The Rapture

The panacea society was a real religious group (a cult essentially, what's the technical difference here?) of mostly women. I had no idea of this groups/cults existence before opening this book but I strongly recommend looking into them a bit before or after reading this book (Depending on how much you mind “spoilers” you might want to leave it to the after). Most of the characters within are directly or indirectly based on real people and records left. Most noteably the main character Dilys and the prophetess octavia. Though the book takes many liberties with Dilys in particular. Like giving her a lesbian lover. Maybe lover. Hey, they're in a religious celibate cult. It's complicated. Also, extremely dramatic – in a good way. Dilys is an extremely confused character. She wants to believe as strongly as the others but struggles to do so or else to reject it entirely often expressing jealousy of her brother who left the faith behind while at the same time believing him to be damned. The same with her totally not girlfriend where they have to talk in so many riddles and half truth by the end of the book im still not sure whether the eating-pussy-through-sheets scene was real or not and neither is Dilys. In the background of Dilys struggle is also the whole society slowly imploding upon itself while people in the middle of it deny it's happening. I thought Octavia- the prophetess was also a fascinating character and would have loved a bit more on her. The politics of the group people trying to gain power and slowly realizing what's really going on with Octavia takes a backseat to Dilys' many issues for better or worse.

My only real gripe is at the very end and impossible to talk about without spoiling.
I do not care for the books I read to have happy endings necessarily. But this didn't feel right. Even the ending that happened to the real Dilys – eventually coming back to the society would have made a better ending. As it is – her brother saves her from the group with Grace's help, even gives her a message from Grace and seems to talk about her positively. And in the next scene he seems to imply he is trying to get Dilys away from Grace specifically and shipping her off to the madhouse for it. And if he wanted her away from Grace wouldn't taking her to india be just as good a solution? Even if I accept the disrepancy even then he doesn't seem to intend to keep her there for good so it doesn't feel like any sort of ending. On the other hand if the intent wasn't to keep her away from Grace why is she absent in the finale.

Amazing to discover that the events in this novel were inspired by a true life Christian cult that existed up into the 1960s. The novel uses the Panacea Society's leaflets etc in the text telling this story of a young cult member in the 1920s. Well-researched, pacy and unexpectedly thought-provoking. Full review on my blog here: https://annabookbel.net/review-assortment-jhumpa-lahiri-ian-mackenzie-somerset-maugham