WHITE WITCH OF KYNANCE

by Mary Calhoun ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1970

God vs. demons in 16th-century Cornwall, and in frustratingly slow-to-catch-on Jennet Trevail who thinks white magic can exorcise the dark powers of her medieval mind. The story proceeds in hyperbolic platitudes through Jennet's ESP--she can presage death somehow and share other people's pain--to her apprehticeship to wise good-witch An Marget, above superstition. . . except in regard to a long-dead phantom lover. Indeed Jenner's mistress almost comes unhinged when (beset by a demon called desire) she nearly believes the unbelievable; but there's a warning in the form of a colic woman's need for her treatment--it was God reminding An Marget ""which power He had given her and which power was His alone."" Now, only at the end, does Jennet find her own self exultantly in this manifestation: ""She'd be no priestess of magic--and was An Marget really?--but she could heal. And she could be a wife."" To Robin Bender, who long since had said ""I'm just God's fool, I guess. I trust Him,"" whenever Jennet in her private terror asked how he could laugh away the things that plagued her. The metaphor itself is obvious, like the cliches: the hollow parson ""Piggy"" Thomas, the kettles of herbs, the talking bird, the village vixens quick to slander; but then there are those long expository passages and the problem of the Church alluded to, never laid bare. So much inflated form, so little content--phantasmagoria with no finesse.

Pub Date: June 1, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1970

Categories: FICTION