Matrix
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
-
-
4.2 • 27 Ratings
-
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS
AN OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Gorgeous, sensual, addictive' SARA COLLINS
'Brightly lit' NAOMI ALDERMAN
Born from a long line of female warriors and crusaders, yet too coarse for courtly life, Marie de France is cast from the royal court and sent to Angleterre to take up her new duty as the prioress of an impoverished abbey.
Lauren Groff's modern masterpiece is about the establishment of a female utopia.
'A propulsive, captivating read' BRIT BENNETT
'Fascinating, beguiling, vivid' MARIAN KEYES
'A dazzlingly clever tale' THE TIMES
'A thrillingly vivid, adventurous story about women and power that will blow readers' minds. Left me gasping' EMMA DONOGHUE
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The fourth novel from acclaimed author Lauren Groff is a bona fide showstopper: a tempestuous, poetic and endlessly surprising ode to women’s power—divine and otherwise. Matrix crafts a largely fictionalised account of 12th-century French poet Marie de France, cast here as the illegitimate daughter of royalty who is banished to a failing, illness-infested English abbey, where she defies the crown and the pope to lift up her fellow nuns. Groff is an exceptional storyteller. The novel’s magic lies in Marie’s clarion voice and her unwavering, almost fanatical dedication to creating a closed society run entirely by women. We couldn’t get enough of this dizzyingly creative and unabashedly passionate depiction of cloistered life in the Middle Ages.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Groff (Florida) fashions a boldly original narrative based on the life and legend of 12th-century poet Marie de France. After Marie is banished to a poverty-stricken British abbey by Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine at age 17 in 1158, she transforms from a reluctant prioress into an avid abbess. With the rhythm of days and nights regulated by the canonical hours from Lauds to Prime, from Compline to bed, Marie reshapes the claustrophobic community into a "self-sufficient... island of women," where "a woman's power exists only as far as she is allowed." To that end, she confesses a series of 19 beatific visions that guide her in designing an impenetrable underground labyrinth as a secret passageway to the convent, building separate abbess quarters, establishing a scriptorium, and constructing a woman-made lake and dam to insure a constant water supply. Groff fills the novel with friendships among the nuns, inspirational apparitions, and writings empowered by divine inspiration. Transcendent prose and vividly described settings bring to life historic events, from the Crusades to the papal interdict of 1208. Groff has outdone herself with an accomplishment as radiant as Marie's visions.
Customer Reviews
Unlikely choice
4.5 stars
Author
One of Granta magazine’s Best Young American novelists. Recipient of multiple fellowships, prizes, awards, and award nominations. Short fiction and non fiction published in all the right places. Her work has been translated into 30 languages. This is her sixth book of fiction. The previous one, Florida (2018), was a collection of stories that I could take or leave, but I was impressed with her last novel, Fates and Furies (2015).
In brief
Eleanor of Aquitaine, a major historical figure in 12th century Europe. (Queen of both France and England at various times. Look her up.) 17-year-old Marie De France was a member of her court, the illegitimate offspring of someone important, which didn’t count against her as much as being “too coarse and rough hewn” for marriage or life at court. The book is a fictionalised version of what happened after Aunty Ellie dispatched our gal to post-plague England to be prioress of a rundown abbey. The youngster’s not happy, but her good work habits (sorry) see her succeed. She eventually becomes the abess, which is what they called the nun in charge, as distinct from the abyss, or the abscess, as my spell check kept suggesting.
Writing
Ms Groff is a gifted wordsmith with her own distinct style, by which I mean her prose isn’t a clone of that produced by every other American author with an MFA. Her protagonist was fascinating too.
Bottom line
One glance at the blurb and I thought “not for me,” yet less than 20 pages into the on-line sample, I hit ‘buy.’ I do not regret the decision.
Absolutely enthralling.
I loved the Marie, the sisterhood of the wonderful female characters, and the beautiful, thoughtful prose. I devoured it and was sorry to finish it.