trennels | catholic question?

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catholic question?

So good to find this site, full of other people who share a passions for the Marlows Fascinating that people have such very different responses. Never occurred to me that you could love the books but not Nicola, or that anyone actually liked Patrick Merrick….

So I’d like to ask opinions about something I find puzzling. All the obits/biogs say Antonia Forest was such a strong catholic, and yet why (to my mind) are her noncatholic/nonreligious characters so much more appealing? And her catholic characters so strongly unappealing. Mme Orly is a nightmare –fun to read about, but a nightmare – and then there’s Patrick… I suppose he is the major example. To me he always seems both arrogant and a prig, and his religious certainties always seemed a big part of this. He is just way too certain of himself and his beliefs.

Some examples: In conversation with Rowan, he states that of course he never has any difficulties at all in believing in God (End of Term). Nicola, following a conversation with him, reflects that she hopes her ancestors were genuine believers in Protestantism, as anything else would seem so inferior to the Merricks, with their acceptance of possible martyrdom. (interesting: she seems to detect in his religion a kind of dynastic superiority rather than a personal spirituality!) In the same conversation Patrick makes clear that he sees the whole of English history through a Catholic prism – completely writing off the Tudors and the Restoration, and stating that of course his family supported Charles not ‘Orrible Oliver during the Civil War. (And more fool them, as Oliver Cromwell’s regime was notable for its toleration towards Catholics – far more so than after the Restoration.) Patrick’s certainties (religious, social, intellectual) are not even much shaken up by his long talk with Jukie (Thuggery Affair) although he does at least find Jukie’s DIY theology baffling, rather than amusing (as we are told would usually be the case). Is such cast-iron certainty/superiority really an attractive feature in someone who is only fifteen/sixteen? Wouldn’t you want to shoot him for such smugness!

Most tellingly, I can’t think of any notable example of kindness or generosity by Patrick, religiously inspired or not. Quite the opposite, in the whole betrayal of Nicola for Ginty -which makes it all the more annoying she is just delighted to get him back!) (Oops – I suppose Patrick’s willingness to help Jukie – at some personal risk – is an example here. However, Jukie dies and the incident seems to have no lasting effect upon Patrick at all.)

ALSO I can’t help noticing that AF herself chooses for her main characters people who are both open-minded and reflective and generally of no strong religious conviction at all. (Does this mean she likes them best? Or she thinks they are more appealing to readers? )In End of Term, Nicola is both thoughtful and intrigued by the different religious beliefs she encounters, almost sociologically observant, but very far from expressing any particular belief herself. This makes Nicola a lot more appealing in my eyes…she is also generally a kinder person than Patrick, and far more reflective about herself and her own behaviour. For that matter, Lawrie (who states that she thought Christianity was some sort of mythology, like the Olympians, and even tries to make bargains with God) is a lot more appealing than Ann (full of conventional religious piety).

Then there’s Nicholas and Will (Player’s Boy/Rebels). AF’s Will is surely one of her most appealing characters: wise, ironic, shrewd, detached…and he has no interest in supporting the Old Religion. Furthermore, he believes Nicholas is right to betray the Essex plotters regardless of the fact that some of them are hoping to restore the Catholic faith. (He and Nicholas’s scruples and regrets about this are to do with personal loyalties/friendships, not religion.)

So what’s going on here? Am I misreading the books totally? So many things I like about AF’s writing – her subversiveness (especially in the school setting), her openness to paradox and alternative points of view, and her choice of open-minded, searching, pragmatic characters for her main narrative viewpoints – seem at odds with what I read on the AF web-sites – that AF was a strong catholic herself. (And monarchist for that matter.) Of course, I have to say it is decades since I read Attic Term – would that make things clearer? Do I simply not understand what AF was trying to do? Comments please!

