Lent: Big twist makes for a powerful exploration of deep themes

Lent by Jo Walton

Jo Walton writes truly thoughtful books, as anyone who has read her THESSALY TRILOGY (The Just City, The Philosopher Kings, Necessity) knows. She’s also, those fans also know, a big fan of Renaissance Italy, particularly Florence. So it comes as no surprise to find this the setting for her newest novel, Lent (2019), which wrestles in the same thought-provoking manner major issues, though here those issues are more personal and intimate, even as they also encompass larger political and philosophical concepts and consequences.

The first half (or nearly so) of the novel reads like a magical realism history of the famous (or perhaps notorious) Dominican Savonarola. If you know anything about Savonarola, it’s probably his oversight of the Bonfire of the Vanities, though that event earns barely a few pages here as Walton both broadens and deepens our view of the man, delving deep into his aching desire to make Florence the “City of God,” a new “ark” as he styles it, to ride out the coming storm God has vouchsafed to him. That ability to prophesize, as well as his gift to both see and banish demons, is the one fantastical “twist” in the early part of Lent. His desire to cleanse both the city and his own Dominican chapter of spiritual and political corruption is welcomed by some and not so much by others, including powerful figures in the Borgia and Medici families who hold positions such as Pope or heir to rulership of Florence.

Jo Walton

One tools along in these first 170 pages of a historical novel quite happily, if perhaps a bit befuddled at its fantasy classification, despite the occasional demon. But then, at nearly the half point, a major plot twist occurs, the details of which I’m not going to spoil here for the reader. But I will say that the twist then turns the rest of the novel into a series of iterations on a life, sort of a mash-up of Groundhog Day (though the potential repercussion of the repeated life choices are far wider than a single man’s personal growth), C.S. Lewis (not his Narnia books), and Hieronymus Bosch. The precipitating twist is a true gut-punch, but the ensuing variations on a theme do a painfully wonderful job of portraying a heartbreaking struggle of a single soul, an aching story of a journey through sin toward a forlorn hope of redemption, a story of punishment and atonement, of despair and the possibility of forgiveness, a tale of choices and consequences.

It’s, as noted, a thoughtful novel, one that doesn’t offer up easy premises or answers, but it’s equally a highly emotional book as well, and that balance overcomes Lent’s few flaws. While Savonarola is sharply, vividly depicted, I wished some of the side characters were more fully explored. And the ending, unfortunately, felt far too rushed, robbing it of some of its potential impact. That said, Lent overall is a powerful rumination on big concepts masterfully conveyed through the prism of a single point of view. And don’t be surprised if afterward you find yourself traveling down the rabbit hole looking up the various real personages to try and learn more about them.