Alice Thomas Ellis is one of our finest and most perceptive novelists writing today. She has a genius for seeing how small details reveal so much about people's lives. Her column in the Spectator called 'Home Life' was a weekly treat for thousands of readers, one that is now sorely missed.
Anyone who has read anything by Alice Thomas Ellis - particularly her moving autobiography, A Welsh Childhood, knows that she has a deep religious sense and that her life is centred on her heartfelt devotion to Catholicism. Yet this devotion is not an untroubled one and, like many other Catholics, in the three decades since the Second Vatican Council, she is profoundly disturbed at the state of her Church.
This book is her personal report on the state of the Church and her analysis of what is wrong. Her original intention was to write a book about the scandal that shook Irish Catholicism: the revelation that the Bishop of Galway was the father of a child. Alice Thomas Ellis decided that this sad story could only form part of her book. Certainly the most entertaining section of Serpent On the Rock reports her travels round Ireland discussing the story of Bishop Casey with puzzled or bemused Irishmen. Readers of the 'Home Life' column will be particularly delighted to know that her friend, Janet, a sturdy Methodist, accompanied her on these tours. Both women have a superb knack for a sudden pithy sentence that can illuminate a complicated question.
Alice Thomas Ellis is forthright in her denunciation of almost everything that has flowed from the Second Vatican Council. She sees the changes that have swept over the church as an assault upon the bedrock of faith and she is particularly revolted by the aesthetic consequences that have flowed from them. As she says, if you are looking for a Catholic Church in any town and know that it is a new structure, just ask for the ugliest building. Inside you will find what she rightly calls 'a Country and Western Mass'.
The book ranges round Ireland and England and even makes a foray to the Holy Land. The author is fierce in her denunciation of many things that lead to a 'laxity' and 'confusion' in the Church. She has a particular detestation of 'feminism' but she has a veneration for feminine insights. In fact this is an intensely 'feminine book'. She was not interested in producing a theological tome, but in giving her reactions and deepest feelings to events that have upset her. It reminds me of some of the superb books of the great Victorian lady travellers, whose highly personal and intensely feminine accounts are still read and enjoyed today, decades after the weighty and statistics-laden 'masculine books' are forgotten.
Serpent On the Rock will be a valuable book for future historians who want to know how so many ordinary Catholics felt as they saw their Church make a headlong plunge into modernity. Few people would agree with every one of Alice Thomas Ellis's views, but any fair reader must admire the forthrightness with which she expresses feelings that so many share, even if only in part. She has that rare gift of being able to denounce without rancour.
Throughout the book there is a radiance of how a strong, deep and
highly emotional faith can guide someone through the troubles of our
time. Alice Thomas Ellis - or to give her her real name, Anna Haycraft
- has known much tragedy in her life including the deaths of two
children. Since writing this book she has suffered another loss, that
of her husband, Colin Haycraft, who was the most admired and loved
publisher of our day. One can only hope that she will be able to remain
one of the most moving writers about the spiritual life that lurks
within all of us and that she will continue to write books to inspire
her readers.