‘Wild with desire, He clasped the blushing Trembler in his arms. He fastened his lips greedily upon hers, sucked in her pure delicious breath, violated with his bold hand the treasures of her bosom….’ (pg 262)

Despite what you may initially think, this is not a Mills and Boons novel. There are no rose petals sprinkled on the bed, or sweet romantic strolls clasped hand-in-hand with a sun-kissed foreigner named Pablo. What Matthew Lewis’ classic gothic novel, The Monk does have instead is much more exciting. It’s a labyrinth of sexual obsession, murder, religious nutters and ghoulish supernatural guests. Oh and incest. Got to love a bit of incest.

The Monk was penned in 1794, years before any sexual revolutions had occurred and centuries before Salt “N” Pepper ever caused havoc to our ears with: ‘Let’s talk about sex baby.’ During Lewis’ lifetime it was religion and the church which had the greatest influence over the law and its people. Sex and sexual desire – the big no-no – was squashed under the sandals of religious leaders by giving the European people a good moralistic bible-thumping. Despite this, Lewis pushed the boundaries of sexual freedom by creating characters in The Monk with rich sexual and psychological depth that Freudians would later salivate over.

The novel is a mesh of narrative threads with confusing characters, stories within stories about unrequited love, bleeding ghostly nuns and females forced to live in convents. But the protagonist, Ambrosio  links these stories together. Ambrosio is a sexually repressed monk who has never seen life outside of the walls of the monastery. He was an orphan dropped off at the church as a young boy and who had no choice but to take the monastic way of life. Yet despite appearing virtuous and holy to the church people, his sexual fixation is conveyed early in the novel when he is admiring a painting of the virgin Madonna.

He is depressed and I must say I felt sorry for the guy: he really just needed to get laid. However, soon after my sympathetic thoughts a woman pretending to be a monk named Matilda seduces Ambrosio (she uses the ole ‘its my dying wish!’ trick) and his sexual needs are fulfilled… or not.. It turns out Matilda and Ambrosio’s roll in the hay is far from ‘Sexual Healing’ but was instead rather like pouring gasoline on Ambrosio’s fire of lust and obsession. Ah, Ambrosio’s loins of desire were now a raging fire.

So, I happily farewelled Ambrosio the holy monk and said hello to Ambrosio sinner, rapist and villain. Nobody can deny the charms of a good villain.

I won’t give too much away, just that Ambrosio’s sexual obsession is in a similar vein to Humbert Humbert in Lolita but with much more gore (a nun is reduced to bloody mushy pulp in a riot) and some interesting soul-selling moments with the devil. So, unsurprisingly the book caused widespread controversy for its cheeky, lewd and horrifying descriptions of violence. And yeah, it pissed the church off  a lot. The lines between good and evil were confused and blurred. Coleridge, the words worth himself, criticised the work as ‘blasphemous.’ However Lewis, being only nineteen at the time may have not intended to make so many religious leaders and followers froth and foam at the mouth. Or, he was just a shit stirrer..

The church took the later option and after a law suit Lewis was forced to release a edited and censored version of his book. Which really was a pity for the book lovers of 200 years ago who wanted to read some decent gothic erotica. Luckily for us we are able to purchase the novel in its all its original lustful, gory and immoral bliss. So put down the Mills and Boons and read something controversial. Of course, if you are planning on getting a good night’s sleep perhaps stick with the trashy romance novel. Crazed disturbed monks may be more appropriate daylight reading…