The Unworthy by Augustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses)
Publisher – Pushkin Press
Published – Out Now
Price – £8.99 paperback £6.99 ebook
In the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, the unworthy live in fear of the Superior Sister's whip. Seething with resentment, they plot against each other and await who will ascend to the level of the Enlightened - and who will suffer the next exemplary punishment.
Risking her life, one of the unworthy keeps a diary in secret. Slowly, memories surface from a time before the world collapsed, before the Sacred Sisterhood became the only refuge.
Then Lucía arrives. She, too, is unworthy - but she is different. And her presence brings a single spark of hope to a world of darkness.
Communities are often places where we create the rules for one another. They can be families, how the bins go out in the street, the social structure of the workplace and even book conventions you can find have lots of little rituals and social rules for example sighing or groaning when someone says they have a comment more than a question. Follow the rules all will be well but if you do not follow the rules then society can start to turn on the outsiders. Some do it to encourage conformance, some to follow everyone else and some just enjoy punishment. In Agustina Bazterrica’s darkly beautiful and disturbing novella The Unworthy (wonderfully translated by Sarah Moses) we travel to a world that has ended where a lone convent appears to be one of the last safe places in the world but for its inhabitants it is anything but safe.
In The House of the Scared Sisterhood the Chosen has gathered those to serve him and God. Under the ever watchful but hidden eyes of Him and the ever listening Superior Sister (plus her whip and ever increasing list of punishments) the Sisters are following the rules and yet each hope that when one falls out of favour, or their health finally fails then they can ascend to the next level gaining ever closeness to the Chosen and perfection. Those they compete with they are happy to torture, play cruel tricks on or when all else fails inform of the other’s transgressions and enjoy watching the punishment. One sister has decided to keep her own secret diary detailing the rituals, the conflicts and her own delight in tormenting her rivals. But the House is disturbed by the arrival of a new entrant that reminds our narrator of there being more to life than this. The changes will ripple throughout the House with devastating consequences but also remind us that even in the darkest times there can be moments of light.
Our unnamed narrator is a great example of an unlikeable character who we get to understand and sympathise with and in so doing provides a reminder to us that the environment often shaped people. Initially our Sister is a quite cruel person. She desperately wants to be Chosen for greatness and is very happy sabotaging her competition and thinking of ways to punish and trick others – insects in pillows just to make us all squirm. This is very quickly some form of cult and our main character is very much fully on board. We watch initially with distance how a group of people all seem to feed off the cruelty and torment within the group and the gothic setting of the monastery give it all a very old school horror feel in some ways. There is no one to root for and everyone seems complicit. Our narrator is enjoying it which makes things worse.
Then into the story enters a new person who escapes into the grounds of the House a young woman named Lucia. This opens two parts of the story. Firstly, this makes us starts to delve into the actual external circumstances that have allowed this House to exist, and this also awakens something unexpected in our main character. She does not immediately report Lucia to the Superior Sister and indeed gently aids her coming into the House. Lucia becomes the lower of our main character and for the first time in a very long time this reminds our Sister of who she used to be.
The duality that gets created in the story’s latter half for me really works to make this more than just a spooky cult tale. Lucia is in many ways someone who upsets the balance of darkness. She isn’t someone who can be browbeaten by the pecking order, she has her own ways of rebelling and with our narrator she brings out moments of joy. She reminds us we can be human.
In our narrator’s flashbacks we watch the world end through unspecified disasters, but what becomes very apparent is the breakdown of societies s w trudge through ruined cities, dried up seas and dangerous forests. The people she met along the way and the bond she makes with a pet are both beautiful and tragically doomed as the world turns on itself and becomes a very dangerous and poisonous place. Bazterrica makes us realise that there re points where the worlds ugly chaos can make someone seek shelter and some respite but makes an unholy bargain in the process to obey new rules and act themselves cruelly to anyone who falls out of line and then equally fall prey to any cult’s leadership desires. These plotlines then converge in the finale as Lucia becomes far too noticeable to those in charge and the idea of her becoming Chosen becomes quite a huge danger. Our narrator must decide on which side of the House she now stands and what price is she prepared to pay for that decision.
The Unworthy is a darkly beautiful story of falling into compliance and forgetting your humanity but then rediscovering it. We get to understand why these people have decided to follow a path that seems dangerous, self-destructive and often evil but remind ourselves those in power often take such opportunities for their own ambitions. Its never a comfortable read but it is one I definitely highly recommend.
