THE COMPANY OF WOMEN

by Mary Gordon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 1980

A darkly explorative tale, shot through with warming recognitions, about racking spiritual journeys within transitional Roman Catholicism--steadier in craft than the engaging Final Payments, but again nerve-centered on the electric, dangerous relationship between a magnetic, punishing father-figure and a young woman who wrests away to find another safety. Felicitas Taylor's own father died when she was a baby, and ""being fatherless, a girl can be satisfied only with the heroic, the desperate, the extreme."" So her substitute father very soon becomes the unquestionably extreme Father Cyprian--an ascetic, traditionalist priest now (1963) retired to rural upstate New York, where young Felicitas and her pampering extended family (five middle-aged widows and spinsters) spend the summers and all dote on Father C. To Cyprian, a shriving absolutist who hates the ""stink of the world,"" Felicitas embodies ""what we stand for. . ."" And she, luxuriating in Cyprian's fierce love (reading Latin while her peers watch TV doctors), longs for ""a life so purified that it stood out against the sky."" But, while growing up, Felicitas finds herself guilty of small disloyalties to Father C., concessions to her aching need to be liked by her peers, to be ""ordinary."" Then, at Columbia U., her spiritual submission to Cyprian is grossly parodied, in the flesh: she lives in a communal pad of fraying young activists, becomes part of the harem belonging to ""beautiful, daring"" Prof. Robert Cavendish. And Felicitas discovers that she has broken away from the perils of loving God only to find the perils of loving a man: ""Surely all women are born knowing the men they love could kill them."" Pregnant, frightened away from having an abortion, she has the child--and seven years later she again is drawn to Cyprian (somewhat mellowed) and his ""company of women."" Finally, however, marrying an unheroic man who can be a ""safe"" father to her daughter, Felicitas will find a tenable place for human love in her life. And, as for God, she'll still look for Him (as long as He is ""free from all necessity""), but she'll never again open her heart to Him: ""I will not be violated."" Like Iris Murdoch, then--but in far grittier terms--Gordon is determined to investigate the extreme states of sacred and profane passion, to find some relatively sure ground in between. And the result is a far more demanding book than Final Payments, yet one which never loses the feel for salty humanity (especially in the portraits of Cyprian's women) while tackling religious/sexual metaphysics with the shivery intensity of early Joyce Carol Oates. Important work from an expanding talent.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 1980

ISBN: 0345483014

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION