| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Book Reviews From our Archives |
April 2005 |
Havoc in its third year <
by Ronan Bennett, published by Bloomsbury,
paperback, 244 pages, $27.95 ISBN 7475-6441-8
By Alidė Kohlhaas
British writer Ronan Bennett's Havoc in its third Year takes the reader back to turbulent 1630s England. It is a time of religious uncertainty when anti-Catholic hysteria sees Jesuits popping up everywhere even if they aren't there. Puritans are not just battling Catholics, but also the adherents of the Church of England. On top of the religious turmoil, there is fear of a foreign invasion that even affects the northern parts of the country.
Bennett set his novel in a northern English town. He has written what is not only a historical novel, but one based loosely on a real person, John Brigge, a coroner who performed inquisitions in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Bennett did, however, change the time in which he set the novel because as he states at the end of his book: "that when conflicts arise between historical facts and the demands of the novel we tend to settle them in favour of the latter. This is a work of fiction."
Bennett's tale begins with Brigge being called in from his farm outside of the town to look into an apparent infanticide. The accused is an Irish woman, who refuses to speak. Her guilt seems automatically presumed because she is Irish and from out of town. This bothers the coroner. John Brigge keeps his Catholicism hidden and he appears to have succeeded in keeping the trust of . . .
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