Taking a look at these two novels Catholic novelist Deacon Ron Hansen wrote featuring nuns (FYI -- he's also written non-church themed novels, but that's for another post down the road).
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The highly acclaimed and provocatively rendered story of a young postulant's claim to divine possession and religious ecstasy. In 1906, a beautiful seventeen year old postulant enters the convent of the Sisters of the Crucifixion in upstate New York. When she begins to bleed from her hands, feet, and side, the entire community is thrown into turmoil. Is Mariette a cunning sham, or sexually hysterical, or does God stalk her like a pitiless lover? Mariette in Ecstasy is a stunning immersion into the society of a small convent at the turn of the century, where a mysterious and ultimately harrowing world lies beneath the lovely, placid surface of everyday life. This is an intimate portrait of a fascinating young woman in the grip of an intractable fate, and it raises provocative questions about the complex nature of passionate faith.
Goodreads.com
★★★☆☆
In 1906, seventeen year old Mariette decides to leave her life of wealth and privilege as the pampered daughter of a successful daughter to enter the Our Lady of Sorrows convent in Arcadia, New York. Serving as a postulant for the Sisters of the Crucifixion order, Mariette begins to show signs of stigmata. Mariette also confesses to having conversations with Christ that escalate into an all-consuming, nearly sexualized level of religious ecstasy. As Mariette's behavior and emotions become increasingly erratic, her explanation is that she desperately wants to experience the literal suffering of Christ. The nuns are beside themselves trying to figure out how to handle this. Once the story moves beyond the walls of the convent, a panel of church officials is pulled together to come in and interview the nuns to ascertain if Mariette is truly having a powerful religious experience or slipping into insanity.
Geraldine O'Rawe the 1996 film adaptation of Mariette in Ecstasy
From the childhoood of Mariette down to the nuns in the convent she joins, imagery of self persecution plays heavily into the whole novel. In fact, the novel opens with scenes of each nun starting her day and from the very first introduction to Mother Saint Raphael, we read of her practicing self penance through the wearing of thorned rosebush branches under her habit. There are also descriptions of nuns participating in flogging or various other forms of self-persecution or lying on beds of thorns to strengthen their commitment to the vow of chastity.
Mother Saint Raphael tugs her plain white nightgown up over her head. She is hugely overweight but her legs are slight as a goat's. Tightly sashed around her stomach just below the great green-veined bowls of her breasts are cuttings from the French garden's rosebushes, the dark thorns sticking into skin that is scarlet with infection. She gets into a grey habit, tying it with a sudden jerk. She winces and shuts her eyes.
The entire novel spans the time period of a few months. Even for a brief story, there are some slower moments here, but the intensity certainly picks up the closer we come to the end! One incident and its aftermath are reminiscent of the stories of the Witch Trials era, as Mariette's life before and after entering the convent are investigated. The church panel wishes to determine: are her behaviors are a detailed hoax? Or is she being consumed by the Devil? Should she be kicked out of the convent? Committed to an asylum?
I did feel for Mariette's father, the little we get to know about him. Being a doctor, he's a man of science who gravitates towards the tangibly provable. He struggles to understand Mariette's deep devotion to the religious world, he misses being able to have a normal, friendly father-daughter relationship without all the rules about contact, but he tries to be there for his daughter as much as convent protocol will allow.
Mariette In Ecstasy does go to some WEIRD places at times, but what keeps it highly readable is Hansen's wonderful, slow-brew way with prose. And that last line! Love!
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EXTRAS
* Author Ron Hansen himself is an ordained Deacon in the Catholic Church.
* Ron Hansen wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of his book. His characters were portrayed by quite a few notable names such as Rutger Hauer, John Mahoney, Mary McDonnell, and Eva Marie Saint.
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In December 1875 the steamship Deutschland left Bremen, Germany, bound for America. On board were five nuns, exiled by a ban on religious orders, bound to begin their lives anew in Missouri. Their journey would end when the Deutschland ran aground at the mouth of the Thames and all five drowned. Ron Hansen tells their harrowing story, but also that of the poet and seminarian Gerard Manly Hopkins, and how the shipwreck moved him to write a grand poem, a revelatory work read throughout the world today. Combining a thrilling tragedy at sea, with the seeming shipwreck of Hopkins's own life, "Hansen brilliantly, if soberly, weaves two interrelated story lines into a riveting novel" (Booklist on Exiles).
