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Донька пастора
Дороті Хейр – донька превелебного Чарлза Хейра з усіма класичними наслідками на взірець ведення домашнього господарства, порядкування скромним церковним бюджетом, догляду за часто дратівливим і невдячним батьком і обов’язковими відвідинами пастви Англіканської церкви, яка поступово здає свої позиції серед вірян, поступаючись модернішим конфесіям, які не настільки відстали від віянь часу. А ще Дороті Хейр досі незаміжня, хоча вже невдовзі переступить поріг, який відділяє молодість від зрілості, що, звісно, не додає їй оптимізму щодо перспектив свого подальшого життя.
Так би й не побачила Дороті у своєму житті нічого, окрім маленького англійського містечка, без жодних перспектив бодай колись змінити чи навіть розірвати осоружне коло свого не надто радісного життя, якби не дивна випадковість, яка вириває її із цієї сірої одноманітності і жбурляє у вир геть іншого життя – тяжкого, химерного, виснажливого, але такого справжнього…
Так би й не побачила Дороті у своєму житті нічого, окрім маленького англійського містечка, без жодних перспектив бодай колись змінити чи навіть розірвати осоружне коло свого не надто радісного життя, якби не дивна випадковість, яка вириває її із цієї сірої одноманітності і жбурляє у вир геть іншого життя – тяжкого, химерного, виснажливого, але такого справжнього…
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1935
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11354 people want to read
About the author
George Orwell
1,017 books50.5k followersEric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,177 reviews
December 24, 2023
A CLERGYMAN’S DAUGHTER, by George Orwell, locates its story in a small town in England during the early part of the 20th century.
Dorothy is the clergyman’s pious daughter. Since her father does not have a curate and money is always tight due to little money, Dorothy absolutely runs herself ragged taking care of the daily duties that should be performed by her father. She’s overworked and overtired.
Then, suddenly, Dorothy finds herself in London with amnesia and no idea how she got there. A bleak future spreads before her, one filled with starvation, poverty, and a crisis of faith.
How will Dorothy handle what lies before her on this new path of the unknown? The way forward is indeed melancholic and hopeless.
Dorothy is the clergyman’s pious daughter. Since her father does not have a curate and money is always tight due to little money, Dorothy absolutely runs herself ragged taking care of the daily duties that should be performed by her father. She’s overworked and overtired.
Then, suddenly, Dorothy finds herself in London with amnesia and no idea how she got there. A bleak future spreads before her, one filled with starvation, poverty, and a crisis of faith.
How will Dorothy handle what lies before her on this new path of the unknown? The way forward is indeed melancholic and hopeless.
July 1, 2020
Esta novela me ha parecido super sorprendente y adictiva.
La historia nos presenta a Dorothy, la hija de un clérigo más bien pobre que, a sus 26 años, vive entregada a las labores de la parroquia casi como una esclava. Este inicio me recordó muchísimo a novelas como las de Elizabeth Gaskell o las Brontë pero rápidamente el libro gira hacia un estilo más Dickensiano (si Dickens hubiera vivido en el siglo XX) y termina definitivamente como algo que solo Orwell podría haber escrito.
A través de las andanzas de Dorothy conoceremos la pobreza extrema, la indigencia, la explotación laboral, así como una crítica feroz a la hipocresía de la Iglesia o el sistema educativo.
Es un libro que me ha gustado muchísimo y he disfrutado una barbaridad a pesar de todas las penalidades que narra y lo gris que resulta... Aún así la narración de Orwell es tan ágil y los personajes y situaciones tan vívidas que no puedes parar de leer.
También me sorprendió lo bien que el autor retrata la vida y dificultades de las mujeres (y especialmente esas que corrían el peligro de convertirse en "solteronas") y esa sensación que tienes durante la lectura de que de todo lo que cuenta el autor en la obra, poco es inventado.
La historia nos presenta a Dorothy, la hija de un clérigo más bien pobre que, a sus 26 años, vive entregada a las labores de la parroquia casi como una esclava. Este inicio me recordó muchísimo a novelas como las de Elizabeth Gaskell o las Brontë pero rápidamente el libro gira hacia un estilo más Dickensiano (si Dickens hubiera vivido en el siglo XX) y termina definitivamente como algo que solo Orwell podría haber escrito.
A través de las andanzas de Dorothy conoceremos la pobreza extrema, la indigencia, la explotación laboral, así como una crítica feroz a la hipocresía de la Iglesia o el sistema educativo.
Es un libro que me ha gustado muchísimo y he disfrutado una barbaridad a pesar de todas las penalidades que narra y lo gris que resulta... Aún así la narración de Orwell es tan ágil y los personajes y situaciones tan vívidas que no puedes parar de leer.
También me sorprendió lo bien que el autor retrata la vida y dificultades de las mujeres (y especialmente esas que corrían el peligro de convertirse en "solteronas") y esa sensación que tienes durante la lectura de que de todo lo que cuenta el autor en la obra, poco es inventado.
