The Monk (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

Of course, as everyone will know, many segments of this book are considered by some to be very unpleasant, and I admit that some segments of the book were quite disturbing. But do not let the controversy that shrouds this novel take away from it's brilliance! Firstly, the language of the book is extremely impressive. In the modern day, language is unfortunately overlooked, people preferring to keep it simple and to the point. And so reading this novel opened my eyes to a whole new world of vocabulary, and really showed me the wonders of the English language. As a student studying English at A level, it has benefited me greatly. The story itself, albeit starting rather slowly, ( as I read the rather confusing first chapter I started contemplating putting it down, but luckily decided to carry on )is absolute genius. The exploration of the relationships between characters, and the inner conflicts of certain characters ( particularly Ambrosio himself ) were a delight to read. The book seems to me an exploration of the conflict between good and evil, and how keeping a darker side suppressed for too long can end in disasters and tragedies. The greatest surprise for me, as someone expecting an entire novel of darkness and despair, was the pleasant epilogue to the lives of Agnes and Don Raymond. It seems that even after horrendous atrocities, and indescribable sufferings, there is still happiness that can be found, which I thought was beautiful. Of course, do not take this to mean that the book is full of smiles and happy endings! But if you are to read it for anything, read it for it's encapsulating story and Mathew Lewis' confident, amazing grasp of the English language. A true masterpiece!

The Monk is perhaps the most significant and certainly the most controversial of the Gothic novels of the late 18th century. Amazingly, its author, nineteen-year-old Matthew Lewis, wrote the novel in a period of only six weeks. Although inspired by the work of Ann Radcliffe (among other Gothic writers), Lewis goes far beyond the sensibilities of his predecessors and does not choose to explain away the supernatural events fuelling this inflammatory novel. The Monk is a tale of human evil in its most vile form; the unspeakable acts described in these pages are committed by the supposedly most devout individuals in society. The Catholic Church was incensed with the novel's publication, and it is actually quite remarkable that The Monk was published at all and that its author faced nothing more dire than censorship and indignant protest as a consequence of it.

Ambrosio is the most celebrated, revered monk in Madrid (in the era of the infamous Spanish Inquisition)-his sermons attract crowds far too large to gain admittance to the sanctuary, and everyone holds him up as a veritable saint walking the earth. His fall from grace is precipitous indeed. Secretly, Ambrosio is vain and proud, blissfully assured of his own near-perfection. At the first temptation of lust, however, this holy man reveals himself to be the ultimate hypocrite, giving in rather easily to the type of desire he rails against each Sunday. After learning that his friend Rosario is in fact a lovely woman in disguise named Matilda, he revels in the love she declares for him and quickly becomes her secret lover. Quickly and ever more thoroughly consumed by his new-found passion and carnal lasciviousness, he grows tired of the ever-willing Matilda and turns his perverted eye toward the sweet and wholly innocent young Antonia. Through the witchcraft of Matilda, he comes to consort with demons in the sacred crypts underneath the abbey itself, giving up his morality and piety in the blind pursuit of actions worse than mere rape.

Ambrosio is not the only hypocritical, secretly sinful church official in Madrid, however. The prioress of the convent bordering the abbey is a sickeningly cruel and spiteful agent of perfidy herself. When she discovers that Agnes, one of her novitiates, is pregnant, she is so mortified at the impending shame this fact will bring down upon her and the convent that she resorts to the most barbaric of punishments for the poor and pitiable young lady. While her crimes do not quite exceed those of Ambrosio, the devastating consequences of her sinful acts result in long-lasting, deeply grievous repercussions. Justice is not blind in the end to such willful violators of God's laws.

The novel takes a while to really come together. After seeing Ambrosio in his publicly sanctimonious guise and watching his pitiful descent into the passions and lusts inspired by Matilda, we spend a great deal of time becoming acquainted with Antonia, Agnes, and the gentlemen who love them and will eventually fight bravely to try and save them both physically and morally from their sad fates. The story of the Bleeding Nun apparition is an important part of this section of the book and gives the reader his first real introduction to the supernatural aspects of the story. It is almost possible to forget about Ambrosio completely for a time; when he returns to the story, however, he commits unspeakable acts and profanes the very name of the God he supposedly serves in such excess that he earns a permanent spot in the annals of literature's most despicable villains.

It is in the crypts, among the moldering corpses of the dead, that the most blasphemous acts take place. Antonia's fate is quite horrible, but it is actually Agnes' tale of woe that takes the reader to the most horrific of extremes. Just when the worst seems to be over, we learn in graphic detail the almost unimaginable extent of the ordeal suffered by Agnes and her innocent child-the tale is quite gruesome even by today's standards, almost unimaginably so by those of Lewis' own time. The suffering of the innocent Agnes and Antonia is, in my opinion, unparalleled in the realm of Gothic horror.

