The Journal of Hildegard of Bingen: Bell Tower

This delightful fictional memoir, drawn from the autobiographical, scientific and visionary writings of an outstanding medieval woman, will appeal to a discriminating readership, including historians and those interested in the spiritual life. Hildegard was a 12th-century abbess who composed music and poetry, oversaw the stunning artwork that illustrated her writings, speculated about women's bodies and human fertility, preached in her native Saxony and tangled with popes and magnates in high-handed letters when she disapproved of their actions. The author, long engaged in studying Hildegard, structures her imagined diary around the liturgical feasts of 1152, a busy year for the 54-year-old abbess. With simplicity and adroitness, Lachman entices even the agnostic reader to contemplate Hildegard's spiritual concerns as intrinsic to her character. The woman who emerges in this portrait is warm, sage, alert to nature, responsive to vibrant colors and the stimuli of the seen and unseen worlds. The text charmingly wraps around the footnotes, much as medieval illuminations enfolded passages of a manuscript, giving the pages an artistic rather than an academic look. (Nov.)