March 20, 2013
Orwell sharpens his satiric knives in this early novel about Dorothy and her life of perpetual misery living in a backward petit bourgeois town. Capturing the pure hell of ill-bred country folk and hateful religious fustians, Orwell creates a sense of smothering hopelessness as his heroine finds herself among homeless hop-pickers, sweating for twelve hours in fields and sleeping in haylofts, and later working for starvation wages under a tyrannical crone who epitomises the penny-pinching meanness of a private school system whose only purpose is to keep kids stupefied and the parents paying the fees. Little about life in 1930s England is portrayed with nothing short of sputtering near-hectoring contempt as Dorothy elects to remains a perpetual virgin in her bleak, pointless existence of rubbing down eczema-addled old ladies and raising funds for an ever-collapsing church, trapped until death in a lonely, friendless, and godless universe of crushing isolation, disappointment, poverty, and fear. The past was a horrible place. Orwell hurts.
February 24, 2019
Ritual is stronger than faith!
If you want to know the secret of religion's success in secular countries where people tend to lose their childhood beliefs over the course of their education, read this minor Orwell novel to see the psychological reasoning behind life dedicated church after becoming a convinced atheist. Social security and familiar rituals are the most cherished features in life for dependent individuals.
A Clergyman's Daughter remains in her "profession", even if she knows it has nothing to do with supernatural truth or moral superiority. After all, what else can she do?
Bitter and cynical!
If you want to know the secret of religion's success in secular countries where people tend to lose their childhood beliefs over the course of their education, read this minor Orwell novel to see the psychological reasoning behind life dedicated church after becoming a convinced atheist. Social security and familiar rituals are the most cherished features in life for dependent individuals.
A Clergyman's Daughter remains in her "profession", even if she knows it has nothing to do with supernatural truth or moral superiority. After all, what else can she do?
Bitter and cynical!
December 27, 2014
Orwell wanted this novel destroyed after his death. This and Keep The Aspidistra Flying. Oddly, this and Aspidistra are two of my favourite Orwells. It’s a great little book about class and being down and out and basically it’s really Orwellian. A good old fashioned socialist novel. Orwell tries to emulate Joyce in this novel with a whole chapter being in the dramatic form and I personally think it works but it was one of its main criticism when it was released. It makes me sad that I’m nearly the end of Orwell’s bibliography, oh well.
August 3, 2016
هذه الرواية ليست ف جوهرها كما تبدو أبداا
من يعرف عالم أورويل جيدا سيتبنى هذا التفسير،،،
تعليقى به قدر من الغموض، وكذلك النص أمامنا،،،
أورويل ينتقد وبعنف الثنائيات المعهودة
اﻹيمان/العدمية، الطبقية/المثالية الإجتماعية، العبودية/الحرية،،،
زيف ونفاق بنية المجتمع الكهنوتى/العلمانى،،،
***********
دوروثى تحكى قصتى، قصتك، قصتنا جميعا
من نعانى ف داخلنا من طوفان المتناقضات الفكرية والسلوكية
مايجب ومالايجب، أنا أم الناس، الناس أم هو/هى،،،
دوروثى هذه المخلصة،الحمقاء،النبيلة،البائسة هى أنا بقدر ف عالم مواز،،،
لن أشير إلى أية أحداث، فقط اﻹشارة إلى إنعكاس خبرات أورويل الحياتية
وسط المسحوقين والمهمشين ف ثنايا العمل
خصوصا جزئه الثانى،،،
***********
الكآبة تسود آجواء العمل بشكل واضح،،،
الترجمة بالنسبة لى كانت"غير مريحة بالمرة"
خصوصا ف الجزء اﻷول من الرواية،،،
العمل عموما يطرح تساؤلات هامة
ولكن فنيا هو من أعمال أورويل المتوسطة
يبقى الرجل مع ذلك عشرة عمر ومفضلا بالنسبى لى
على أى حال يكون،،،
April 3, 2012
A Clergyman’s Daughter, George Orwell’s second novel, is the story of Dorothy Hare, the uncomplaining daughter of a selfish, demanding rector. She lives a simple life visiting parishioners and tending to her father’s needs until she inexplicably wakes up one day on the London streets with no idea who she is or how she got there, and without a penny to her name.
This rather contrived plot serves as a framework for a series of essay-like episodes laced with Orwell’s characteristic biting social criticism. The episodes themselves are compelling, from the tedium and pointlessness of a small-town clergyman’s daughter’s routine, dodging the village gossips, to hop-picking in Kent with itinerant workers, to teaching in a horrible “fourth-rate” private school under the mercenary Mrs. Creevy, a headmistress who “never read a book right through in her life, and was proud of it.”
There is also a remarkable scene, written as dramatic dialogue, of Dorothy spending the night out in Trafalgar Square with a group of tramps. This event is a sort of fugue, like a scene from a Broadway musical, with each character presenting his or her situation in parallel. The characters - Dorothy, a defrocked clergyman, a woman kicked out of the house by her husband, and several others - endure a cold, miserable, hungry night while a policeman repeatedly comes by to remind them to go “home” if they want to sleep.
