ONE OF A KIND.

Saint Francis of Assisi
G.K. Chesterton
Image Books, $10.95, 149 pp.

Salvation
Scenes from the Life of
Saint Francis
Valerie Martin
Alfred A. Knopf. $24, 271 pp.

Good stories never suffer from repetition, particularly when the storyteller is a skilled one and the story itself still pushes the edges of understanding.

From the moment of his death and canonization two years later, the saga of Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) has been retold and reshaped. Artists, writers, architects, poets, musicians, all have vied for their turn, from Giotto and Bonaventure to Kazantzakis and Messiaen. Each new storyteller has discovered in the poor man of Assisi some facet yet to be explored, a quantum calling for their artistry.

G.K. Chesterton's Saint Francis, first published in 1923 and happily reissued again by Image, is a classic in miniature. Superbly written, it tells us as much about Chesterton as it does about Francis Bernardone. Chesterton, a master of paradox, meets Francis, the master paradox: the one who is poorest is richest; the one who suffers Christ's Passion returns rejoicing. Chesterton's essay is quick but satisfying. It both bends one's mind and challenges one's conventions. In a few short sentences, for example, Chesterton conveys the sense of a century--its air, its texture, its fissures. Dexterously criticizing what he sees as the fateful aspects of the Franciscan project--its anarchism, for example--Chesterton nonetheless reaffirms its achievements. The Franciscan revolution, he concludes, was a necessary "spiritual earthquake."

Valerie Martin's "scenes from the life of Saint Francis" is a bright, engaging pasticcio, based on a conceit. For some years a resident of Italy, the American novelist (a non-Catholic, she makes clear at the start) found herself intrigued by the episodes of Francis's life depicted in the murals she discovered in fabled Italian churches. This introduction eventually led to a deeper interest in the saint's life and to a desire to animate what she had discovered.

Martin's writing strategy has something in common with the Ignatian method of meditation. She stares intensely at a scene, immersing herself in it fully, and suddenly she and the whole thing take flight. With the tools and confidence of a novelist, she follows willingly where her characters lead--and Francis is surrounded by memorable characters. More often than not, Martin manages to land sure-footedly but still sprinting.

Her technique might also be compared to an artist's flip-through animation book. With a twist of the thumb, fingers, and wrist, the initial static frame launches into motion. For an all-too-brief moment, the whole sketch pad is flung into a dance, its characters gesturing individually and communally. Then, just as abruptly, the scene stops. We are left with a somewhat melancholy feeling that for an instant we had been privileged to witness a different moment and type of time, to see the inanimate and two-dimensional come alive, and to enjoy the exquisitely cast period costumes and actors' perfectly drawn motions. Martin also has a facility for conveying color. She has heard the insects of Umbria and breathed its dust.

There are three difficulties with Martin's writing tack, which she nevertheless surmounts. First, Francis is too large a figure to capture in a limited series of sketches. As Chesterton wrote, he was "the most original genius of the thirteenth century." While relating the essential events, Martin gives us too few to create a lasting, comprehensive impression. She might have done what Chesterton opted to do: remind the reader repeatedly that this is but a rough, limited outline of the life of a confounding, passionate man.

Second, after a brief, balanced, and well-footnoted introduction, Martin proceeds as if the reader now fully comprehends the scope and effect of Francis's life. For most of us, however, our grasp of Francis remains about as deep as that of the neighborhood florist: in general, it's birds and flowers. This proves a liability when Martin attempts to convey Francis's Christocentric approach to poverty, or his equally mystifying struggle to maintain bodily chastity.

Third, Martin starts literally from the back of the book--with Francis's death, blindness, and stigmata coming first. It is not until the final chapter that we confront the young Francis's initial upending moment of illumination and conversion. When the Atlantic published excerpts from the book last year (August 2000), the editors wisely chose to arrange the selected vignettes according to the customary chronology. It worked. But in the published book, Martin's time inversion forces her to run a two-page chronology before she even begins her introduction. It is a good thing, however, for readers will need to backtrack to the chronology repeatedly to reestablish their bearings.

Still, by the end of Martin's story--which is Francis's beginning--she has managed to vindicate her method, and with a flourish. Arriving at the final episode--Francis's youthful embrace of a leper--one is suddenly hit by a sense of all that motivated and preceded it (that is, what historically followed it). What had seemed obscure and viewed from afar finally becomes illuminated from within. It is as if having paged through a photo album from back to front, we arrive at the infant's first picture and suddenly recognize in this little form all that followed: the beauty of fresh life, the later sense of continuity and predestination, the flip in time and categories, and, in the end, a compelling sense of the whole. Valerie Martin's book has that sudden effect. It is a worthy companion to Chesterton's short classic.

Patrick Jordan is Commonweal's managing editor.