Run Away Home / Religion

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Inquiring minds want to know. I was rereading Run Away Home, and I have a few religious-related questions. I'm an atheist, albeit with a vaguely Protestant background, and I don't understand some of the terms. Rowan says that when Ramsay does his duty by the ASB, Mrs Marlow goes to Evensong instead of Matins. So:

1) What's the ASB?
2) What's Evensong? Given the context, is it a Catholic service?
3) Why does Mrs Marlow cut Matins when it's the ASB?
4) Why does this upset Ann?

Comments

[chaletian.livejournal.com]

Haven't the slightest about 1,3 and 4. I *think* (and could be entirely wrong) that Evensong is just the evening C of E service whereas Matins is in the morning. The Marlows aren't Catholic, are they? I though it was just the Merricks.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. No, the Marlows aren't Catholic, but it comes in a discussion about Nicola going to Mass at Patrick's, and I wondered if I just didn't get some of the nuances.

[senji.livejournal.com]

1) The ASB is the Alternative Service Book, an attempt by the Anglican Church to modernise services (this has since been replaced) as opposed to the old Book of Common Prayer.

2) In many CofE churches Evensong is the service in the evening. Not necessarily Catholic (although Catholic churches may also have services called Evensong)

3) She probably dislikes the ASB services; many Anglicans do (and did).

4) I have no idea :).

[stellanova.livejournal.com]

although Catholic churches may also have services called Evensong

No, Evensong is definitely a Protestant thing, which I was rather jealous of as a Catholic child because the word sounded so nice.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It is a nice word. It's only now that I've twigged that the even is probably for evening and not just sort of temperate.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think it exists in Catholicism, but we didn't have a chance to know it as children, being post-Vatican II - also, in your case, Dublin doesn't have an official Catholic cathedral (I've given up on Irish stereotypes with friends since the cathedral situation in Dublin is enough to substantiate them all in English friends' eyes) and frankly, would your mum have taken you to it anyway? Personally, I always think of Evensong as being the Prod equivalent of Benediction in terms of who goes, but Catholic clergy, at least, have an equivalent. Vespers, innit?

BTW, have just come back from Ireland but was tied up at Octocon. Am in Ireland (Carlow which is an easy commute) for Christmas, and we're back again in March for P-Con. Would love to meet you and Patsington.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you very much! When you say it's been replaced, is it that they're now all modernised, or that they've given up on that?

[senji.livejournal.com]

The new worship book (Common Worship if I recall correctly) isn't quite as "modernised" as bits of the ASB (but more so in some places).

Some churches still use the BCP exclusively, and many have the occasional BCP service.

My guess

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Ann would feel that you shouldn't cut church just because you don't like the new version. That's it's not about the individual's aesthetic feelings about the language.

Re: My guess

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

That makes sense - also, I guess that it relates to the progressiveness. She says that it's the old Mass she objects to and I guess the ASB (now I know what it is) would be the kind of thing she approves of.

Re: My guess

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether it's that she madly approves of ASB - though get impression she might be on the modernising side (I think I posted once that maybe in future life she might become lady vicar) - but that not going because of particular service book is frivolous reason for skipping. I don't think it's necessarily anything on the lines of high/low church, at least not entirely.

Question: is Ann refugee from Barbara Pym novel who has unfortunately wandered into Forest?

Re: My guess

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Which makes her the Prod equivalent of Patrick in many ways. And Ann is old-school CofE which is why she vehemently disapproves of Nicola going to Mass. It's one of the lovely ironies in Forest - Ann, who does not agree with the Merricks' religion, is in fact, the closest to them religiously.

Re: My guess

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Actually, her opposition to Nicola's going to Mass at Patrick's is that Nicola's going because it's the original Latin Mass and she objects to Patrick's family holding out against Vatican II because their attitude is an obstacle to ecumenicalism, and also (I suspect) because she doesn't approve of people putting their personal views against the consensus achieved by the lawfully consistuted authorities of their church, whichever that it is. So her objection to Mrs M. rebelling against the ASB is an objection to Mrs M setting herself up against Lambeth Conference/General Synod, in a way (I also endorse the view above that it implies - as does Nicola's interest in "bells and smells" that there is a strong aesthetic component in both Nicola and Pam's needs of their religion and that Ann neither understands nor approves of that per se ) and that accordingly the nearest parallel in her attitude to religion is that of Patrick's ghastly form master ("surely you aren't setting yourself up in opposition to the Holy Father?") except that she believes it and I think you're supposed to assume Alan's attitude is pretty much cant - plus jealousy of English Catholic Old Believers on soical grounds, no doubt (coming from Lancashire amkes one very aware of that strain). But it reinforces the somewhahat unthinking acceptance and confomrity to authority of all types which is a consistent streak in Ann's character (to the point where Nicola, I think it is, suggests in Run Away Home that if they were living in Stalinist Russia Ann would be quite capable of betraying the family to the secret police and think she was morally right to do so)

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

I think Evensong is not a communion service - the church we used to go to (although only family services with the kids' school so I'm not up on what happens at other times of day) had communion on Sunday mornings at the early service and matins (although it wasn't called that) but evensong was more singy and had readings from other things than the Bible. Also once a month they had the book of common prayer service or whatever it's called which is old fashioned with a sung eucharist to the old tunes.

