I almost set this book aside as its title and beginning chapters
made me fear it would be twee and simplistic but thankfully I stayed with it
and would encourage readers to do the same with this thoughtful moral fable. The book begins with Agnès Morel, a tall,
dark, slender woman known to many inhabitants of the cathedral town of Chartres
as someone who “had made herself useful
in the small ways that help to oil the wheels of daily life. She was an accomplished ironer, a reliable
babysitter and was known to “sit” naked for Robert Clément (the last activity
making her less desirable to some in the first capacities). She made a reputation as a conscientious
cleaner.” Agnès had arrived in
Chartres twenty years previously and the cathedral’s current dean, the Abbé
Paul, had found her sleeping in a porch niche. Since then she’s cleaned the
church giving special attention to the famed labyrinth’s darkened paving stones
that drew her there. One of Agnès’
virtues was that she didn’t say much.
The tranquility she exhibits endears her to most of the town.
Agnès was a foundling, raised by nuns. She was bright and
excelled at numbers but seemed to the nuns incapable of learning to read or
write. When she was fourteen and
inexplicably pregnant, the sisters sent her off to a discreet nursing home
where she bore a son who was removed from her immediately after his birth. Agnès returned to the convent in a troubled state
and spent time in psychiatric care before her move to Chartres. As the novel wends its way back and forth
between Agnès present life in Chartres and her previous sojourns, she
transforms the lives of each of the people who work beside her. Yet, as Agnès enters each life, elements of
sin and moral dilemmas reveal themselves.
Agnès is ridden with anxiety especially when nasty gossip
threatens to derail her quiet life. Her constant labors allow her to avoid
confronting her past and she notes that “boredom is a luxury of a life lived
without fear.” Agnès’ gift is her
simple, philosophical manner coupled with her droll wit which subtly captures
the reader as it does the people she meets.
The second half of the book contains several mysterious circumstances
that threaten Agnès and others. In this way the book is reminiscent of the book
and movie Chocolat, in both setting
and in the way in which Agnès seemingly arrives with the wind and alters life
in the cathedral town while revealing unseemly secrets. The novel also has the sensibility and wisdom
of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Devotees of Louise Penny’s psychological
mysteries will also enjoy Vickers’s use of darkness and light to explore second
chances and evil.
Francophiles and those who embrace the lessons of the
labyrinth will race to read this novel but all who want a contemporary morality
play and psychological drama with a discreet “aha” will cherish this savory morsel. Vickers’s former life as a psychoanalyst
surfaces in her portraits of troubled characters.
Summing it Up: Read
this subtle, yet jubilant, rumination on life, love, faith, sin, and hope held
together with a bow that is Agnès, a character you won’t soon forget. Reading The Cleaner of Chartres is a bit like
eating a chocolate croissant with a rich cup of coffee in a patisserie in a
small French village while looking out the window on the townspeople going
about their day. All you observe may not be as it seems so linger awhile and
settle into its rhythm as you learn what’s behind the facade.
Rating: 5 stars
Category: Fiction, Dessert, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast,
Book Club
Publication date: June 27, 2013
Author’s Website: http://www.salleyvickers.com/
Reading Group Guide: http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/the_cleaner_of_chartres.html
What Others are Saying:
The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperback-review-the-cleaner-of-chartres-by-salley-vickers-8612256.html
Publishers Weekly: http://publishersweekly.com/978-0-670-78567-4
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