FICTION: ÉILÍS NÍ DHUIBHNEreviews The Daylight Gate By Jeanette Winterson Hammer, 194pp. £9.99
IN 1612, nine women and two men were hanged at Pendle Hill in Lancashire, charged with witchcraft. The Lancaster witch trial, Jeanette Winterson reports in a short introduction to her novel, is the most famous of all in English history.
It’s not strictly true, as she states, that it was the first to be documented in England – there are earlier court records of English witch processes – but that has no bearing on the success or otherwise of this work. Nevertheless, it would have been useful to have some information about her sources. She has clearly consulted many but, apart from a book on the Lancaster trial by the court clerk, Thomas Potts, published in 1613, none is mentioned.
Her protagonist is a fictional character inspired by one of the executed witches, Alice Nutter, an unusual victim in that she was well-off. One convincing explanation for witch hysteria is that the accused were often the oldest and poorest people, usually women, in the community, which vented its resentment at the irksome economic burden by designating them as witches. If you believe an old woman spends her time casting nasty spells on you, you don’t feel guilty about not giving her alms, and you may even get rid of her entirely on a gallows or a bonfire. However, rich women were sometimes targeted too: fear, distrust, and lust for revenge drove the accusers, but envy, too, was a powerful motive.
Winterson’s Alice Nutter is a beautiful, clever widow, wealthy thanks to a textile dye she invented. Leather-gauntleted, she gallops around on a horse that seems more like a Harley-Davidson than an animal, and comes across as someone whose mind is formed by a regular reading of the Guardian rather than the Bible or the black book of spells.
Inserting characters with modern sensibilities into historical settings is a valid literary exercise. Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell (in Wolf Hall) is a great example of a convincing protagonist whose perspective on life is more like ours than that of his 16th-century contemporaries.
There is a historical basis for Mantel’s interpretation of Cromwell. Although Winterson’s instinct that people of a “modern” secular mindset existed even at a time when belief in all kinds of supernatural forces was not just the norm but the law is probably correct, Nutter seems a bit too modern.
In general, the blend of historical realism and liberal fantasy that permeates the novel doesn’t quite come off. The dialogue, which has the potential to make characters come alive, is sometimes wooden. I don’t know how Lancashire villagers talked 400 years ago, but lines such as “Cats fleshed as women, that’s what witches are, tempting men to sin and damnation” have a cumbersome tone.
When Winterson allows herself to be completely surreal, she’s most successful. A scene in which Nutter has a good long chat with Shakespeare is the best in the book, not least because the author’s wit emerges.
In episodes involving the nine-year-old Jennet Device – who was a chief witness at the Lancaster witch trial, as children often were – Winterson’s sense of irony comes into play again, to good effect.
Academic works on the history of witchcraft can be politely restrained in their descriptions of the treatment meted out to the unfortunate accused. Not so Winterson. Her novel belongs to the horror genre, and acts of macabre cruelty are described in vivid detail. Reading some sections is like visiting one of those museums of torture they have in medieval heritage towns, next door to the stalls selling toffee apples and waffles.
Although Winterson provides welcome crumbs of comic relief in her depictions of old favourites such as the iron maiden, the rack and thumbscrews, many passages are deeply harrowing. Here we observe a man being slowly skinned alive – never a pretty sight. Next we get a good peek at the rat room piled with rats about three feet deep, eating each other. “Poor things, they have nothing else to eat but each other. I would not dream of throwing you in such a place. Not all of you at once. Look, we have slots here where we can push through an arm or a leg. One limb at a time.”
There’s a lot of that sort of thing. Whatever about the details – did they have rat rooms? – the portrayal of the appalling cruelty, sexual sadism and blatant misogyny that characterised the outbreaks of witch hysteria undoubtedly reflects dismal historical fact.
Winterson deals intelligently with the close link between the persecution of Catholics and that of witches in the early 17th century (in Lancashire, that is; in countries other than England, there was no such connection). Her portrayal of a few characters whose good sense and compassion transcend the darkest superstitions of their period also rings true; in most periods of communal hysteria, some people dare swim against the stream. Her illustration of the beauty of the individual, in the form of Nutter, in the nightmare of history is the one uplifting element in the novel.
But although her exploration of the Lancaster witch episode is insightful and imaginative, and her style sprightly, The Daylight Gate is not her best work. Part of the problem may be that the book, which contains, I reckon, about 50,000 words, is just too short to deal with the complex topic. She hasn’t allowed herself space to explore her excellent ideas or develop her promising characters.
Reflection is sacrificed to sensational event in a visceral response that focuses bravely but too narrowly on the most repulsive aspects of a terrible period in European history.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s latest book is The Shelter of Neighbours, published by Blackstaff Press