Ann is "progressive" - you can imagine her as a woman vicar and relishing signs of peace etc whereas I imagine Mrs Marlow is High Churchish and traditional. Even though the Anglican church never had anything as dramatic as Vatican 2 there have been controversial changes and some people really resent the loss of traditional wording in the prayer book and the Bible etc and I assume Mrs M is one of them.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Is Matins the morning one then?

I see what you mean about Ann being a vicar - I find it hard to think of her as progressive because she's so held up as almost the anti-Marlow that I'm used to thinking of her values as opposite of mine. Not that my values are particularly Marlovian, just that I have been successfully indoctrinated into thinking they should be!

Ann as vicar

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

She'd ask people to shake hands with the people in the pew behind (or, heaven forfend, hug), and get slightly distressed when she noticed that any sisters present and particularly Rowan were making sure they were in front of the likes of Doris and Ted Colthard rather than slightly-too-earnest churchgoers whose names they don't know from the new houses between the village and Colebridge.

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the other Marlows are very traditional in their outlook and Ann is the odd one out - like when she takes the Social Services side in Run Away Home. I have to accept that in the real world I wouldn't have much in common with the Marlow POV, and would probably get on fairly well with a real life Ann although she doesn't seem to have a sense of humour so we wouldn't be bosom pals.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I don't see Ann as progressive. I see Ann as objecting to Nicola attending Mass, not because it's the Tridentine rite, but because Nicola, as a good Anglican, should not be attending a Catholic service.

Ann comes across as far more old-fashioned to me. Her faith means something serious to her and she won't bend for the family's liberality on such subjects. If Ann joined the clergy, I'd see her as a High Anglican nun, not a vicar at all.

[(Anonymous)]

Got the ref now: GGBP edition pp 116-117:

"I know I can't stop you. But I won't lend you my bike to go."
"Why ever not?" said Rowan. "Why should you care?"
"Bearing in mind," said Giles, "that we have a grandmother who turned RC."
"It's not because it's RC, of course not," said Ann, paeony-cheeked [sic: and if you proof-read this one, ma'am, I suggest you may have been under the weather at the time]. "But it won't be the liturgy they have now. If Nick wants to go . she ought to go to the new one, the one that's like ours."
"But I don't care about the new one. I want to know what the real one's like."
"But that's the one that divided us-"
"We were the ones who divided -"
"I suppose that's what Patrick says -"
"Yes, of course, but I see it myself. If there's something that's always been there and someone goes and invents something new , they're the ones who divide, not the others."
"But now everyone's trying to come together again -"

It's not like Ann's behaving like the Wee Frees excommunicating Lord Mackay of Clashfen for attending Lord Russell's funeral; she's actually prepared to allow for Nicola attending a Catholic service so long as it's the current one. But I think that "I suppose that's what Patrick says" is an absolutely believable but very bitchy sisterly comment given the subject matter. She isn't prepared for Nicola to have any freedom to explore spiritual questions for herself (or believe that's what she's doing) at all, is she?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I don't see Ann as being liturgically particularly High (she is not about 'smells and bells' and so on, rather the reverse), so I'm not sure about her becoming a nun.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

I was going to say the same - Evensong has no communion and very little audience participation (assuming it is a sung evensong with choir) whereas the 10.30am ish Sunday morning service is usually a Communion one.

I would imagine Ann disapproves of Mrs M's choice in large part because Communion is a huge thing for her, and if you miss Communion you might as well not go to church at all. For Ann, bells and smells don't appeal particularly, and quibbling the style in which the Anglican services are written is a distraction from the whole point of worship.

HAVING SAID THAT I have long believed that in her books AF has projected onto Ann every quality she (AF) personally dislikes, resulting in a rather one dimensional and unrealistic character. Ann's position on this does not make 100% complete sense, even from a progressive C of E type's perspective.

For one example, she quibbles the style of the RC service that Nicola is going to attend, even as she seems to be saying Mrs Marlow should not let the language of Anglican communion get in the way of going to Matins - and for a second, I have known lots of evangelical/progressive Anglicans, and I don't know any that would have an issue with going to a Tridentine Mass on the basis that "that was the one that divided us". I think this just another negative thing AF has projected onto Ann: almost to be devil's advocate.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think that's true. Ann so consistently ends up as the proponent of the anti-Nicola position, and they aren't consistent as a set of views at all.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Oh, to add: Evensong is the equivalent of Vespers, IIRC. So it does exist in Catholicism (Roman) but isn't usually part of parish churches now.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

: Evensong is the equivalent of Vespers, IIRC. So it does exist in Catholicism (Roman) but isn't usually part of parish churches now.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

1) What's the ASB? 2) What's Evensong? Given the context, is it a Catholic service? 3) Why does Mrs Marlow cut Matins when it's the ASB? 4) Why does this upset Ann?

Oops - in my previous comments I forgot to explain that, in a church that didnt have "early service" matins would usually be followed by Communion, and non-ASB Evensong would have "traditional" music - so she's cutting Communion in favour of traditional music.