Orwell often appropriates his non-fiction and autobiographical experiences for his novels. In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, for example, Gordon’s drunken jail scene comes almost verbatim from the autobiographical essay, “The Clink,” which also provides material for A Clergyman’s Daughter. Most of the significant episodes in Clergyman can be found in Orwell’s non-fiction, such as his hop-picking diary and his experiences in Down and Out in Paris and London. The school scenes presage the essay “Such, Such Were the Joys.” Here, as in the essay, the primary motive of the school is financial. Dorothy is instructed only to punish the children whose parents aren’t “good payers” because “in private schools the parents’ word is law. Such schools exist, like shops, by flattering their customers, and if a parent wanted his child taught nothing but cat's cradle and the cuneiform alphabet, the teacher would have to agree rather than lose a pupil."
Orwell’s “difficulties with girls,” as Christopher Hitchens called them, are apparent here, and perhaps it is his unease with working with his only female protagonist that weakens this novel. Dorothy is a far more sympathetic character than John Flory or Gordon Comstock, but she lacks dimension. Bad and good things seem to happen to her without her exerting much influence on the world around her. Flory, Gordon, and Winston Smith all attempt to influence their worlds; Dorothy is merely reactive.
Dorothy suffers unwelcome advances from the good-natured but lecherous Mr. Warburton just prior to her mental break. His behavior is fairly repulsive, sneaking up behind Dorothy, while telling her he considerately chose this approach so she would be spared his unattractiveness. Warburton has no qualms about his actions and isn't at all bothered by Dorothy’s distress.
Apparently this scene between Warburton and Dorothy was to have been an attempted rape, but had to be changed due to concerns about obscenity. That certainly explains the general creepiness of the scene, which otherwise seems out of proportion to Warburton’s actions. One of the major structural flaws in this novel is Dorothy’s amnesia, which seems to come out of nowhere. Reaction to the psychological trauma of an attempted rape would have made that more believable.
After this unpleasant episode, Orwell-as-narrator gives a snarky aside, essentially about the frigidity of “educated” women, that is unfair to Dorothy and out of place with what is otherwise a sympathetic portrayal. (Hopefully this remark was written after the rape scene was changed, because otherwise it would have been a really nasty thing to say.) This comment seems to reflect more Orwell’s issues with women, which are well-documented, than Dorothy’s failings.
The novel does, however, give a detailed presentation of the extremely limited options for a woman in Dorothy's social situation. She has no good options other than acting as a servant for her selfish father. When she passed up marriage prior to the events of the novel, she seemingly doomed herself to an extremely dreary future. When Dorothy is on the street she has an even more difficult time than men in the same situation. As a single woman she can't even rent a room because of landladies suspicious of prostitutes. While we as the readers see these problems, Dorothy herself doesn’t seem to have a lot of thoughts about them. It wouldn’t be fair to say that Orwell doesn't “get” women's issues; he seems to get the issues intellectually, but falls short at incorporating them into his protagonist’s temperament.
A Clergyman’s Daughter is the weakest of Orwell’s novels. He wasn’t proud of it, admitting that he published it because he needed the money. It would hardly be considered essential 20th century literature, but it is interesting to see how Orwell works with ideas that appear repeatedly in his essays and other books - experiences with education, religion, and the indigent, as well as interesting thoughts on the loss of religious faith. There are many good elements here, with excellent writing in some scenes. The story, however, is subjugated to the social commentary, preventing this work from being a cohesive novel.
This rather contrived plot serves as a framework for a series of essay-like episodes laced with Orwell’s characteristic biting social criticism. The episodes themselves are compelling, from the tedium and pointlessness of a small-town clergyman’s daughter’s routine, dodging the village gossips, to hop-picking in Kent with itinerant workers, to teaching in a horrible “fourth-rate” private school under the mercenary Mrs. Creevy, a headmistress who “never read a book right through in her life, and was proud of it.”
There is also a remarkable scene, written as dramatic dialogue, of Dorothy spending the night out in Trafalgar Square with a group of tramps. This event is a sort of fugue, like a scene from a Broadway musical, with each character presenting his or her situation in parallel. The characters - Dorothy, a defrocked clergyman, a woman kicked out of the house by her husband, and several others - endure a cold, miserable, hungry night while a policeman repeatedly comes by to remind them to go “home” if they want to sleep.
Orwell often appropriates his non-fiction and autobiographical experiences for his novels. In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, for example, Gordon’s drunken jail scene comes almost verbatim from the autobiographical essay, “The Clink,” which also provides material for A Clergyman’s Daughter. Most of the significant episodes in Clergyman can be found in Orwell’s non-fiction, such as his hop-picking diary and his experiences in Down and Out in Paris and London. The school scenes presage the essay “Such, Such Were the Joys.” Here, as in the essay, the primary motive of the school is financial. Dorothy is instructed only to punish the children whose parents aren’t “good payers” because “in private schools the parents’ word is law. Such schools exist, like shops, by flattering their customers, and if a parent wanted his child taught nothing but cat's cradle and the cuneiform alphabet, the teacher would have to agree rather than lose a pupil."