Even some critics who are less than found of the Gothic horror genre have embraced this novel, partly because it does distinguish itself from the more Romantic writings of an author such as Ann Radcliffe. As such, it seems less pretentious and much more visceral than the typical Gothic tome. Lewis holds nothing back in presenting his portrayal of evil in the hearts of men and women. There is a love story aspect to the events surrounding Agnes and Antonia, but the author does not indulge in flowery descriptions of love, nor does he concern himself with rapturous expositions on the beauty of nature. There is very little of beauty to be found in these pages at all, and what innocence exists is ultimately lost at the hands of corrupted servants of God. With such complexity underlying the plot, The Monk is open to a number of interpretations, and its microscopic portrayal of evil's power to overcome the best of men and women continues to fascinate and leave a lasting impression on one generation of readers after another. Even in our own time, The Monk is more than capable of shocking the reader with its unbridled revelations.

This review is of the Oxford World's Classics edition of Matthew Lewis's one-hit wonder of a novel, "The Monk", although Lewis did go on to be a very successful playwright. Written in 1794 when he was only nineteen years' old, Lewis may have predicted the storm of outrage that his novel would initiate, when he wrote almost halfway through it, "To enter the lists of literature is wilfully to expose yourself to the arrows of neglect, ridicule, envy, and disappointment. Whether you write well or ill, be assured that you will not escape from blame; ..."

After reading Ann Radcliffe's long and somewhat ponderous, but admittedly well-written and dreamy "Mysteries of Udolpho", "The Monk" brought a breath of fresh air into my experience of reading late-eighteenth century gothic novels. Lewis's short and brisk sentences aid quickness of thought and action, and there is often no time to sit and take in the air before the reader is taken off to the next scene in this saga of blasphemy, incest, rape, and murder. Or, as Emma McEvoy of London University puts it in her introduction, Lewis's book is "a work which enjoys short climaxes, rather than long anticipation." This is probably why he went on to write such popular plays.

But whereas Radcliffe in her work would ultimately find rational explanations for all the supposed causes of fear and suspicion, Lewis revels in the truth of the supernatural. The novel is replete with dark and sinister designs and dealing with spirits is the route for their fulfilment. This is tolerable for the reader because the tale is set within the unreal milieu of the gothic drama - and, of course, setting it in the context of deeply-catholic, old-world Spain also helps!

I thought I knew how the novel would pan out and end from clues hidden within the very first chapters, with hints given about the mysterious family background of the monk and with details dropped in conversation in the church about the family history of Elvira. But I was both right and wrong, and without giving the plot away I cannot elaborate any further. But at what the opening scene does not hint is the long meandering journey taken to reach the end, nor at the excesses experienced along the way. There are some stories within stories within stories, when we hear of the legend of the Bleeding Nun, as the action shifts to Germany from the hot and humid streets of Madrid. I say `hot and humid', but there is very little descriptive element to the novel; more is focussed on the action and plot.

There are some factual errors in the writing. Lewis was clearly unaware of differences between monks and friars, for example, or if he did know, he did not care too much. Equally there are some narrative problems too: for example, one moment Matilda (impersonating a male novice) is lying in her/his cell on her/his deathbed in the monastery in front of monks who are praying for her delivery from death, and the next Matilda's golden hair is "pouring itself" over her lover's chest. She must have had a voluminous cowl to hide all that hair!

There is a certain laddish humour in the writing: for instance, "She was wise enough to hold her tongue. As this is the only instance known of a woman's ever having done so, it was judged worthy to be recorded here." And Lorenzo de Medina, Don Christoval and Raymond de las Cisternas are all young blades about town, with an eye for a pretty woman.

In her introduction, Emma McEvoy explains how novels at the time were supposed to inculcate virtue, not vice, but that some contemporary reviewers ignored morality altogether and just praised it as a good read. She mentions that the owner of a circulating library " `underscored all the naughty passages' so that her young female readers would know which parts to avoid." She goes on to explain Lewis's background and how his novel fits the conventions of the gothic form, except that "It seems as if Lewis is determined to wreak vengeance on the unbelievably virtuous characters of other novelists."

This edition includes the usual standard extras that one comes to expect from Oxford World's Classics: the note on the text, the select bibliography, a chronology of the author, and explanatory notes. Some of these latter, however, are a little odd: "Knight of Mount (A)Etna" (p.26) would seem quite self-explanatory; "natural philosophy" (p.267) was the contemporary term for science rather then alchemy; and, yes, I think we worked out for ourselves that the "Grand Inquisitor" (p.422) would be "the official who presided at the Inquisition."

As with all reprints of classic works of literature, I recommend that the so-called introduction (which is really more of a commentary) is best read after the novel.