Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing
Review: "Mariette in Ecstasy" is quite short, almost more novella than novel and in style almost more poetry than prose. It's highly evocative and beautiful in describing the winter desolation of a rural convent in 1906. The plot has to do with a young trainee who experiences unusual and controversial spiritual phenomena (which I'd rather not belabor so as not to ruin the plot). In my opinion this book is so excellently written that even people who don't care at all for organized religion or spiritual pursuits will still like "Mariette in Ecstasy."
Rating:
Summary: Mariette in Ecstasy
Review: A book so vividly written -- on a subject so removed from most of us -- that I alternated between being astonished by the story, and astonished that it could have been written in modern times and by a man. The images are painted with a light brush and make a delicious counterpoint to the rigid structure of the lives of the characters. A unique and innovative treatment of a rare story line.
Rating: 
Summary: Great
Review: An incredible novel by one of America's finest. Beautifully written - sparse and lucid. It is written so objectively each reader tends to form a different opinion and explanation for what is happening - similar to what many do who choose to believe or not believe. If you are looking for a novel that has a "hollywood" ending with all loose ties neatly wrapped up you're best bet is to look elsewhwere.
Rating:
Summary: Insanity Or Inspiration?
Review: Devotion or delirious? Divine or disastrous? This short novel explores the fine line between what we call pure faith and demonic destruction.Young Mariette is a postulant nun in a monastery in New York state at the turn of this century. She is passionate and extreme in all that she does; she longs to be supremely wedded to Jesus--in fact, she goes through a wedding ceremony while joining the convent. She is carried away with devotion, prays constantly, and even begins to show signs of stigmata. The convent becomes split in understanding her inspiration and soon factions form, some adoring her and others calling her a charlatan. When she is finally challenged to show her stigmata, the wounds have disappeared--Christ has taken them back--and she is expelled from the fold of the faithful. (Telling this much still hasn't given it away.) This simple, elegant, precise novel has been written in such a manner as to remain ambiguous regarding her faith or foolery, and therefore, Hansen respects the reader's judgment in deciding just what is going on in Mariette's heart and head. Hansen deftly portrays the mysteriousness in faith and touches on the line between the narrow extremes. A fascinating book of inner exploration, Hansen has written a hagiagraphical novel for our times.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful
Review: Each day is the same for the cloistered Sisters of the Crucifixion in the early 1900s in upstate New York. The nuns pray, work, study--day after day. Each nun has a specialty, a job that she does best: candlemaker, wine maker, cook, arts teacher, seamstress, gardener, etc. The book begins as the lovely, elegant, 17-year-old Mariette enters the convent to begin her probationary/postulant period. She lived nearby with her widowed father, a doctor, and we later learn that her much-older sister is the prioress, Mother Celine. Mariette's father is very much opposed to her becoming a nun. In fact, he has written a letter stating all of the reasons that she is not suitable for convent life. It seems that Mariette is adapting well to life in the convent until she begins falling into trances and emerges with bleeding wounds (stigmata) on various parts of her body, wounds that cannot be logically explained. The community of nuns becomes divided in their opinion of whether these are signs from God or self-inflicted by Mariette. In this book, Hansen paints a complete picture of life in the convent and the doubts that assail all people of faith. His characterizations were very well done, in the sparsest of prose, yet in great detail. The book was beautifully and lovingly written and read almost like poetry rather than prose. "Mariette in Ecstasy" provides an examination of faith and miraculous/divine happenings. Hansen also looks at the way these happenings impact those who are "blessed" by them, as well as how the communities around them are affected. Hansen draws no conclusions, makes no judgments, and attains no closure. This is left up to the reader after closing the book. It is hard to believe that this is the same author who wrote "Atticus". Both books are excellent, but they are so very different. I would highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Face to face with pure faith
Review: Faith and its mysteries, deceptively simple, terrifying, timeless and infinite, profoundly moving, are made manifest by Hansen in barely 175 pages of perfect pitch prose. Mariette will be with us, as she was with all who know her, even scorn her, in the novel, for a long,long time.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful minimalistic description of a holy life
Review: Hansen does an excellent job - better than anyone I know- of rendering a "description" of a convent life, in a convent in which silence is coveted and required. He does this by setting a scene so well, so carefully, so that you feel you have also entered this stark, minimalist, yet spiritual existence. I also loved the fact that he truly depicts a young devote woman who was completely focused/obsessed with service to God, to the point where she developed stigmata. Yet, did she fully develop it? That is what is so wonderful about this book - it is full of mystery, yet we feel intensely for this passionate young novice. A wonderful, beautiful read.