Orwell’s “difficulties with girls,” as Christopher Hitchens called them, are apparent here, and perhaps it is his unease with working with his only female protagonist that weakens this novel. Dorothy is a far more sympathetic character than John Flory or Gordon Comstock, but she lacks dimension. Bad and good things seem to happen to her without her exerting much influence on the world around her. Flory, Gordon, and Winston Smith all attempt to influence their worlds; Dorothy is merely reactive.
Dorothy suffers unwelcome advances from the good-natured but lecherous Mr. Warburton just prior to her mental break. His behavior is fairly repulsive, sneaking up behind Dorothy, while telling her he considerately chose this approach so she would be spared his unattractiveness. Warburton has no qualms about his actions and isn't at all bothered by Dorothy’s distress.
Apparently this scene between Warburton and Dorothy was to have been an attempted rape, but had to be changed due to concerns about obscenity. That certainly explains the general creepiness of the scene, which otherwise seems out of proportion to Warburton’s actions. One of the major structural flaws in this novel is Dorothy’s amnesia, which seems to come out of nowhere. Reaction to the psychological trauma of an attempted rape would have made that more believable.
After this unpleasant episode, Orwell-as-narrator gives a snarky aside, essentially about the frigidity of “educated” women, that is unfair to Dorothy and out of place with what is otherwise a sympathetic portrayal. (Hopefully this remark was written after the rape scene was changed, because otherwise it would have been a really nasty thing to say.) This comment seems to reflect more Orwell’s issues with women, which are well-documented, than Dorothy’s failings.
The novel does, however, give a detailed presentation of the extremely limited options for a woman in Dorothy's social situation. She has no good options other than acting as a servant for her selfish father. When she passed up marriage prior to the events of the novel, she seemingly doomed herself to an extremely dreary future. When Dorothy is on the street she has an even more difficult time than men in the same situation. As a single woman she can't even rent a room because of landladies suspicious of prostitutes. While we as the readers see these problems, Dorothy herself doesn’t seem to have a lot of thoughts about them. It wouldn’t be fair to say that Orwell doesn't “get” women's issues; he seems to get the issues intellectually, but falls short at incorporating them into his protagonist’s temperament.
A Clergyman’s Daughter is the weakest of Orwell’s novels. He wasn’t proud of it, admitting that he published it because he needed the money. It would hardly be considered essential 20th century literature, but it is interesting to see how Orwell works with ideas that appear repeatedly in his essays and other books - experiences with education, religion, and the indigent, as well as interesting thoughts on the loss of religious faith. There are many good elements here, with excellent writing in some scenes. The story, however, is subjugated to the social commentary, preventing this work from being a cohesive novel.
November 21, 2023
همونطور که از اسم کتاب مشخصه نقش اصلی این کتاب دختر یک کشیشه. دختری که زیر دست یک پدر بدخلق و مستبد به اجباریترین شکل ممکن در عین عدم آگاهی از این مورد، یک مسیحی سرسخت شده و کارش به رسیدگی به کارهای کلیسا و پیروان پیر و درمانده اون و از این قبیل کارها محدوده. یک اتفاق که نه ما میدونیم چیه نه نویسنده و نه هیچ کس دیگه باعث میشه این دختر سر از لندن در بیاره در حالی که حافظهش رو از دست داده و .... اورول در این کتاب به نقد دین و کلیسا و سیستم آموزشی پرداخته. داستان ساده و خطیه اما آنچنان جذاب نیست. انتهای کتاب هم به نظرم بیمعنی بود و خب با فلسفه و اعتقادات نویسنده به شکلی که در داستان اومده هم موافق نیستم.ه
امتیاز کتاب ۲.۵
امتیاز کتاب ۲.۵
May 6, 2015
A book to be avoided at all costs if you like Orwell and want to keep thinking he was such a consistently good writer and storyteller. On the other hand, if you hated 1984 in school and are looking for ammunition against him, this book is it. Plus point: the book is very short.
January 30, 2022
лишилася під враженням від цієї книжки. і враження це частково полягає в тому, що світ навколо не заслуговує на головну героїню, це так обурливо і несправедливо, що мені хочеться кричати!
Дороті Гейр - донька пастора, який насправді і людина так собі, і як пастор гімно. будинок його та парафія тримаються виключно зусиллями Дороті, яка всенький день крутиться як білка в колесі. вона щиро любить батька, вона старається ставитися до людей добре, вона очолює різноманітні товариства та гуртки. атмосфера маленького містечка, переповненого плітками "кавової гвардії", передана блискуче.
