Acquired Book By:
I was selected to be a tour stop on the “The Oblate’s Confession” virtual book tour through Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. I received a complimentary ARC copy of “The Oblate’s Confession” direct from the publisher Secant Publishing, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
The Oblate's Confession
by William Peak
Source: Publisher via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours
Set in 7th century England, The Oblate’s Confession tells the story of Winwaed, a boy who – in a practice common at the time – is donated by his father to a local monastery. In a countryside wracked by plague and war, the child comes to serve as a regular messenger between the monastery and a hermit living on a nearby mountain. Missing his father, he finds a surrogate in the hermit, an old man who teaches him woodcraft, the practice of contemplative prayer, and, ultimately, the true meaning of fatherhood. When the boy’s natural father visits the monastery and asks him to pray for the death of his enemy – an enemy who turns out to be the child’s monastic superior – the boy’s life is thrown into turmoil. It is the struggle Winawed undergoes to answer the questions – Who is my father? Whom am I to obey? – that animates, and finally necessitates, The Oblate’s Confession.
While entirely a work of fiction, the novel’s background is historically accurate: all the kings and queens named really lived, all the political divisions and rivalries actually existed, and each of the plagues that visit the author’s imagined monastery did in fact ravage that long-ago world. In the midst of a tale that touches the human in all of us, readers will find themselves treated to a history of the “Dark Ages” unlike anything available today outside of textbooks and original source material.
Places to find the book:
Published by Secant Publishing
on 1st December, 2014
Pages: 404
Published By: Secant Publishing (@Secantpub)
Available Formats: Hardback, E-book
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#TheOblatesConfessionBlogTour, #TheOblatesConfession, & #WilliamPeak
My Review of The Oblate’s Confession:
1 Kings 19: 11-13 King James Version (KJV)
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
King James Version (KJV) by Public Domain
sourced from: Bible Gateway
The opening words upon the text found within The Oblate’s Confession gather a sense of internal self-discovery and acceptance of faith based not on what can be seen or proved, but what can be felt and heard. As you start to quay your mind into a calm reprieve to benefit from what your about to read, there are two beautiful maps which give you both the layout of provincial boundaries within 7th Century England, Ireland, & Wales as well as to point you to the right footmap of where this story takes place at the monastery. One of the first things I noticed was the fact the kitchen is out-of-doors, as I had forgotten most kitchens were either in lean-to attachments during the Old West in America or strictly an outside area completely prior to the Medieval Ages in England. I am not as certain when the sculleries moved indoors, but I have read Renaissance stories where there is a kitchen within the castle walls.
Ornamental motif set to a border greet you on each new Chapter’s entrance inside the novel, where Old English Script curates the ‘first letter’ of each first paragraph’s first word. The section breaks are decorative as well, and it helps your mind alert you to the fact this is a world a full step apart from the modern from whence we live. The very first paragraph was a bit of a repose as a memory is transposed against the elemental shift in percipience for one’s state of awareness. The addition of snow added to the effect, because Winter in of itself evokes a quickening of silence, of reverence.
The voice of the novel is from Winwaed’s point-of-view of living amongst monks as an oblate as he was given to the monks by his father; thereby his life was of service and obedient to the order of the monks he lived amongst. Their order did not communicate vocally due to a vow of silence, but instilled communication through sign language, which felt a bit more rudimentary than our own American Sign Language (ASL). Some of the signs explained in the early portions of the text remind me of how limited even ASL can be nowadays, as some signs are more direct to what their spoken words reflect as not everything can become translated strictly through signs. It is an interesting language by far and one that I am keen on learning more about; those of whom understand the language in full have a fluid way giving the appearance of a dance of words set to motion with your hands.
Winwaed is speaking to us as he commits his life down to a journal of events, as a measure of reproach for a sin he has been called to explain in his own understanding of what led it to happen. In this way, we are both privy to his thoughts and to his actions, as much as how he interacts and adapts to other oblates coming into the monastery.
Part of my interest started to wan around the time when the young oblates started to notice they were infected with an illness that simply was not like any other they had seen or lived through prior to that day. I had read a bit about the novel prior to reading it, and I am not sure if this was the portion of the story which involves the plague or not, but it was quite a disheartening time for the young characters but it was a bit difficult to read as well. So much pain and sorrow affecting Winwaed yet his strength of resolve carried him through even when he did not understood why he would be spared.
What drew my interest at the very opening of the narrative was the near-poetic enchantment of how Peak was describing the scene as it eclipsed the world within. As the chapters picked up pace, the story arches backwards to a record of one oblate’s life, with memories and curiosities threaded together and entwining around each other. In lieu of signing or writing in the parts where signing were used, Peak offered instead bits of dialogue to break the narrative.
Passages such as the opening of Chapter 9 on page 47 kept me tied into The Oblate’s Confession, but when the passages turnt winding and a bit complicated (personally they reminded me a bit of Robinson Crusoe) I found my focus on the text uncommitted to turn the page. I appreciated the flexing of the heart of the character, showing how despite his youthful age he was attempting to forge a life for himself within the walls of the monastery; to show he was obedient as much as he was compliant with their expectations.
I personally think this novel takes time to warm inside the context, as a lot of it is lengthened by near-monologue pieces of thought by Winwaed with a few regular passages outside of them. The novel is dense with history, but some of it is not palpable as you do have trouble connecting to Winwaed and the monks on the level they are not as represented as traditional characters. When I read Illuminations (as a for instance) where Hildegard was walled off from the rest of the cloister and forced to live in a recluse oblivion, Sharratt was able to give me a plausible entrance into her mind, her heart, and the voice of her faith as she shared her inner world. By contrast, The Oblate’s Confession feels a bit obtuse and distant from having an inter-personal connection to the central characters. At least within the first portions of the novel, which is generally where if I haven’t felt connected to the story, I do have the tendency to vacate it such as I have with this one.
My curiosity is still piqued which is why I am going to re-attempt to read this down the road, but for now, I simply found reading it a bit muddling. There are two distinct styles being written here, one is a complete narrative out of the recollective memories of Winwaed where no dialogue exists as you are reading a diary left behind to be found a gateway to understand his life. The other style is part narrative and part dialogue (I am not sure why the signing began and then ended quite so quickly); shifting between where his perception of his past is filtered against whom he is speaking to during his everyday hours. I felt it might have served better as a diary — to carry the story in a diary format start to finish, to where you were reading letters left behind and suddenly are discovered to give a clue into how life was lived at this monastery and how Winwaed adapted to a life he did not choose.
The Virtual Road Map for “The Oblate’s Confession” can be found here:
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{SOURCES: Cover art of “The Oblate’s Confession”, author photograph for William Peak, author biography, book synopsis, and blog tour banner were all provided by HFVBT (Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours) and used with permission. Ruminations & Impressions Banner created by Jorie in Canva. Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. The scripture quotation from the King James Version of the Bible was used with permission as the King James Version of the Bible is in the public domain (info). The KJV is in the public domain for the United States where I reside and blog.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2015.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
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