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Business ethics during the New Order, Indonesia.
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
Former nun Weber (author of the nonfiction Finding Stone, etc.) takes a probing and surprisingly dark look at convent life in this evocative debut, which explores congruences and conflicts between sensuality, music and Catholicism for three generations of Midwestern women. Elise comes of age in Minnesota's rugged northern lake district, raised by caring but troubled parents--Michael, a WWII veteran scarred by the physical and psychic marks of battle, and Kate, who has chosen to atone for past guilts by inuring herself to sexuality and love. Elise's maternal grandmother, Meghan, has already abandoned carnal pleasure, settling into a celibate life as the local priest's caretaker after the sudden deaths of her husband and young son. Elise, a piano prodigy, responds to her mother's coldness and her father's grief by taking "the fixing of the world upon herself," becoming deeply religious and electing, at 18, to enter a convent. However, Elise finds that life inside the convent is not what she had expected. She falls prey to an older, sexually manipulative nun, who forbids her piano practice and cuts her off from her family. The deaths of Michael, Meghan and a beloved fellow nun prompt Elise's reconsideration of Catholic dogma and lead to healing self-discovery for both Elise and Kate. Weber articulates a faith that affirms music, sexuality and the natural world, offering a nuanced critique of what she depicts as the church's life-denying impulses. The novel is dense and sprawling, and readers may sense that Weber's ambition in tackling broad themes cannot be sustained. The tone is occasionally preachy or didactic, and some of the episodes are contrived. But the key characters are richly developed, and Weber writes with lyric grace and candor, producing a provocative and moving narrative. 5-city author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
《书目》(Booklist)书评
In this ambitious first novel, veteran nonfiction writer and ex-nun Weber tackles the immensely complicated issues of Catholicism, religious vocation, and sexuality. Covering approximately 55 years in the lives of three generations of women, the novel is set in the stark landscape of northern Minnesota from the early 1900s through 1965. When Elise, an accomplished pianist, joins the convent in 1958, she finds that institutionalized repression of both sexuality and identity can generate some bizarre and injurious circumstances. Reforms in convent practices come too late for Elise, whose hold on reality becomes seriously impaired as she learns firsthand about the human failings of those "elevated" by religious calling. Her decision to leave the convent allows a newly experienced closeness with her mother and a better understanding of the family's history. Chapter-heading quotes from Sister Mary's music notebooks have a poetic and transporting quality that hints at something more than what the narrative actually delivers. Nonetheless, there is a lot packed into this short novel, much of it surprisingly graphic. --Grace Fill
Kirkus评论
First-novelist Weber draws heavily on her background as an ex-nun to provide a fictional portrait of convent life. Set in northern Minnesota from 1910 to 1996, most of the story takes place within a convent so depraved and unnatural that it could well have been lifted straight from the pages of The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk. Homosexuality and rape seem to be common pursuits at Our Lady of Peace, but the sisters occasionally need to find time to hush up suicides and take out their sexual frustrations on the novices. The novices, for their part, are continually falling in love with one another and comport themselves generally with all the bitchiness of schoolgirls. Sister Elise, the heroine, is a sensitive and talented musician who doesn't seem to be cut out for the long haul. Will she persevere? If you like this sort of thing, Rumer Godden did it much better in Black Narcissus.
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
When Elise chooses to forgo developing her remarkable musical talent in favor of entering northern Minnesota's Our Lady of Peace convent, she is the third generation of her family dominated by the notion of necessary sacrifice. No less fervently did her grandmother Meghan and mother Kate deny themselves full happiness in love, sex, and marriage, believing they were performing their duty to God as good Catholics. Elise becomes Sister Michelle, but convent life does not fulfill her hopes. Despite spiritual high points, she experiences disappointment and shock, especially after unbearable, even horrific, revelations about Mother Thomas Ann, the novice mistress and Elise's godmother. As power shifts within the convent and changes transform the church in the wake of Vatican II, the young nun finds the courage to reexamine her choices and the self-confidence to revise her life plan. More than a convent tale or family saga (though it is both of these), this book is a finely crafted meditation on the inner lives of modern women. The author, a former nun, is an experienced writer of nonfiction; in her first novel, she demonstrates an equal facility for popular fiction. Recommended for larger public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/99.]--Starr E. Smith, Marymount Univ. Lib., Arlington, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.