Tags: nicola, patrick, religion

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I don't know. Patrick is sixteen, just the age where if he's going to be smugly superior, he will be. I bet that if we were to meet him at 18, and certainly at 21, he would be completely different! Madame Orly would probably be dreadful whatever her denomination - she just isn't comfortable around young people, and it shows!

I find Nicola's and Lawrie's total ignorance of the basics of Christianity really rather surprising, considering that they go to boarding-school, where church attendance and daily prayers are undoubtedly compulsory! But there again, Nicola's surprise at discovering that there are real believers today, people for whom God is as real as bread and butter, and for whom worship is a normal part of daily life, may be due to her age.

As for Ann, she wouldn't be nearly so irritating if she wasn't quite so in-your-face about things. She may or may not be a believer, but she gets things just wrong - she has to do everything for everybody, can't ever let anybody else be helpful. Patrick's faith, I suspect, is a lot more real and grounded than Ann's is! He talks about it when asked, but basically gets on with the job of living - Ann has to try to prove she's "holy" in every interaction with her sisters.

It's interesting that the glimpses we get of her in Attic Term show that she's actually a successful prefect, managing to work very well with the juniors who are put in her charge. Yet in Run Away Home she is as irritating as ever - and devastated when left out of the family plans to rescue Edward, since she can't be trusted not to hand him over to the authorities.

And I don't

Sorry - no idea where that "And I don't" came from at the end of the previous post!

We can see in Mrs Marlow's references to her youth that her mother was always a Very Difficult Person, presumably before her conversion.

I don't think Ann is particularly 'trying to to be holy' - one doesn't get the impression that she takes a line of personal self-righteousness, but her perennial helpfulness and doing things for others is both exploited by and annoying to her siblings (this is almost distinct from their irritation over her piety). She seems to have 'boundary problems' with family members: because besides being an effective prefect she's also shown as an excellent Guide patrol leader who stands no nonsense from her patrol members and is adored by them. More effective in this respect than Karen is shown to be (e.g. in Autumn Term). Family dynamics at work?

And, of course, Madame Orly was married to a collaborateur (as confided by Sue Sims at the AF Conference, based on discussions with AF) which presumably causes a good few tensions in the Marlow household now, too.

I think Patrick staying up all night lighting candles for Peter in the chapel is an extraordinarily moving scene, and very much founded on a clash between two strands of Catholicism in his heritage, the Old Catholic families and the Irish nursemaid who'd taught him prayers.

I agree with this. It was a very Catholic act, the belief in the power of prayer coupled with personal hardship.

As a 'cradle' Catholic partly educated at rigorous Catholic schools I find Patrick instantly recognisable as a pre Vatican 2 typical Catholic child, encouraged to think in terms of Catholics and non-Catholics. The latter, so we were taught/indoctrinated, could get to Heaven but it was far harder for them. Once this idea of natural spiritual superiority has taken root it takes years of shifting. Also, I seem to remember that Patrick shows surprise that C of E types seem to wear their religion lightly and know so little about it. The bit where Mrs Marlow says the children have to occasionally turn up at church to save her embarrassment is light years away from the Catholic who would attend come what may or risk the future of their immortal soul.

Things are different now, of course, but I think AF characterises her Catholics in a very true way for the time she was writing.

Which book is that - the candle-lighting? I don't remember it at all - is it Attic term?

It's really interesting about the collaborateur - is there all kind of Marlow back story then that doesn't appear in the books?

sorry - anonymous was me, antfan, by the way -not pressing all the right buttons

Run Away Home.

I always like the bit in Autumn Term where Ann's patrol talk about her to the twins and they find out that she is not as mollycoddling (Sorry! couldn't think of a good word) in Guides as she is at home; I think this is an excellent bit of writing, showing how differently people behave - or are viewed - with their friends compared to their family.

It's funny about Ann. When she is such a good Mary in End of Term, for example, presumably because the story means a lot to her (because everybody who knows her is rather surprised about it) you get the feeling that as a person and a believer she is to be taken seriously, and does have redeeming features. Obviously Nicola doesn't like her, but that seems to be a basic personality clash. However, in Run Away Home she really does seem to have become a caricature - so unpleasantly prissy and narrow-minded. I rather preferred the more nuanced version, I have to say.