на початку книги я мріяла, аби Дороті вирвалася з цього світу, але, коли вона направду виявляється за межами парафії з кількома монетами у кишені, краще не стає. дівчина проходить крізь досвід збирання хмелю (це найпозитивніша частина роману, де їй зустрічають добрі люди, де її підтримують і допомагають, де робота важка, але вона дає сатисфакцію), досвід жебракування і ночівлі на холодних вулицях поруч з диваками та божевільними, досвід викладання у приватній школі для дівчаток (а це найсумніші, на мою точку зору, розділи, бо у них Дороті майже ламається внутрішнє). тим не менш, Дороті - дуже цільна особистість, вона не розпадається і не починає деградувати у важких ситуаціях, в той час як світ навколо неї буває абсурдно огидним.
окремо хочу приділити увагу містеру Ворбертону, веселому і милому, ніби-то, чоловіку, який ставиться до Дороті прихильно, хоче допомогти їй, але, от невдача, має звичку пробувати ґвалтувати усіх жінок, з якими лишається на самоті. так, більшості вдається відбитися, але ж інколи все недарма! дуже я злилася на нього, але ще більше злилася на батька Дороті.
отже, дуже цікава книжка і хороше написана, я тішуся, що дала цьому автору шанс, бо антиутопії його (та й практично будь-які інші теж) мене страшенно знуджують.
прикро, що у цьому виданні неконсистентна транслітерація, час від час перекладачка чомусь дозволяє собі передавати H як Х, а також відчувається брак фемінітивів, це завжди сумно.
Дороті Гейр - донька пастора, який насправді і людина так собі, і як пастор гімно. будинок його та парафія тримаються виключно зусиллями Дороті, яка всенький день крутиться як білка в колесі. вона щиро любить батька, вона старається ставитися до людей добре, вона очолює різноманітні товариства та гуртки. атмосфера маленького містечка, переповненого плітками "кавової гвардії", передана блискуче.
на початку книги я мріяла, аби Дороті вирвалася з цього світу, але, коли вона направду виявляється за межами парафії з кількома монетами у кишені, краще не стає. дівчина проходить крізь досвід збирання хмелю (це найпозитивніша частина роману, де їй зустрічають добрі люди, де її підтримують і допомагають, де робота важка, але вона дає сатисфакцію), досвід жебракування і ночівлі на холодних вулицях поруч з диваками та божевільними, досвід викладання у приватній школі для дівчаток (а це найсумніші, на мою точку зору, розділи, бо у них Дороті майже ламається внутрішнє). тим не менш, Дороті - дуже цільна особистість, вона не розпадається і не починає деградувати у важких ситуаціях, в той час як світ навколо неї буває абсурдно огидним.
окремо хочу приділити увагу містеру Ворбертону, веселому і милому, ніби-то, чоловіку, який ставиться до Дороті прихильно, хоче допомогти їй, але, от невдача, має звичку пробувати ґвалтувати усіх жінок, з якими лишається на самоті. так, більшості вдається відбитися, але ж інколи все недарма! дуже я злилася на нього, але ще більше злилася на батька Дороті.
отже, дуже цікава книжка і хороше написана, я тішуся, що дала цьому автору шанс, бо антиутопії його (та й практично будь-які інші теж) мене страшенно знуджують.
прикро, що у цьому виданні неконсистентна транслітерація, час від час перекладачка чомусь дозволяє собі передавати H як Х, а також відчувається брак фемінітивів, це завжди сумно.
August 10, 2018
این کتاب برایم خسته کننده بود ولی به علت علاقه ای که به پایان هرچیزی دارم سعی کردم بخونمش تا بفهمم آخرش چی میشه ؛ انتهای داستان به معنای واقعی احمقانه بود چون کسی که ایمانش به خزعبلات تکراری تموم میشه به سختی به کارها و اعمال تکراری گذشته اش که از اون چرندیات و باورهای مذهبی خنده دار ساخته شدن ادامه میده ، از نظر عقلی دوروتی باید مسیری جدید برای زندگی بعد از مرگ ایمانش نسبت به مسیحیت انتخاب میکرد و دروغ گفتن به خودش و بقیه رو تموم میکرد و به فکر خودش بعد اون همه سختی و زندگی سگی میفتاد و درست و شاد و رها از ایمان دروغیش به کلیسا و مسیحیت زندگی تازه ای رو آغاز میکرد. من اگر نویسنده این کتاب بودم و سالها بعد اتفاقی میخوندمش حتما پایانش رو تغییر میدادم و نسخه قبلی رو از بازار جمع میکردم تا حداقل مخاطبی مثل من به بی مزه بودن داستان و حروم کردن وقتش فکر نکند و بعد این همه سال این داستان خاکستری اتفاقی به دست مخاطبینی مثل من نیفته و ....
July 29, 2019
“It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faith—as mysterious as faith itself.”
― George Orwell, A Clergyman's Daughter
Bottom-shelf Orwell, but still pretty good. I'm not sure I enjoyed the ending, but I'm glad Orwell left a small caveat and let this book be printed after his death, if only to benefit his heirs.
