ON PILGRIMAGE, A TIME TO SEEK
By Jini Fiennes (Sinclair-Stevenson, 16.95 pounds)
ONE might expect this book to be plastered across every colour supplement and promoted on every chat show in the land. The author is a wife and mother who brought up seven children. Recently she was attacked by cancer. She conquered it, but the fight with death reawakened some of the spiritual longings that she experienced as a young Catholic. She therefore set out on a pilgrimage across Europe to see what remained of her own faith, and to witness the expression of faith by others. This book is an account of her journey.
The quest for faith is not such a gift for the Sundays as the emancipation of a cancer-striken housewife. That only proves the originality of Fiennes' voyage. Travelling rough, talking with priests and the shadowy figures who tend cathedral museums, she probes what seems a vast underworld, too unglamorous for media exposure. The dinginess could become depressing, although she faces these low points with fortitude.
She has stamina and a sense of humour. Her encounters with saints
-- both dead and alive -- will shake anyone who might be tempted to regard
the abbeys and churches of France as items on a tourist itinerary.
Unfortunately, the copy-editing is atrocious.