I don't feel that Ann is prissy and narrow minded exactly - just very into PC. She holds firm beliefs and, depending upon your point of view, might be seen as strong and capable with definite leadership qualities. Her character would actually need very little tweaking to make her a typical popular character from other school stories written about the same time. It must be very tough being born into a family who are all so very different from her and tough too to hold on to beliefs and behaviours that are seen as laughable and/or boring. I don't like Ann particularly but I find her a sympathetic character at times and I have a suspicion that if I found myself slipping through a time warp and ending up at Trennels (to pick up something nzraya sort of suggests) in the school holidays it would be Ann I would sidle up to first while I plucked up the courage to speak to Rowan. (Who would probably be unpleasantly sarcastic.)

Forgot to log in. The above was from me.

Generally speaking, I think Ann's response on spiritual issues is rather different to her response on moral/ethical issues. I mean, there's Nicola looking at her with surprise as she appears "gay and recollected" on returning from church. Her response to Edward Oeschsli, however, is very much a "render unto Caesar" approach (and while it's perfectly valid that the rest of the Marlows utterly disregard the human aspect when it manifests in the person of Judity, Ann disregards Edward and Felix's human aspect also).

Where Ann comes over as thoroughly unsympathetic is the reason why she refuses to lend her bicycle to Nicola, though. That one is narrow-minded (if I'd been Ann, I'd have never lent my bicycle to another family member for different reasons, but the reason given is obnoxious). Basically she's putting obstacles in the way of Nicola's spiritual journey because she's being sectarian about things.

Yes, I think the spiritual vs moral is an important and helpful distinction with Ann. Maybe, like Patrick, she's still working out how to live out her faith in ways that don't make her quite so priggish. She's a teenager too, remember. And she's likely to overcompensate for her family's total lack of concern for these matters. But it doesn't mean it's not real or well-motivated.

When Nicola gets round to showing Patrick the details from the farm log about the martyred Merrick ancestor, he says something along the lines of how odd it is, that every time he's decided the whole thing (ie his faith) is nonsense, something like this always comes along to make him reconsider. So I think it's clear that in those later books - when he is, presumably, around 17 - he is, as one would expect, experiencing a very normal stage of doubt and questioning, whereas in the earlier books (also, in a pscyhologically rather convincing manner) he is as deadly certain and priggish as early adolescents generally are about their beliefs (whether religious or otherwise). As for Nicola, it is made quite clear I think when she goes to Mass that she finds it a deeply religious experience, one which she would rather not repeat precisely because she found it overwhelming. So I think the religious/non religious lines are a bit more blurred than you suggest here as the children grow up.

Patrick is often sensitive and resourceful in his dealings with others. It is true that he is not often kind in a particularly creative or thoughtful way but in my experience that is very typical indeed of intelligent only children, and perhaps especially of boys. There is a kind of everyday thoughtfulness (about bathwater, television sharing and so on) which is an essential part of being one of a large family, and is quite alien to a well-off only child.

I don't think it's his faith as such that he thinks is a stupendous con, I think it's the Catholic Church and its hierarchy - starting from the infallibility of the Pope, because he's disagreeing with some of the Pope's doctrines. I think he'd have been very much reassured by John Paul II.

"So I think the religious/non religious lines are a bit more blurred than you suggest here as the children grow up."

I think that's true, and I haven't got a copy of Attic Term and only recently reread Run Away Home after many years interval. Have to say, didn't totally buy some of the developments in Run Away Home - Ann become a complete zealot and then Nicola going to Mass... I do think that is superimposing something onto Nicola - she's never shown any sign at all of being spiritually sensitive in that way - and her interest in religion in End of Term is of a very detached sort.

