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

[(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?

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I stand corrected. But Ann still never came across as progressive to me - I dunno why, but she never did. Although I think Ann does object that Nick is going to an RC church, hence the flushed cheeks.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

The anon comments were me being incompetent about logging in btw.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Thought it must be. As for proof-reading - I didn't, but GGB's policy is to keep all first-edition errors, not to correct them. Which makes it hugely entertaining with Elinor Brent-Dyer. Her stuff is riddled with errors!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

'Paeony' is a legitimate, and not even particularly archaic, spelling for Paeonia officinalis.