Marie de France is sent to an impoverished abbey in England from the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Matrix is the story of how through her hard work, tenacity and compassion she nurtures her fellow nuns, and encourages the abbey to thrive
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There is a unique style to the story telling within this novel. Some passages move slowly, whilst in others time races decades on. I don’t think it will be to everyone’s tastes, but it worked well for me. It felt like a memoir of Marie, she chooses the important aspects to share with the reader, without having to spend pages on days where nothing of note happens
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There has clearly been a lot of research as the author takes time exploring all the roles they had to keep the abbey and the people under their care surviving the dark days of 12th Century England. I enjoyed seeing how nuns were cooks and builders and teachers and more in this period. I also found the hierarchy interesting, Marie has no prior experience, or particular religious devotion, but she is from a noble family and this means something, and she is able to take control almost immediately
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Marie is a fascinating character. Her jealousy and ambition are some of her defining features, yet it helps to build an abbey which prospers whilst the rest of the country declines. She expects a lot from the nuns under her charge, but this isn’t for nothing as they build and create a place of safety under turbulent times. She is not always likeable, and not everything she does can be supported, but she is doing what it takes for herself, and the nuns, to survive. But she does show love and compassion and the growth of becoming a true Mother, or ‘matrix’ to the nuns creates a brilliant character to follow
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I didn’t know much about Marie de France, who this book is based on, but I don’t think you need to. The context is given when needed, but it doesn’t need to be built in truth, as it is a book to show the isolation of these women, the care they give, their life under an oppressive patriarchal society, how the impoverished are viewed, and how these women survived and prospered despite this
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Thank you to Net Galley and Random House for this eCopy

I have picked this book up and put it down on several occasions and now, roughly 3 months after I started it, I will admit defeat. The very fact I haven't even thought about it for 2 weeks now means I know I just won't finish it - well not this year anyway.

I was really captured by the description of this book however, I really struggled with the writing style and couldn't make it hold my attention for longer than ten minutes at a time which was really frustrating as I usually devour books.

I am sure there will be many people that enjoy it - unfortunately, this time, it's just not for me.

Thanks go to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

A very gripping novel set in the Middle Ages. Sometimes difficult to get through because it's so bleak, but unique in its setting and I'm glad I read it.

I love good historical fiction, well written prose and strong female characters so this SHOULD have ticked my boxes but didn't. The writing was beautifully descriptive but there was nothing in either the characterisation or plot to engage me, I don't know any more about Marie or Eleanor than the basics I had before starting the book and I was disappointed that a seemingly feminist book repeatedly focused (negatively imo) on Marie's large frame and lack of beauty. I am in the minority here, there are some fabulous reviews and I've possibly missed something as for me it was all style and little substance although there must have been something compelling about it for me to finish.

I thought I had cured myself of trudging on with a book I'm not particularly enjoying so after finally finishing this I'm torn between giving myself a good talking to for struggling on or patting myself on the shoulder for getting to the end.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book

I thought the abbey setting was genius - so unique and now I’m convinced there needs to be a whole sub genre for it! I thought Geoff’s writing was stellar, as usual, and a refreshing approach to historical fiction.

I requested this before publication, but it's only just been granted to me now, around 9 months later?!

Anyway, I read it when it was published and loved it! In fact I listened to it on audio and it was just the kind of book I like listening too; beautiful prose and a meandering plotline where nothing much happens. If that sounds like a criticism, then it's not meant to be; this was one of my favourite books of 2021.

I loved this book, it was well written, with a compelling storyline and well developed characters some of which I adored, others I liked and some I detested, but they all brought something to the plot. I liked that it showcased formidle women from that period of history . It was incredibly well researched but didn't bog the book down with facts. I really liked it.

Lauren Groff is a skillful writer and although this book is a departure from her previous novel (Which i enjoyed immensely) it is a great book in its own right.
It is a take on the imagining of the life of Marie de France - and how life as an English nun shapes her after she has been banished from the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
I found the historical detail engrossing and accurate: I studied this period at university. It was interesting to see how Groff subverts the conventions of women's perceptions and expectations within the lives of the female protaganist and the other characters within the cast.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced release copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Marie, bastard child of the king of England and fled from France, is sent by the queen as prioress to an impoverished abbey.