Then again, I suppose having read the other books so much more, maybe I have become too attached to a particular interpretation of the characters. At the other end of the timeline, I found both Traitor and Falconers hard to get into too, when I got my GGBP copies. They seemed so dated somehow, although I don't feel like that about Autumn Term, and again the characters seemed less complex than in the other books.

I know what you mean about Nicola but I do think her reaction to the experience - that is, deciding to avoid repeating it at all - is very convincing psychologically; as is her curiosity that took her there in the first place.

Perhaps it's partly Nicola wanting to know more about what interests Patrick.

I read Nicola's going to Mass as part of her aesthetic (? I don't think aesthetic entirely covers it, but I can't think of a better word before I've had any caffeine) sensitivity more than her spiritual sensitivity - she certainly responds to tradition and beauty and mystery, so I can see why Mass would appeal to her more than C of E services.

Yes, I think if and when I get round to trying to write a piece of fanfic that's bobbing around in my brain just now, it will include Nicola's becoming more and more interested in Catholic spirituality - and maybe, for her, that will be a doorway to faith, who knows?

I think that the reason that I like Patrick is that I don't take him very seriously all the time.
I liked the discussion about which cathedrals "you can keep" or "we'll have back". That struck me as sardonic humour rather than priggishness.
As for Jukie's death, I need to look this up, but doesn't he consult a priest for advice about Jukie's state - or at least plan to do so? I need to look that up, but it didn't strike me that the death left him untouched - rather the reverse.
As for Ann, I like the description of her as "gay and recollected" and "swinginf her hat" after going to Early Communion.
And I think that plot line was sound about her view of the escapade to France. Giles is risking his youmger brother's career as well as his own - and we got a very sympathetic picture of the mother and her predicament after the play.

I think AF's characters represent a wide spectrum of relationships to religion, as someone said above, and that that's partly because she is such a *realistic* writer -- if not in all things, certainly in her portrayal of peopleand relationships -- and partly because she was probably actively interested in exploring/modelling/representing different ways of relating to the questions that preoccupied her, and the characters may indeed reflect not only what she encountered in others but also the different stages of thinking about religion that she herself sent through, at different times, or even just as the mood took her.

I also have to say that I LOVE Patrick -- for all his flaws, he's near the top of the list of fictional boys I'd totally say yes to if they asked me -- so, you know ;). What I mean is -- I think that because AF's characters are so fully drawn, different readers actually have different favorites, much as they would gravitate to different people if they met everyone from the Marlowverse in real life. I'm a fairly biddable/obedient reader on the whole, so I tend to identify my own point of view pretty closely with Nicola's (even though if I were to be honest, I'm probably more like one of her less admirable, more self-centred sisters, Ginty or Lawrie....), and I tend to like whom she likes: Patrick, Giles, Rowan, Miranda. I think it's totally plausible, though, to dislike that set of characters (as I know many AF readers do) and prefer the more "difficult" ones: Lawrie, Tim, Ginty, Esther. Or to have a sneaking regard for Ann, or (at the other end of the spectrum) Lois -- especially if rebelling actively against the Nicola-centric/Marlow-centric perspective in which both Ann's conscientiousness and Lois's anti-Marlow sentiments are suspect.

How interesting...beginning to wonder now if it's something else to do with Patrick I really don't like. I don't mind rather arrogant boys in literature generally (DWJ's Howl or Lorna Hill's Sebastian - yum yum!) Like you, I like most of the characters Nicola likes BUT I don't like Giles and Patrick. Maybe its something to do with the way they interact with Nicola - instead of being fairly independent and irreverent she seems to be quite subordinate when they're around. She never hero-worships the older girls at school, but she does seem rather to revere them...and they seem to take it for granted that they should be in control. As I say, I don't mind high-handed men always, but these two really get up my nose!

Just to add that I don't think it's that unreasonable for Nicola, and especially Lawrie, to be so ignorant of the basics of Christianity. It's perfectly possible to go through seven years of C of E boarding school without listening to a single word spoken in an assembly or church service and not understanding the words you do hear and not caring enough to ask anyone to explain it to you.

