Knowledge of Angels | Jill Paton Walsh

This is brilliant read: simply as a story, it is compelling and very involving. We the reader are drawn to care intimately about the fate of the main characters because they are so timeless.

The first one we meet is Amara, a lost child: a seven year-old girl found near the mountain tops by shepherds. She was raised by a wolf, and knows nothing of human behaviour or beliefs.

The second is Palinor, a rational man: an atheist, who by accident – or, we later have to ask, by design? – found himself on the island from the mysterious and unknown kingdom of Aclar. He claims to have come to the decision God does not exist through rational and experience.

Joining these two are the High Prince, Severo; his highest ranking monk and s renowned religious scholar, Benedix, and Josefa, a young girl sent to a nunnery, unwanted by her new step-mother.

The stage for the events which bring these characters together for us is Grandinsula, ostensibly an island of the Mediterranean, set around the time of the Inquisitions.
The book concerns how we gain knowledge of religion: is it something innate? born into us like vision? or is it learned? like language, like sin?

Palinor represents the side of rational - that we come to know God through a conscious decision: we are free to reject the knowledge we are shown and choose other creeds, or choose none. He is a man who believes in the autonomy of humanity. Because on the island atheists are heretics, and heretics must have their lives taken from them, Palinor is to be sentenced to death.

If it can be proved that knowledge of God is learned, he will be set free: all that Benedix stands for will be undermined and negated. If it is proved on the other hand, that that knowledge is innate, Palinor will be killed: the foundation of the Christian teaching is vindicated.

This dichotomy is to be tackled by Josefa: she is to care for Amara: an experiment in language and knowledge: when she knows the words of her human world - will she speak of God?