Review – Let These Things Be Written, by Fiona Whyte

Let These Things Be Written Fiona Whyte Eye Books, 384 pages, £9.99 There are shades of the opening scenes of Mary Renault’s <em>The Persian Boy</em> in the first pages of Fiona Whyte’s first novel, <em>Let These Things Be Written</em> – although, while like Bagoas, the young protagonist Wilfrid is taken from his family against his will, it is not by violence and at least – unlike Bagoas – he gets to keep his testicles. Not that it makes much difference, for (as the evidently slightly disappointing) first-born son of a high-ranking Christian family in seventh-century Northumberland, he is destined for the monastery at Lindisfarne. It is all rather bewildering for an eight-year-old, although neither of his parents seems particularly sad to see him go. Although the idea of sending a small boy to go and live with a community of monks on an island would be unthinkable today, and no doubt tip any number of designated safeguarding officers over into apoplectic frenzy, Whyte reminds her readers that the ways of Wilfrid’s days are not those of our own. It was a regular occurrence at the time; a kind of unbloody sacrifice to a new-found deity. Our hero is named for Wilfrid of Ripon, at whose hands he received baptism – “my family serves only the Christ god” – which ties him nicely into the world of Whitby, tonsures and the calculation of the date of Easter, royal intrigue, war and plague. On the horizon looms Bamburgh, where worldly power lies. Bede makes a cameo appearance, while the prior on Holy Island is of course Cuthbert. The last seems to be hot property at the moment, with Whyte’s book coming hard on the heels of last year’s <em>Cuddy</em> by Benjamin Myers. Although this is a book about a child and then a teenager, it is not necessarily a book for children. A number of its themes seem modern, but they do not jar; Whyte gently lays out the bare fact that many of the diagnosed illnesses with which we are familiar today – both physical and mental – must have existed, undiagnosed and untreated, for most of time. Instead, Wilfrid inhabits a milieu in which sickness is thought to be caused by demons who need to be cast out with extreme fasting and powerful prayer.&nbsp; &nbsp; It’s rather hard to decide what to tell without spoiling the effect of Whyte’s narrative. The monks do not find life with Wilfrid easy; he is a slow learner and his writing, so important for a community with an important scriptorium, is excruciatingly messy. His clumsiness frustrates his brethren – he is always dropping things – and on one occasion causes a fatal accident. It is not his fault, but naturally he blames himself. He sees prowling animals in his mind, ready to pounce, and is terrified of water – which is less than ideal for island life. What Whyte manages to suggest, without overlabouring the point, is that Wilfrid is probably at least dyspraxic, and possibly dyslexic as well. Mild juvenile anxiety, out of which he might well have grown in the bosom of a normal family, erupts into full-blown mental trauma – which shows signs of overwhelming him after the accident, in which he loses a substitute father figure. Cuthbert is kind to him, but goes to live on the Inner Farne to be closer to God; his successor is less patient with a boy whom he cannot understand. Wilfrid needs structure and friendship, but he soon discovers that the impetus of the strict communal life of the brethren is regulated – and can even be withdrawn – by the all-important Rule. He is not the only child there, and friendships among the youngest brethren come more easily, but also go in the same way. While his peers are promoted to the writing-desks, he goes on struggling to make the proper shapes; when he finds the one thing that he can do better than any of the rest of them, illness takes it from him. Against a background of grief and pain, love and loss, adversity and disaster, Wilfred struggles to find his purpose. Whyte tells his story lovingly and with attention to detail – sometimes searingly so. At one point he turns to coping mechanisms that are so painfully self-destructive that I nearly cried – it is a heartrending piece of work. As for the denouement, well, when Bede sharpens his quill to write his <em>Life of Cuthbert</em>, the document on which he bases it comes from Lindisfarne – and he tuts at the chaotic, poorly-formed letters. <em>Sarah McConnell teaches history and religious studies in Newcastle-upon-Tyne</em> <strong><strong>This article appears in the October 2024 edition of the <em>Catholic Herald</em>. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre, counter-cultural and orthodox Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/subscribe/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">HERE</mark></a></strong></strong>.