This variant of the apocryphal legend of Tobit is filled with Mantel’s wit, at once sardonic and humane. If you’ve read her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost, you’ll recognize the story’s setting, Fetherhoughton, as Hadfield, the dreary Derbyshire mill village she grew up in, imaginatively recreated. The characters, Mantel assures us, are invented, except for Fludd, who really existed—three-and-a-half centuries before the time this novel is set in. Robert Fludd was a physician, astrologer, and alchemist. Now, he’s taken up a task more difficult than changing lead to gold: human transformation.
He arrives soon after the bishop informs the parish priest, Father Angwin, that his ways need modernization and that he’s being sent a vicar. Fludd arrives at the door of the parochial house one night during a violent thunderstorm. I love this description of his effect on the first person to meet him, the parson’s housekeeper: “Deep within her . . . Miss Dempsey sensed a slow movement, a tiny spiral shift of matter, as if, at the very moment the curate spoke, a change had occurred: a change so minute as to baffle description, but rippling out, in its effect, to infinity.”
Liberating changes come over Father Angwin and Sister Philomena, one of the youngest nuns in the local convent. I’m not sure the change in the convent superior, Mother Perpetua, is liberating, but it’s gratifying to all who knew her.
His work in Fetherhoughton accomplished, Fludd ebbs away. Oddly, no one can remember what he looked like. ( )

This was the third early novel by the author on which I embarked and this time it was a pleasant surprise. There was wry humour and satire, based upon a 1950s imaginary village at the edge of the moors somewhere near Yorkshire, and revolving around the Catholic Church. I must have turned over two pages at the start because I missed the note about Fludd, the original alchemist, until I'd finished the book - but I did understand the references to alchemy terms.

There's a nice ambiguity about who Fludd in the book actually is - angel, devil, or reincarnated 17th century alchemist (he does refer to a second birth at some point) but I wasn't troubled by that. The only thing that is a bit odd is the way he leaves a certain character at the end; it seems a bit callous. But other than that, I enjoyed the story, the fact that despite the 'grim' setting it was a lot more upbeat than the previous two books of hers I'd just read, and the characters and set-up were well realised and almost a pre-cursor to the Father Ted series, a favourite of mine, so I award this 4 stars. ( )

An in-depth character sketch that has the premise of what would happen when the devil visits a small religious village in England. With the one caveat that the devil is an ordinary man doing ordinary things, creating ordinary human problems. If you are looking for story or plot then this is not the novel for you. If however you enjoy well worked out characters and deeply developed places and times then sink your teeth into this one. ( )

Having grown up in the Roman Catholic faith this book resounded for me. I found many laugh out loud moments. A very satisfying quick read. ( )

Seems to be the comfortable trope of a supernatural visitation (no one can really recall what the new assistant priest looks like), but becomes much more. Without excessive description, but using beautifully crafted language, Mantel creates a small number of characters, each dealing with an issue involving their own oppression. Absorbing. ( )