A review by serendipitysbooks
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie

emotional informative reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

 For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain is the interwoven stories of Julian of Norwich, an anchoress whose writings are the earliest known surviving works by a woman in English, and Margery Kempe, a Christian mystic, whose book (which she dictated) is thought to be the earliest surviving English autobiography. While not interested in religion per se, I enjoyed this well-written story of two ordinary medieval woman whose extraordinary experiences with faith changed the course of their lives.
The book has 2 main parts. The first , told in alternating short sections, is the first-person story of their lives - childhood, marriage, motherhood, their religious visions, actions and reactions. Three interconnected things really stood out to me - the differences in their class background, their differing personalities, and the contrasting reactions to their religious visions. The 2nd part is the record of the meeting between the two. A lot of it is written as a transcript of their conversation. I’m not sure how I would have felt reading it but on audio with two distinct narrators, it worked well.
 
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