with religious fervor. Felix finds his spiritual path as treacherous and obscure as the path of his pilgrimage. I liked the way Holman portrays medieval pilgrimage as much less glorious and holy, both physically and spiritually, than the pilgrims themselves imagine. The realities of traversing a foreign land in search of holiness have a very different effect on the characters than they assumed, and often to no good end. It's not a cheerful story, but it is a fascinating one.

[D.P. Hanson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Felix Fabri is intelligent, perceptive and above all devout.  His devoutness is expressed most passionately in his pursuit of St. Katherine.  He speaks of her as his wife, comparing his union with her to that of a nun taking Jesus as her husband.  He gets jealous when she seems to favor his friend.  The relics of her body are to be worshipped and protected.  They are the physical representation of her saintliness but also a connection to her immortal being, in all its own glory and in its relation to God.  His adoration of her is the impetus of his pilgrimage.


Felix' devoutness is also shown by his scholarly knowledge not only of Christian scripture and Church dogma, but of Greek mythology and the Alkoran (Koran) as well.  He has been a faithful student.


Felix is not a zealot.  His devoutness never leads him into cruelty or violence.  Still he is full of prejudice, ready to condemn non-Christians as his Church has taught him God has.


…


Having finished the book now I find myself of two minds about it.


I was captivated by Felix' character and worldview, by the portrayal of life on the ship, the pilgrims in Jerusalem and the trip through the desert.  But the brother and sister whose opposing forms of madness drive the plot were not convincing to me.


Overall I am glad I read the book.  I plan to see what this author gets up to next.

[Nina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a recommendation from Frank McCourt (one of my favorite authors) and a promotional blurb said it recalls the writings of Umberto Eco (whose books I’ve both loved or been bored by), so I was disappointed that reading this was something of a slog.

A Dominican friar escorts some pilgrims to the Holy Land and Mt. Sinai in 1483. He wants to visit where his “wife” (a dead saint he “married” when he entered holy orders) was supposedly found by a hermit many years before. As was the custom, her body was cut into pieces in order to sell the relics. The friar is visiting each of the body parts in Greece and Palestine as part of this pilgrimage, but someone is steadily stealing all the parts. The writing was wordy, overly-descriptive, and tried too hard to gag the reader on the stench, thirst, starvation, lice, disease of the typical middle east trip of the 15th century. The author seemed to revel in describing misery. I got weary of the endless bad decisions that kept sinking the journey. This was supposed to be a deep mystery, but I did not find it to be such. I was amused by the friar entering a store that sold relics to find that "The jar of Christ’s foreskins sits alphabetically next to the stack of girdles dropped from Heaven by the Virgin Mary. Boxes of fingers sit next to caskets of hands, and toes go with feet.” Ah, the gullible.

[Rev. M. M. Walters · Rating 2 out of 5]

The quest by a Swabian Dominican Friar for the relics of St. Catherine of Alexandria has some interesting moments, but that is all they are: moments. The story is too convoluted to follow at times with a shifting set of characters whose allegiance we never quite know. Friar Felix, the narrator, has a strange relationship with St. Catherine whom he refers to as his wife. Spiritual relationships are one thing, but this seems to be over the top. Since this is Holman's first novel, one can only hope that she got better with practice.

[Riq Hoelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

15th-century journey from Italy to Jerusalem and the Sinai.
I'm not entirely sure that this fictional recounting of a pilgrimage led by the German monk Felix Fabri really counts as a mystery. There is suspense and uncertainty, but certainly no conscious "detection". The depiction of the period works well, although some may feel it veers unnecessarily to a modern vogue for the grotesque. Some of the characters and therefore the resolution may leave something to be desired for some readers.

[Elisa M · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4 because: possibly the most unusual plot and POV I have ever read! I can honestly say that I will not have the opportunity to get inside the head of a 15th century monk again.
How to describe this book? Anxiety provoking from the first. (Why would I think it a good idea to read about a ship going down in a storm?! Horrifying. And then that desert trek...also terrible.) Confusing at times. But undeniably interesting.

[Sherry Schwabacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Holman's The Dress Lodger, so wanted to read more from her. I can't believe this was her first book. I was drawn in so thoroughly, each pilgrim became so real to me. Not ready to write more about this poetic and complex book. Suffice to say, one of the best this year - one of the best any year.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a strange story. Hard to tell how much is fact and how much is fiction. Some parts very interesting. Other sections seem to drag on forever, which maybe is why it took me two months to finish.