― George Orwell, A Clergyman's Daughter
Bottom-shelf Orwell, but still pretty good. I'm not sure I enjoyed the ending, but I'm glad Orwell left a small caveat and let this book be printed after his death, if only to benefit his heirs.
August 11, 2017
Okay, this is truly bizarre. I don't know what Orwell was thinking, or trying to do in those mid sections! Aside from that, it had all the elements you'd expect from his writing, with a tonne of social commentary. Kind of brilliant, kind of a failure. As always, essential reading.
February 21, 2017
قد نظن أن الحياة مستقرة وهادئة، وأننا سنظل كما نحن فترة لا بأس بها، ربما نطمئن لذلك، وأحيانًا أخرى نتذمر من هذا الروتين المزعج الذي نحياه، ونتمنى أن نجد أي تغيير ولو بسيط، ولكن عندما تقرر الحياة أن تعلمنا أنها لا تبقى على وتيرة واحدة تكون الصدمة أكثر من احتمالنا ونصيح خوفًا أننا لا نريد هذا التغيير ويصبح ما كنا فيه نعمه لم ندرك قيمتها إلا متأخرين، هذه التغييرات تترك أثارًا بالغة فينا، ليس فقط خارجيًا وإنما داخليًا أيضًا وربما يكون ذلك أقوى مما نتخيل..
" هذه الأشياء في حقيقة الأمر لا تهم. أعني اشياء كألا يكون معك اية نقود، وألا يكون عندك ما يكفي لطعامك حتى حينما توشك تقريبًا على الموت جوعًا، فهذا لايغير شيئًا بداخلك، آه تكون مريرة بالطبع وقت حدوثها، لكنها لم تُحدث أي تغيير فعلي، فما يدور بداخلك هو المهم، يتغير ما في ذهنك، ثم يتغير العالم كله لأنك تنظر غليه بشكل مختلف"
عندما تقرر أن تقرأ لجورج أورويل للمرة الثالثة بعد قراءتك لأهم روايته وأكثرهم شهرة (1984 - مزرعة الحيوانات) فإنك تتوقع الكثير، وربما تظن أنك ستقرأ رواية سياسية ثالثة كعادته، ولكنه في هذه الرواية رغم استمرار اسلوب سخريته اللاذعة إلا إن إتجاهه مختلف هذه المرة.
ناقش العديد من القضايا كسيطرة الكنيسة على المجتمعات أنذاك، الطبقية، المتشردين وما يعانوه، الفقر، حياة الريف والمدينة، مسألة الإيمان الحقيقي والمزيف والايمان بالوراثة وأثر المشاكل والصدمات على ايمان الفرد، النواحي النفسية لشخصية كشخصية دورثي والمحيطين بها، العبودية، الحرية، مشاكل التعليم، مشاكل اجتماعية واثر الشائعات وغيرها
رواية أثارت الكثير من خلال شخصية دورثي "ابنة القس" وما حدث معها، ابتداءا من حياتها الروتينية بجانب والدها للانقلابات العجيبة التي واجهتها بعد ذلك
قسم أورويل روايته لعدة فصول، ارتبط كل فصل بمرحلة معينة من حياة دورثي ناقش من خلالها تلك القضايا، ففي الفصل الأول أو المرحلة الأولى ناقش حياة دورثي في كنف والدها ورعايتها لشؤون المنزل وتحملها لديون والدها التي لا يعبأ بها، بالإضافة لاعمال الكنيسة ورعاياها التي لا تنتهي والتي تجعلها في دوامة روتينية يومية، كما اثار في هذا الفصل الكثير من مشاكل الكنيسة وصراعات رجال الدين، بالاضافة لحياة الريف في "نايب هيل" تلك القرية التي يعيشون فيها وشخصيات اهلها ومساوئهم
لينتقل للمرحلة الثانية والتي تستيقظ فيها دورثي لتكتشف انها فقدت ذاكرتها منذ ما يقرب من الاسبوع لتجد نفسها في لندن لا تعرف كيف وصلت إلى هناك او ماذا حدث لها طول الفترة السابقة والتي ستظل مجهولة، لتترك ثغرة في الحبكة التي اعتمدها اورويل في روايته، مشهد استيقاظها يذكرنا بجريجور سامسا بطل كافكا المميز الذي استيقظ صباحًا ليجد نفسه حشرة !
في تلك المرحلة يناقش احوال لندن الاجتماعية حيث الطبقية وحياة المشردين من خلال ما عانته دورثي ومن قابلتهم أنذاك
في المرحلة التالية ناقش مشاكل التعليم وخباياه في تلك الفترة الزمنية من خلال مرحلة جديدة في حياة دورثي وعملها عمعلمة لفترة، ليصل للمرحلة الاخيرة التي تعود فيها دورثي لقريتها ولكن بعد الكثير والكثير من التغييرات التي لم تتوقع يومًا أن تحدث لها ..