Initially faithless and desperate to escape, Marie builds the abbey into a formidable estate and a safe and prosperous haven for the sisters and the wider community, protected from the wider political and ecclesiastical background.

Marie is an incredible character, based loosely on the poet Marie de France and an early abbess of Shaftesbury Abbey. She challenges the orthodoxy and stretches the boundaries of what she and her sisters can achieve.

One star might be harsh but this was desperately dull. I have retained next to nothing from reading it.

I requested Matrix because I’ve liked Lauren Groff’s books (Florida, especially. From Fates and Furies I only remember a dog called God but I think I liked it. Arcadia, somewhat less). So even though I’m not at all interested in nuns or the twelfth century, I’m eternally optimistic in my ARC requests. Of course, the fact that this book was released months ago gives you an idea of how I felt once the request was granted. When will I learn?

Marie of France was a real person (apparently, but History is not my subject). However, I understand a lot of the story is imagined – how much exactly, I don’t know. I don’t think I’d be wrong in saying the feminist and Sapphic angles have been exaggerated. If you happen to be passionate about this historic figure, I’m sure you’ll find inaccuracies to drive you crazy.

Marie is basically exiled to an English abbey as a teenager. It’s in a terrible state and the nuns are impoverished and sickly, but with Marie in charge things are turned around and the nuns thrive. ‘A feminist utopia’ is a phrase I’ve noticed used a lot to describe the Abbey. And that’s about all I gathered and even that might not be right but I had such a hard time taking in any of this.

The writing itself is not all that bad, although the style of writing doesn’t exactly grip you. I felt more like I was being told what was happening instead of experiencing the events. I never felt I was in the scene, only observing.

A purely subjective one star. It just wasn’t for me.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff takes a sideways look at the modern American marriage. I loved it and confess that I expected more modern America from Matrix by Lauren Groff. Think again. This time Lauren has turned her imagination to twelfth century nuns in England. Marie, our heroine is a nun of Royal descent. She is tall, HUGE with HUGE feet and hands we keep on being told. As a HUGE woman with HUGE feet and hands the constant implication that all such folk are odd got a teeny bit irritating. She has visions, she writes books. Sort of a cross between Mother Julian of Norwich and Christine de Pizan. I loved Matrix but at the end I was not sure what had happened that I should care about. It is a song of praise to capability of women and enjoyable if you enjoy a dive into the world of the twelfth century nunnery.

I loved the depictions of Frances, Wales and England, but overall I really struggled to
understand the main character and the people she is with along the way.

Beautiful, rich, and invigoratingly strange - easily Groff's best, for me, and fortuitously one I read right on the heels of Marie de France's lais. Recommended very strongly.

Marie de France's life is imaginatively brought to life in Lauren Groff's novel - taking us from her youth through to old age via a series of schemes, visions and elaborate and savvy political decisions. Despite the heavy subject at times it remains emotionally engaging and an enjoyable read.

Matrix
Lauren Groff
Hutchinson Heinemann

Take a flight of fancy to an abbey in 12th-century England where novelist Lauren Groff brilliantly reimagines the world of the real-life Marie de France, of whom very little is known. In 1158 Marie, a bastard of the crown, is despatched to an abbey in England by Eleanor of Aquitaine.
She is, to put it bluntly, no beauty: a “great clumsy lunk” – so marrying her off is out of the question. Sullenly she makes her way to the abbey and a life of religious servitude. But Marie is educated and knows how to run an estate so over the years as she is promoted to abbess she turns around the fortunes of the abbey, replacing a community of bleating starving nuns with a thriving empowered community shored up by elaborate engineering projects that Marie claims came to her in visions: a scriptorium, a labyrinth, a dam.
There are no men in this novel, except as vague menacing threats outside the walls, and over time Marie sacrilegiously takes upon herself the roles commonly held by priests: saying mass, hearing confession. The queen does not approve. She grapples with her fierce sexuality – she, like many nuns, is a lesbian – and she keeps a loving, prideful watch over her “daughters”, the nuns.
Female ambition is at the core of brilliant story. In a nutshell, it’s motto could be, “Who needs men?” Do yourself a favour and give this one a go. It’s a cracker.