I remember once, about 10 years ago, meeting a very confused girl who was indeed at an English boarding school who thought Jesus died twice and rose twice, because people kept talking about him 'rising again.' So Lawrie "obviously they were all Christians" doesn't seem so unlikely to me.

I don't think of Nicola as being particularly ignorant, just maybe not terribly interested (she says at one point she loathes Scripture lessons). In End of Term it seems she's almost more interested in observing other people's religious beliefs (Patrick's, Jess's, Ann's, Miranda's, Dr Herrick's) than interested in the subject herself. And she tells Miranda at the end of the play that she only paid attention when Lawrie was acting (a complete contrast to Patrick and Miranda's responses) and although of course this is partly because she is singing, I think it speaks to her character too.

Patrick and Nicola's discussions about religion read wonderfully and hilariously to me: they're almost never entirely serious, I think, or seriousness gets deflected at crucial points, and yet they are about things that both hold deeply and dear. I grew up in a not very religious, but "mixed" household; my mother is a Catholic (not anciently, like the Merricks, but working-class late-nineteenth-century converts who were Very Impresseed by Cardinal Manning. How I envied him his "yes, penal times and all" throwaway lines!) and my father CofE. Which cathedrals "we'll let you keep" were the sort of jokey discussions I grew up with. I was so delighted to find them, at the age of 9 or 10, in fiction, and I still adore them. Patrick is a prig, of course, but I think his priggishness is ably characterised as temporary and adolescent: it results from deep conviction, not superfical piety. As for his dealings with Ginty and Nicola, why on earth should a character who is meant to be likeable not do unlikeable things? Moreover, I think Patrick provides an extremely useful character for AF to think through her own religious conviction and its possible conflicts with her equally strong attraction to subversives and madcaps. The way in which monarchism tangles up with Catholicism in England is odder than you suggest - it usually means Jacobite sympathies, which are subversive in the most basic sense (though not progressive...)

So many interesting responses...this is really creating a lot of food for thought form. I do feel quite ticked off about Patrick...not sure what it is about him now that sticks in my craw... I think it's interesting what you say though about AF's "own religious conviction and its possible conflicts with her equally strong attraction to subversives and madcaps" - I suppose that was my starting point, that the characters multiple perspectives and the subversive slant of the books just don't seem in keeping always with a strong authoritarian catholic tradition. Maybe I just don't understand enough about the subtleties of catholicism. I'm always puzzled too, about the bit in CT where Nicola appears to defend the homosexuality in Mask of Appollo against the school rules - it just seems unexpected, if AF was indeed such a strong catholic...

sorry anonymous was actually me...if he is certainly a prig, and he does unlikeable things (as you just agreed) then I'm still a bit confused as to why it is people like him...

Because he does lots of likeable things too. And he's funny and clever and occasionally (when he works out what's needed) very kind.

Because it makes him interesting...I don't think it's so much a question of "would I like Patrick if I met him?" (The answer is probably no) - but more "is it pleasurable to see what this character's motivations are and see him develop?" to which the answer is definitely yes. As an adult reader, that is. As a child reader I had a much more libidinal reaction, which if I could express it would have been all wrapped up in the utter coolness of falconry and playing Mary Queen of Scots wrapped up in a bedspread - but then, you do, don't you?

it just seems unexpected, if AF was indeed such a strong catholic...

Well, I think she was capable of writing against her own convictions to make a sympathetic character express a view that she herself may not have held. I've actually no idea where she stood on homosexuality: I'm not sure, anyway, that Christianity of any denomination has always been quite so obsessed with homosexuality as it seems at the moment. I think it intersects interestingly with social class, as well: the sprezzatura that is is presented as so admirable in the Marlow books would, I imagine, be rather snooty about over-regulation of sexual mores.

