‘The Island of Mists and Miracles’: visions and violence in France past and present

The Island of Mists and Miracles
Victoria Mas, translated from the French by Frank Wynne
Doubleday

This short novel opens in the 1830s with a young novice in the order of the Sisters of Charity seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary. And then the action moves to the present day, with an elderly nun waiting for the arrival of an assistant from the same order to help her with her work in Brittany. As Sister Delphine waits for the bus in the port of Roscoff, she smokes a cigarette and prays her new companion will be neither a prude nor a prig.

At first sight, Sister Anne is neither. But what Sister Delphine doesn’t know is that Sister Anne has come to Brittany because she believes she has been told this is the place she will have a vision similar to the one from a previous century.

Meanwhile, on a small island off the coast of Roscoff, two troubled teenagers are struggling to come to terms with their lives in a small and claustrophobic community, where too many people have unresolved issues.

One of the boys, Isaac, is living with his father who has sunk into depression after the death of his wife. Isaac is comforted only from Madenn, who runs the local cafe. Hugo is the middle child of a family in which the older son who is away with the army is regarded as a hero and a success, and where the parents’ attention is focused on Hugo’s sickly little sister. His father seems to despise him and his interests. The two boys know each other, but are not really friends.

Then one day Isaac sees something he cannot articulate, and which he alone can see. Did he have a vision? Is he a hoaxer? Is it all a portent of something else? No-one can be sure, but emotions among the locals are stirred to boiling point. Has a miracle occurred and, if so, why to Isaac and not anyone else — particularly Sister Anne, who was expecting it?

Events move swiftly to a disturbing and violent climax. The novel offers no clear-cut answers as to what has happened, perhaps partly because the characters themselves are all somewhat opaque. Suffice it to say that none of them emerges unscathed or with their beliefs intact. As one of the characters says at the end: “It happened because it happened. That’s all there is to it.” Whether that makes for a satisfying piece of fiction is another question.