Inside the mystery of America's first mystics

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From compulsivereader.com

The subject of this historical novel is enough in itself to make it an extraordinary book. Johannes Kelpius was a Transylvanian mystic who led a group of mostly university-educated Germans to America in the late 17th century. Free from the restraints of the orthodoxy of church and state, they established a community in a hidden gorge near William Penn’s egalitarian city of Philadelphia. There they practiced astronomy, botany, and secret spiritual rites, leaving behind rumors of wizardry and witchcraft.

Not much is known about what exactly befell Kelpius and his group. Scott uses this historical mystery as a vehicle for a fictitious 19th century woman’s search for the truth behind centuries of legends. As a girl, Lydia finds herself in possession of a number of objects that were said to belong to the young mystic and, at various stages in her life she uncovers clues that further her curiosity.

Among the mystic’s artifacts is an old quilt. It is an appropriate symbol for the way Scott has structured his novel. The Woman in the Wilderness is series of significant moments from the lives of Kelpius and Lydia, alternating with epistolary chapters that give voice to the characters that surrounded Kelpius and finally Kelpius himself. It is a challenging structure, but through it a coherent picture emerges in much the same way a design in a quilt becomes apparent from a seemingly random selection of fragments.

In almost any novel dealing with mystics, there is an element of the paranormal. Scott uses an extant legend that links Kelpius with the legendary lapis philosophorum to create and sustain a sense of mystery throughout the narrative. Beyond this, nearly everything else supernatural is implied or simply woven into the story as reported incidents. Kelpius is given unusual, but rarely extraordinary, intuition. By handling it this way, Scott is able to include the tantalizing tales that surround the history of Kelpius without putting a strain on the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

Kelpius’s role as a centrist peacemaker is defined partly by contrast to his comrades. Henrich Köster is a feisty former teacher who uses his brand of spirituality to bolster his sense of superiority. Daniel Falckner relies more heavily on the material than the spiritual, succumbing to drink during a crisis and finally to the call of the secular world. Maria Warmer is one of only two significant female characters. She is the daughter of Kelpius’s own spiritual teacher and forever forbidden by the protagonist’s vow of celibacy. When Maria attempts to bring Kelpius together with a young lady traveler, the encounter is poignantly unfulfilling to all three.

The central conflict of the book therefore is neither one of religious freedom nor of Lydia’s 19th century quest for answers to the riddle of Kelpius’s life. It is basically an interior conflict—how Kelpius’s human frailty thwarts his earnest search for meaning in spirituality. At the end of their lives, the journeys of Lydia and Kelpius converge. There is a fulfillment in this convergence—one mixed with a sense that the same sort of resolution is available to all of us, but elusively just beyond our reach.

This book makes few compromises with the expectations of contemporary fiction. Its voice remains faithful to the two centuries in which it takes place, but it is perhaps the most timeless novel that I have read in recent memory. The story of Johannes Kelpius deserves to be rescued from the historical oblivion in which it has fallen for 300 years, and this powerful novel is a perfect vehicle. With excellent writing and a remarkable story, The Woman in the Wilderness should be a future classic of literary fiction.