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous achievement, awesome writing
Review: Hansen re-creates the sights and smells of rural upstate New York in 1906 in exquisite, golden detail as if he had been there.
An awesome and honest story, told in present tense, about resentment, pride, vanity, and all the other human foibles, incredibly magnified within the setting of a convent. I usually read crime novels -- and came upon this after reading "Touch" by Elmore Leonard -- and I was really awesomely surprised by this. I think this kind of novel is so much more important, and worthy of our time, than something like "Infinite Jest" or these other 2-million page Pynchonian encyclopedias that no one actually reads. Read "Mariette in Ecstasy" and you will be pleased,impressed and maybe even awed.
Rating:
Summary: What do Good Prose and the Stigmata Have in Common?
Review: Hansen's novella "Mariette in Ecstasy" is beautifully written. Many have commented on the passion with which Hansen writes, and I'll add my two cents in as well. The Chapters begin with short, choppy sentences meant to not only convey their content but also to express a mood to the reader. For example, in the first Chapter opens "Mother Celine gracefully walking, head down. Crickets. Mooncreep and spire. Ears are flattened to the head of a stone panther water spout." Aside from the excellent writing, the story portrays something that has intrigued Christians for hundreds of years; the marks of Christ's passion borne on the body (the "stigmata"). When this occurs in the context of a convent where every fault and virtue is inescapably scrutinized, the question of whether Mariette does indeed have the stigmata is really is secondary to the issue of how Mariette's sisters in the convent will react. From those who utterly disbelieve Mariette's ecstasy we have a letter written to a priest as follows: "We the undersigned are of the firmest opinion that our blessed priory is being held hostage to a postulant's wiles and chicanery. We shall not have our convent contaminated by her! We shall not tolerate her favoritism and particular affection shown her thus far ... We therefore beg of you to conquer the permissiveness and infirmity that is so rampant here and treat this hoax with the thoroughness and gravity it warrants." Without revealing the final resolution to this great mystery as it pertains to the beautiful Mariette, I will state that whether she does indeed have the stigmata is not answered by the author. He leaves this to you to decide. However, I believe the real point of the book is to examine the sins of vanity, pride and jealousy. For all these reasons I heartily recommend this book to you.
Rating:
Summary: What do Good Prose and the Stigmata Have in Common?
Review: Hansen's novella "Mariette in Ecstasy" is beautifully written. Many have commented on the passion with which Hansen writes, and I'll add my two cents in as well. The Chapters begin with short, choppy sentences meant to not only convey their content but also to express a mood to the reader. For example, in the first Chapter opens "Mother Celine gracefully walking, head down. Crickets. Mooncreep and spire. Ears are flattened to the head of a stone panther water spout." Aside from the excellent writing, the story portrays something that has intrigued Christians for hundreds of years; the marks of Christ's passion borne on the body (the "stigmata"). When this occurs in the context of a convent where every fault and virtue is inescapably scrutinized, the question of whether Mariette does indeed have the stigmata is really is secondary to the issue of how Mariette's sisters in the convent will react. From those who utterly disbelieve Mariette's ecstasy we have a letter written to a priest as follows: "We the undersigned are of the firmest opinion that our blessed priory is being held hostage to a postulant's wiles and chicanery. We shall not have our convent contaminated by her! We shall not tolerate her favoritism and particular affection shown her thus far ... We therefore beg of you to conquer the permissiveness and infirmity that is so rampant here and treat this hoax with the thoroughness and gravity it warrants." Without revealing the final resolution to this great mystery as it pertains to the beautiful Mariette, I will state that whether she does indeed have the stigmata is not answered by the author. He leaves this to you to decide. However, I believe the real point of the book is to examine the sins of vanity, pride and jealousy. For all these reasons I heartily recommend this book to you.
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