The Company of Women
A Novel
-
-
4.3 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Mary Gordon’s extraordinary novel about a young Catholic woman who pursues father figures—only to wrestle to break free of them
Felicitas Maria Taylor was brought up in a cocoon, raised by five devoutly religious women. The death of her father while she was still a baby has caused her to seek out the extreme in men, and that is what she finds in Father Cyprian, a priest whom Felicitas visits during summers in upstate New York. The charismatic Cyprian fosters the young girl’s gifts and intelligence, but, no lover of worldly things, he demands a severe loyalty.
When Felicitas comes of age and begins her studies at Columbia, everything seems poised to change. At the university, she falls under the spell of another domineering man—a professor surrounded by young activist acolytes—and this time, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
The Company of Women is a story of dangerous attachments and challenged faith—and of finding an endurable future.
Customer Reviews
An Absolute Mental Trip
There is only one character I wasn’t raving mad at, at least once throughout the story. Even when I was annoyed at most of the characters, I just had to know what happened, so I kept reading. This book is philosophical and has many layers to it. It is REALLY judgemental about non-Christians, in really rude ways, in places.
The grammar and mechanics of this book are all over the place. Starting not only sentences but paragraphs with the word “but.” That’s usually a huge pet peeve for me, but for some reason, with this one author I was able to overlook it and hardly notice. Some of the sentences felt like a comma party, but usually I only noticed when going back to review a quote.
Due to modern society and all that has come out about bad priests, it’s really easy to worry about the relationship between Father Cyp and Felicitas (in different ways, on different levels, the two main characters of this book), but luckily that is nothing to worry about with this book. It’s a cliche that luckily Gordon did not decide to run with.
There are so many layers and so many complicated, complex emotions tied to this book. I think the entire spectrum of human emotion is explored within this book. It certainly covers both justified and unjustified guilt and shame, as well as the love-power dynamic so frequently found in catholic households that seem perfectly ordinary to people within it, and entirely destructive and crazy to those outside of it. It’s well worth the read, especially if you have a religious (especially catholic) background.