- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (26 July 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140108165
- ISBN-13: 978-0140108163
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 23,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Fludd
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Product Description
Review
‘“Fludd” is a funny, exquisitely written story of priests and nuns in fifties England, but it is also a questioning, intellectual book that applies a profound thoughtfulness to various abtruse areas of religious (or supernatural) belief … A faultless comic masterpiece.’ Literary Review
‘Good morality tales are unusual; but rarer still are books that genuinely make you laugh out loud.’ Spectator
‘Hilary Mantel brings together the miraculous and mundane, the dreadful and the ridiculous in a novel of imagination and skill.’ Financial Times
‘In “Fludd”, Mantel draws on her own imagination, inventing a dark universe which works to laws of her own making. The effect is dazzling, and establishes her in the front ranks of novelists writing in English today.’ Guardian
‘An excellent and ambitious novel.’ Sunday Times
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.Product Description
What happened to Lazarus after he was raised from the dead? Did he have a happy life? This is the kind of problem which besets Fludd, who impersonates a Roman Catholic priest, and it soon becomes clear to Father Angwin that this new assistant has strange powers and attributes.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 46 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The doleful, English, mill town of Fetherhoughton is the stage for this short, delightful novel, FLUDD, by Hilary Mantel. There are four principal players. Father Angwin, pastor of the Roman Catholic church of St. Thomas Aquinas, has lost his belief in God's existence, but determinedly continues to serve his flock while suffering the oversight of his idiot diocesan bishop. Miss Dempsey, his spinster housekeeper, lives in terror of a small wart above her upper lip, thinking it a portent of cancer. Sister Philomena, a nun teaching in the parish school, is an Irish girl forced by her family into the convent, where she endures the petty tyranny of its Mother Superior. Then there's FLUDD, a curate ostensibly sent by the obnoxious bishop to help Angwin modernize his pastoral approach. Or is he? Once Fludd is in residence, people begin to, um, transform.
The engaging aspect of this story is that the reader never understands the nature of the being called Fludd, a mystery also grazing Angwin's perception during his first meal with Fludd, when the former observed:
"Whenever (he) looked up at (Fludd), it seemed that his whiskey glass was raised to his lips, but the level of what was in it did not seem to go down; and yet from time to time the young man reached out for the bottle, and topped himself up. It had been the same with their late dinner, there were three sausages on Father Fludd's plate, and he was always cutting into one or other, and spearing a bit on his fork; he was always chewing in an unobtrusive, polite way, with his mouth shut tight. And yet there were always three sausages on his plate, until at last, quite suddenly, there were none."
Is Fludd a man, or something else. He can tell fortunes by looking at the palm of one's hand. He alludes to having once been the practitioner of another profession that sounds a lot like alchemy. Odd talents for a Catholic priest. In any case, by the satisfying end of the tale, you, the reader, is left to decide for yourself - if you can.
38 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I love Mantel. And can't believe her books aren't better known. Her work is complex, and unlike anyone else I have read, she seems to embody the skills and stories of four or five different authors. Her books cross continents and eras, her writing veering from brutally real to entirely magical. Fludd is the shortest and one of her most likeable reads. The Yorkshire town, the smell of a fusty 1950's school gym, the fear of the unknown, the superstition of Christianity and the allusion to alchemy are all intertwined and beautifully evoked in this gem of a book.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The story is set in a small Yorkshire village dominated by the Roman Catholic Church and Convent. It is set in the 1950's, but often sounds like a different era entirely. The priest lives with his idiosyncratic house-keeper in what could be the fore-runner for the Father Ted series. A non-believer comforted by whiskey, he is going through the motions with great diligence; while muttering rude replies in response to the bishop's pleas to modernise.
The nuns are equally bound up in their fierce world - it seems hard to imagine any of the characters could be effectual enough to bring anything about. Yet things do mysteriously happen when Fludd appears - taken for the young curate the bishop has threatened. His ingratiating ways not only bring him acceptance on all fronts but set him up to act as a catalyst to wreak havoc!
As much of the arguments are fought on ecclesiastical terms (often obscure) and the goings-on of a super-natural nature, it is not always easy to say exactly what is happening or why. There is certainly an other-worldly feel to proceedings.
However, the book is enormously intelligent and enormously funny. And that is all you really need to know!
The nuns are equally bound up in their fierce world - it seems hard to imagine any of the characters could be effectual enough to bring anything about. Yet things do mysteriously happen when Fludd appears - taken for the young curate the bishop has threatened. His ingratiating ways not only bring him acceptance on all fronts but set him up to act as a catalyst to wreak havoc!
As much of the arguments are fought on ecclesiastical terms (often obscure) and the goings-on of a super-natural nature, it is not always easy to say exactly what is happening or why. There is certainly an other-worldly feel to proceedings.
However, the book is enormously intelligent and enormously funny. And that is all you really need to know!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I didn't realise that Hilary Mantel did comedy!
My first experience of Hilary Mantel's writing, was reading Wolf Hall and I therefore assumed that she only wrote historical novels so I was delighted to read Fludd. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Neferra
Perfection
A brilliant book. I never tire of it. Entertaining, well-observed (particularly pertinent to those with a northern upbringing). Funny. Ms Mantel is an absolute inspiration.
Published 5 months ago by AL
A Little Gem
Hilary Mantel never disappoints me. Her books are so different and all are well written with good strong characters and story lines. Fludd is no exception. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Kindler
mmm... not a total dud but..
I was disappointed having come to this after reading "Wolf Hall" I think I would have found it much more amusing and original if I had read this when it was first published. Read more
Published 7 months ago by EMB
Darkly comic
This is the second Hilary Mantel book I have read; the first being A Place of Greater Safety. Fludd is much more concise, the storyline follows a traditional path (A Place of... Read more
Published 9 months ago by C. Mitchell
overpriced on KIndle
I won't buy this on Kindle when the paperback is cheaper. This is outrageous profiteering by the publisher. I'll buy it secondhand or get it from a library instead.
Published 12 months ago by Mary Plain
Atmospheric
This is the second book by Hilary Mantel that I have read, the first being Beyond Black. As before, I was drawn to the book not only because of the author but because of the... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Loobiloo
Mantel magic
The only other Mantel I have read is Beyond Black which was written some fifteen years after Fludd so I was a little concerned that her writing would not be as mature and fluid in... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Feline
Dud?
I read this one after really enjoying Mantel's Wolf Hall (and very much looking forward to the sequel), but it was a struggle. Read more
Published on 2 Jun 2010 by Swindon Ian
From the back cover...
TIME OUT: "Set in the fictitious village of Fetherhoughton, buried in the northern moorland,
Mantel's cleverly absorbing novel centres on the sheltered community's... Read more
Mantel's cleverly absorbing novel centres on the sheltered community's... Read more
Published on 2 July 2007 by Angel Silver
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