[angus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t sing this book’s praises loudly or eloquently enough to ever do it the full justice it so richly deserves. The attention and love Holman has brought to these characters and this story are without parallel. Masterpiece.

[Kristin Schmidt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting enough, but it didn't really come alive for me. Maybe I just can't relate to religious fanatics.

[Josiah Solis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing, if nothing else!

[Siv30 · Rating 1 out of 5]

על פי הכריכה האחורית - רומן מיסתורין היסטורי מקורי המבוסס על יומני מסעות של נזיר מהמאה ה-15. ב- 1483 מפליג הנזיר פליקס פרברי מגרמניה להר סיני במסע שתכליתו סגידה לעצמותיה של כלתו הרוחנית - הקדושה המעונה קתרינה מאלכסנדריה. עוד על פי הכריכה האחורית "רומן מלהיב ומותח זה מציג מבט מרתק על השתקפויות העבר בנוף ההווה ועל סכלותם של בני האדם ותשוקותיהם". התחלתי לקרוא והגעתי עד עמוד 100 ונשברה רוחי. "סכלותם של בני האדם"? הנזיר הוזה שהנזירה מדברת אליו בחלומו, הוא פונה אליה בשם אישתי ומדבר עליה בגוף שלישי כאילו היא חייה והיא בעלת רצונות, מאוואים ותשוקות משלה. הוא נמצא במרדף אחר שרידיה המעונים שפוזרו ביבשת אירופה ולא מוצא ולו חלק אחד. הדבר המדהים הוא, שהנזיר מאמין באמת ובתמים שהוא בעקבות איבריה ושרידיה של אותה הנזירה למרות שלכל בר דעת ישר עולה השאלה כיצד הוא יכול למצוא לדוגמא את הלשון או האוזן של הנזירה? למרות שהרומן מבוסס על יומן מסעותיו של הנזיר, הסיפור הוא פרי המצאתה של המחברת הולמן, שמגישה לקורא יצירה הזויה, בה הדמות המרכזית אינה מחוברת לעצמה, אינה אוטנטית ואינה מדברת לקורא. לצערי גם יתר הדמויות שמלוות את הנזיר במסעותיו אינן אמינות ואינן יוצרות את הלכידות הנדרשת על מנת שהקורא ירצה (לפחות אצלי כך זה היה) להמשיך ולקרוא את הסיפור, בכדי לגלות מה עלה בגורלם של שרידיה של קתרינה הקדושה. לא מומלץ לקריאה.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book! It is a fictional story about Friar Felix Fabri, who was a real person in the 1400s. This story about a brutal religious pilgrimage that ends up severely testing his faith. He is obsessed with Saint Katherine and is visiting the remnants of her body which are spread throughout the world, and finds that someone has been stealing the relics of St. Katherine. I like the way it's written: like a diary, and a lot of the action seems slow, but it stays interesting and kept me reading pretty fast. The style is reminiscient of "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good for a first novel -- well written -- but sort of a weird story -- in 1483, a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and then on to Mt Sinai -- too many deaths due to hardship and murder -- a "crazy" woman and her brother, popping up in various places -- maybe the brother is crazy -- relics of Saint Katherine, her bones missing and turning up again -- one relic is her tongue (one was her ear) -- much superstition, many saracens and arabs -- good and bad people -- i know it's not one that I will read again.

[Pascale · Rating 1 out of 5]

For the first few chapters, I was quite taken with the unusual setting (a ship full of pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land), but once the novelty effect wears off, this book becomes unutterably boring. A small set of bizarre characters chase each other like maniacs through Jerusalem and the Sinai, all in the name of reclaiming the bones of Saint Katherine of Alexandria, but each episode is just more of the same, and it turns out there is no method to the madness, and in fact, no semblance of a plot. I can't imagine how this drivel found a publisher in the first place.

[Debby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this book, after the first 100 pages I decided to move on. But here are a few sentences I appreciated:

"My brother often spoke of his fellow students this way-as men kindled by books but never ignited by them. These converted scholars are as indistinguishable from one another as fifty popped mustard seeds."