There's a strange mix of human interaction, spiritual epiphany and not much happening in this short novel that feels a lot longer than it is - not that it's a huge slot getting through it, but more that there is somehow a lot of depth covered in a relatively small number of pages.

Marie, related to the Queen of Angleterre, Eleanor of Aquitaine, by rape is large, ungainly and unwomanly. She is raised by her mother and fierce aunts, taken on crusades and, when her mother dies, runs the estate alone. Discovered, she is sent on to the royal court, where she is dismissed to an out-of-the-way, run-down and starving abbey, effectively to die.

But Marie possesses far greater power than is expected - she is a shrewd businesswoman, formidable presence and a visionary in expanding her abbey and protecting her woman.

Interwoven with this is something a little more sapphic and sexual - a community of women living together and depending on each other for care and much more. And Marie's relationship with Eleanor is something more than unrequited love - it is a complex combination of hero-worship and hatred.

Despite being a religious sceptic to some extent, Marie appears to find her own faith that is influenced by her enclave of women, and her religious surroundings. However it remains unclear how much of her work was divine inspiration, and how much was justification for 'unwomanly' endeavours.

I understand from reading other reviews that, if you are already aware of Marie de France and literary works, that you may be disappointed by this novel. However, it is still historical fiction in the best sense - powerfully imagined but embedded in its period.

I'm late for this one as well, I know. When I heard Lauren Groff had a new novel out I was SO excited. Fates and Furies is one of my favorite books of all time and, although her short story collection did not quite work for me, I was sure this was going to be a hit. Matrix is a historical fiction set in the 12th century and it tells the story of an abbess, who I think is supposed to be based on Marie de France, a real-life poet from that time. There is no easy way to say this. My expectations for this novel declined sharply after I spoke with my husband about my fears that this would be another case of a 21st-century character being badly photoshopped into historical times and who's clearly supposed to be ~a feminist icon~. My husband hesitantly told me that that's exactly what he read in some reviews. Reader, the reviews were right.

If there is one thing I cannot stand in a historical fiction, it's when I cannot quite believe that the characters belong to their time - there is nothing at all wrong with a feminist take on history, nor with retelling the story of an overlooked historical woman, but I want to read her as a person of her time, even if she has beliefs and behaviors that conflict with it. I did not think Marie was a believable character, even if she was a formidable one, and I simply could not get invested in the story of someone who felt like they didn't quite fit into the world building. At some point, some things with a more magical take start happening in the story, at which point I started reading it as more of a historical fantasy than a historical fiction; this made the characters and the story a lot more palatable.

Another complaint is that the writing was just so, so flowery that this book, despite being 260 pages long, read as if it were a much longer book. It took so long to read a single page, and especially the beginning is so repetitive and monotonous I nearly skimmed a big chunk of it. This upset me a lot because honestly, a book like this, that takes us through the entire lifetime of a character, sees huge transformations in her, in her surroundings, in the historical events she lives through, I wanted this to be a brick of a fucking fantastic book! I wanted to love it! I wanted to read 500 pages like they were 250, and not 250 like they were 500.

I was not convinced about the 12th century setting either, but this is harder for me to describe, as it was more a feeling than actually factual knowledge about that time. I was simply never immersed in the world like I am with every book in Mantel's Cromwell trilogy, for example.

Not all was awful. Some parts of the books were really beautiful, poignant and would have had a great emotional impact if I cared for the characters. And Lauren Groff definitely can write! I will read whatever she writes next, but I will be crossing my fingers it's a contemporary/literary novel.

Startling and inventive and powerful and my word did I close it thinking western civilisation would have been better for the influence of a few more lesbian-separatist poet nuns.

Unexpectedly beautifully written with well developed stories and fantastic sense of community which feels perfect for right now!

Sadly DNF this read, I couldn’t get through the clunky sentences and the story itself was just boring to me. I really didn’t enjoy it and found it so hard to follow I had to give up after 130 pages.