جورج اورويل كاتب مميز حقًا وناقد لامع لاحوال المجتمعات سواء السياسية او غيرها، وفي هذه الرواية رغم ضعف حبكتها وكثرة القضايا التي ناقشتها فهي رواية جيدة إلا إنها لم ترتق لمستوى كتاباته الأخرى، وربما سأوافق أورويل ذاته في رأيه عن تلك الرواية والذي أرسله لوكيل أعماله أنذاك:
"إني لست راضي عنها البتة. لقد كانت الفكرة جيدة ولكني فيما أخشى قد شوهتها لكنها على أي حال أجود ما يمكنني إنتاجه الآن، ثمة أجزاء لا أكرهها ولكنها فيما أخشى غير متصلة الأجزاء ككل، واقرب أن تكون غير حقيقية"
ورغم ذلك تظل القراءة لأورويل ذات طابع خاص ومميز
20 / 2 / 2017
December 3, 2019
It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faith—as mysterious as faith itself.
This is a heartfelt strange novel, one which charts the life of the titular figure in a rural parish, vulnerable to gossip and exorcised by austerity. There is a fragile core to the protagonist, a 28 year old woman, a nascent spinster, a slave almost to the domestic order demanded by her father. Events unfold and the protagonist finds herself without memory of her prior life, and is soon picking hops in the countryside and then begging back in London proper. Matters take a Nicholas Nickleby turn and I found this section the most disturbing: the treatment of children under the aegis of education can so easily be alarming. The existential point made above in the pulled quote exists without answer. The difference between desperation and resignation is sometimes one of interpretation. That truth is a personal one for myself. Dear Eric used his own rough sleeping as research and looked beyond meaning of the quotidian.
This is a heartfelt strange novel, one which charts the life of the titular figure in a rural parish, vulnerable to gossip and exorcised by austerity. There is a fragile core to the protagonist, a 28 year old woman, a nascent spinster, a slave almost to the domestic order demanded by her father. Events unfold and the protagonist finds herself without memory of her prior life, and is soon picking hops in the countryside and then begging back in London proper. Matters take a Nicholas Nickleby turn and I found this section the most disturbing: the treatment of children under the aegis of education can so easily be alarming. The existential point made above in the pulled quote exists without answer. The difference between desperation and resignation is sometimes one of interpretation. That truth is a personal one for myself. Dear Eric used his own rough sleeping as research and looked beyond meaning of the quotidian.
June 12, 2020
Reconozco que me entró la curiosidad cuando descubrí que George Orwell tenia una novela titulada “La Hija del Clérigo” publicada en 1935 y leyendo el argumento, a priori, no parecía tener mucho en común con las obras que luego le convertirían en un maestro de utopías imaginarias. Sin embargo, una vez terminada la novela veo que la esencia de "1984", publicada quince años después de "La Hija del Clérigo", ya estaba aquí. Porque Dorothy Hale también es un personaje alienado y subordinado a los demás que la manejan a su antojo. En esta novela al igual que en "1984", Dorothy también empieza viviendo como una especie de zombie sin cuestionarse nada en todos los ámbitos sobre todo en cuanto a la religión, y no solo alienada, sino continuamente angustiada por esos poderes que la manejan.
""No puede uno debatirse con nebulosos problemas mentales cuando está siempre cansado y ocupado".
Sin embargo, la diferencia aquí con respecto a "1984", es que “La Hija del Clérigo” es una novela realista que nos empieza contando la vida que Dorothy lleva en la parroquia de su padre, que es un rector tiránico, misógino y egoista que maneja a su hija a su antojo para que no solo se ocupe de llevar su casa, sino de las relaciones sociales y el manejo de la parroquia. El comienzo de la novela puede llevar a engaño ya que su primera parte se puede parecer a una novela salida de Dickens con un personaje central siempre vapuleado y acosado realizando trabajos pesados y en este caso el padre de Dorothy, el rector, si que parece salido de una novela de Dickens, por lo represor y por obligar a su hija a vivir en una pobreza continua.
"Se sermoneó a si misma. ¡No, Dorothy! ¡Nada de adorar a la naturaleza, por favor! Su padre la había prevenido contra la adoración a la naturaleza. Le había oído predicar más de un sermón en contra de lo que él consideraba mero panteísmo y, lo que le parecía mucho peor, un repugnante capricho moderno".
La novela da un giro casi total, al final de la primera parte que no voy a desvelar aquí, porque es esencial que el lector llegue a este giro totalmente inocente de lo que le espera, pero si que puedo decir que el resto de la novela es el viaje de autodescubrimiento de Dorothy Hale como mujer; una mujer que hasta ahora se había visto realizando tareas cotidianas, e incluso que no se atrevía a pensar por si misma pero a lo largo de la historia, comienza a pensar por si misma, a verse como un individuo independiente capaz de tomar sus propias decisiones. Dorothy Hale pierde de alguna forma el sentido de si misma, y cuando lo recobra en este viaje de autodescubrimiento, se ha convertido casi en otra persona.