Amazon.com
★★★☆☆
Inspired by a true story, Exhiles novelizes the tragic story of the steamship Deutschland, which set out in December of 1875, leaving its German port for the shores of America. It never reaches its destination. Onboard, among the passengers: a group of five nuns, ages ranging between 23-32, exhiled by a government ban on religious orders, with the goal of traveling to Missouri in hopes of starting up an American branch of their order: Sister Henrica, Sister Brigitta, Sister Barbara, Sister Aurea, and Sister Norbeta. Though the novel itself is quite a quick read, we still get a bit of a history on each of these women:
* Sister Henrica (previously known as Catharina): The reader / writer of the group. At only 15 years old, suffers the loss of her mother (died in childbirth). Grief develops into piousness, but she doesn't have the goal of taking vows right away. First, she takes up the mother role in the family, gets a job in a dress shop (her boss sees her as an "old soul" type). By the time of the trip to the Americas, Henrica is chosen to be Mother Superior of the new North American convent.
* Sister Brigitta: Born to tenant farmers, grew up shy and sensitive, often ill as a child. She grows into a pretty blonde-haired, blue eyed young woman. She's encouraged to find a suitor, which she tries to do but often gets bored with the process, often finding ways to slink off with a book somewhere. *I feel you, girl*
Sister Barbara: ("Barbara" comes from the Latin "wild, rough, and savage", Saint Barbara was executed by her own father!); Sister Barbara grew up the tomboy daughter of a shoemaker. She was plain of face, didn't like dolls, and was known for having wide open energy and zero filter of the mouth LOL. She also grew up a mostly friendless, lonely girl who loved the woods, was good as sports, but couldn't muster enough focus for reading. Once she was at the marrying age, her mother tried to match her with single farmers in the area (because of the life of poverty common for most at that time, Barbara's man-like strength was appreciated in the farming community), the matches never really panned out. But she parlayed her toughness into work in midwifery and as a triage nurse during the Franco Prussian War. Barbara was famous for her stoic, no-nonsense approach to life. Her tough-as-nails demeanor often got her labeled as a "harridan" among adults, but around children she often became a complete marshmallow.
Sister Aurea (previously Josepha): We don't get to know too much about her other than she's the rebel and jokester in the group. She sends the others gasping at the announcement that she wants to check out the men's bathroom on the ship: "Wide enough to swing a goose in, but small enough the goose would object" LOL Prior to becoming Sister Aurea, little Josepha is a happy soul who loves to laugh and sees beauty in the church life, but feels guilty "having committed sins against chasity" with her first crush, Werner. The nuns saw her as "just a wild puppy that needed to be house-trained... and impossible to dislike."
Sister Norberta (previously Johanna): Norbetta, like sister Brigitta, was also born to tenant farmers but at birth she was so small she was not expected to live long. But because she did indeed survive, her parents vowed to dedicate her life to the Catholic Church. Her mother treated her as a literal gift from God, which caused Johanna to act a bit haughty and spoiled. By the age of 21, she was 5'10, heavy-set and plain-faced. Friendless and without any suitors, her father declares, "she's become impossible." When he dies a few weeks later, Johanna blames herself.
The sisters travel without a male escort, and insist on paying extra so they may travel in 2nd class rather than steerage. They are all in wonder of the lavishness of the accommodations, even if small. The ship hits an underwater sand dune and when the crew checks the weather situation, they realize they are sailing into a developing hurricane; 130 pages in, the reader is thrust into a scene of crashing items, glass bursting, people being knocked about. The reader is then made to witness the nuns die off, one by one. Makes for a bit of tough reading, once you come to know and like the personalities of these women, more so when you remember this all was based on a true story!
There's also a bit of a secondary story incorporated into this brief novel: that of poet & Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was inspired to write an ode to the steamship Deutschland running aground at the mouth of the Thames River. Gerard, based in Wales, reads the newspaper reports of the downed ship and how the recovered bodies of the nuns have been laid out for viewing in Statford. Hopkins had previously been a published poet who destroyed his work as a religious act of stepping away from vanity. But when a fellow priest suggests the story might be poem-worthy, Gerard finds himself inspired to get to work crafting his ode.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The first chapter is a little slow but once we get into the life stories of each of the nuns, and the way Hansen eases into the night of the tragedy, his classic way with words ultimately has the reader breezing through the pages of an incredible story. I admit, I didn't become fully invested until the closing chapters, but I enjoyed the journey just the same (as much as you can with this kind of story!).
Hansen includes Hopkins' ode in full at the back of this book. Personally, the rhythm / where Hopkins chooses to put the line breaks had an odd flow for me... but it's there for anyone curious.
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