I think you're spot on with this - that's why she's so attracted to the late Elizabethan period as well, because it makes it possible to combine so neatly being both very devout (as a Catholic) and very subversive indeed.

this is a really interesting suggestion. However, have to say, have been reading Player's Boy and the chapter with Anthony Merrick (which I'm guessing probably represents AF's favoured perpective on the recusancy issue). And he says firmly that he doesn't want to overthrow Elizabeth, and believes they should all wait patiently until Elizabeth decides to restore Catholicism. So not really very subversive at all...more "having your cake and eating it" in my view. (And also dodging the issue that the Pope had excommunicated Elizabeth I and thus had basically condoned attempts by English Catholics to get rid of her.)

Can't help feeling that although Patrick Merricks grandly writes off the Tudors as ghastly, AF, writing about the period, probably recognised their attributes as rulers, and is reluctant to take a hard-line stand against them...Furthermore Will in Rebels tells Nicholas clearly that his first duty, however unpleasant, is to the state, and I'm sure the reader is meant to go along with this (it is pretty much at the conclusion of the book, and Will is such a wise and sympathetic character). So that too seems to go against the idea that AF is embracing subversiveness in this period - she seems to me to be embracing the status quo.

AF's Will (whether this was true of the real one or not) had fought in the Low Countries against Parma. Anyone who'd ever been up against Parma and his terceiros, by all accounts, would have smoked his grandmother and sold her in rashers rather than encourage that sort of thing.

In historical terms "subversive" and "maverick" is too mild a term for the Essex plotters; we're talking terrorism (inept terrorism, but terrorism nonetheless). By way of example, the BBC considered in conjunction with the Institute of Physics a couple of years ago what would have happened if Guy Fawkes had succeeded. Given the timber construction of the local buildings, the amount of gunpowder used, and the scenario estimates suggested that the damage would have been equivalent in scale to the 11th September bombing - assuming, of course, that Bush, Cheney, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Senate and the House of Representatives happened to have been in the World Trade Centre at the relevant time.

I guess this is a time when the catholic/protestant divide is beginning to yawn nastily wide...and all those (like Elizabeth I, and maybe AF's Antony Merrick) who prefer to take a position somewhere in the middle, are finding it more and more difficult...

What I find interesting is that AF seems to come down on the side of the pragmatic Will - position of ironic detachment, contrast Patrick's very unnuanced historical views (evil Tudors, evil reformation etc)in End of Term.

By the way, were the Essex rebels really equivalent to terrorists? Weren't they more a standard power-grab coup attempt?

Well, it was so inept it's difficult to know what to describe it as, but I expect if one tried to re-enact it these days it'd be the Prevention of Terrorism Acts they'd bang you up under. And quite a number of the people associated with the plot did go on to get involved with Fawkes's lot.

And as I said, Patrick's a 15 year-old boy who's led a remarkably secluded (I won't say sheltered) life whereas AF's Will has knocked around a fair bit, including fighting in the Low Countries. It's always possible that when Ronnie gets back from Ulster (if he does) he might have a few useful points to make to Patrick about the dangers of unnuanced historical views, for a similar reason.

I haven't read AF's Player's Boy (I've read Bryher's novel of the same name, which is, um, interesting...) so I can't comment much. I would say that AF is less trying to have her cake and eat it there than trying to represent the extent to which conflicts of loyalty were simply part of the lives of English Catholics in the period. And - maybe someone with more knowledge on the subject could correct me - but I think Anthony Merrick represents majority Catholic opinion there - most English Catholics did not support the violent overthrow of Elizabeth, which makes ~~the regime's treatment of them as ipso facto traitors all the more unfair~~. *stuffs inflammatory sectarian language back up jumper*

disentangling religion from politics was extremely hard in this period and for some time to come...Elizabeth I did her best, she famously did not want "to make windows in men's souls". the position of english catholics was jeopardised to a large extent by the actions of their own church hierarchy

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