"Solo entonces, después de tener conciencia de casi todo lo que la rodeaba, empezó a tener conciencia de sí misma. Hasta ese momento había sido solo un par de ojos con un cerebro receptivo, pero puramente impersonal. En cambio ahora, con un curioso sobresalto, descubrió que tenía existencia independiente, notó que existía, igual que si algo en su interior exclamara: ¡Soy yo!"
Tengo entendido que muchos de los pasajes, y ambientes de esta novela son aubiográficos por parte de Orwell, sacados de sus diferentes trabajos y experiencias antes de afianzarse como escritor; los reúne aquí y convierte a Dorothy en la protagonista de muchas de sus vivencias. A mi es una novela que me ha encantado, no solo por la evolución del personaje de Dorothy sino también por lo que mencioné antes, porque ya están aquí en esta novela temprana, los temas que Orwell desarrollaría luego más sólidamente.
"¿Qué había sido de aquella chica ridícula y bienintencionada que rezaba extasiada en los campos cargados de aromas estivales y se pinchaba en el brazo como castigo por tener pensamientos sacrílegos?".
""No puede uno debatirse con nebulosos problemas mentales cuando está siempre cansado y ocupado".
Sin embargo, la diferencia aquí con respecto a "1984", es que “La Hija del Clérigo” es una novela realista que nos empieza contando la vida que Dorothy lleva en la parroquia de su padre, que es un rector tiránico, misógino y egoista que maneja a su hija a su antojo para que no solo se ocupe de llevar su casa, sino de las relaciones sociales y el manejo de la parroquia. El comienzo de la novela puede llevar a engaño ya que su primera parte se puede parecer a una novela salida de Dickens con un personaje central siempre vapuleado y acosado realizando trabajos pesados y en este caso el padre de Dorothy, el rector, si que parece salido de una novela de Dickens, por lo represor y por obligar a su hija a vivir en una pobreza continua.
"Se sermoneó a si misma. ¡No, Dorothy! ¡Nada de adorar a la naturaleza, por favor! Su padre la había prevenido contra la adoración a la naturaleza. Le había oído predicar más de un sermón en contra de lo que él consideraba mero panteísmo y, lo que le parecía mucho peor, un repugnante capricho moderno".
La novela da un giro casi total, al final de la primera parte que no voy a desvelar aquí, porque es esencial que el lector llegue a este giro totalmente inocente de lo que le espera, pero si que puedo decir que el resto de la novela es el viaje de autodescubrimiento de Dorothy Hale como mujer; una mujer que hasta ahora se había visto realizando tareas cotidianas, e incluso que no se atrevía a pensar por si misma pero a lo largo de la historia, comienza a pensar por si misma, a verse como un individuo independiente capaz de tomar sus propias decisiones. Dorothy Hale pierde de alguna forma el sentido de si misma, y cuando lo recobra en este viaje de autodescubrimiento, se ha convertido casi en otra persona.
"Solo entonces, después de tener conciencia de casi todo lo que la rodeaba, empezó a tener conciencia de sí misma. Hasta ese momento había sido solo un par de ojos con un cerebro receptivo, pero puramente impersonal. En cambio ahora, con un curioso sobresalto, descubrió que tenía existencia independiente, notó que existía, igual que si algo en su interior exclamara: ¡Soy yo!"
Tengo entendido que muchos de los pasajes, y ambientes de esta novela son aubiográficos por parte de Orwell, sacados de sus diferentes trabajos y experiencias antes de afianzarse como escritor; los reúne aquí y convierte a Dorothy en la protagonista de muchas de sus vivencias. A mi es una novela que me ha encantado, no solo por la evolución del personaje de Dorothy sino también por lo que mencioné antes, porque ya están aquí en esta novela temprana, los temas que Orwell desarrollaría luego más sólidamente.
"¿Qué había sido de aquella chica ridícula y bienintencionada que rezaba extasiada en los campos cargados de aromas estivales y se pinchaba en el brazo como castigo por tener pensamientos sacrílegos?".
November 2, 2015
نسبت به سایر آثار اورول زبان روایی و حتی کل داستان سبکی معمولی تر و شاید ملموس تر داشت، انتخاب یک دختر و آن هم دختر یک کشیش به عنوان شخصیت اصلی داستان و بار کردن تمام آن اتفاقات ناگوار بر روحی لطیف و ظریف، انتخاب جسورانه ای بود برای نشان دادن سیاهی و دورویی حاکم بر تمام مسائل جامعه. درگیری با فقر، نگاه دوباره به اعتقادات و نهایتا مطرح شدن مهمترین سوال که هدف و معنای زندگی چیست در بهترین و ملموس ترین شکل ممکن تصویرسازی شده بود واگرچه از خودبیگانگی تحمیلی در این داستان به نحوی مرا به یاد مسخ کافکا انداخت اما پایان داستان دختر کشیش و اذعان نویسنده به اینکه "راه حلی وجود ندارد" در نظر من باعث شد تا داستان بسیار غم انگیزتر باشد.
March 7, 2022
Много прилича на "На дъното в Париж и Лондон", като втората ми се струва доста по-синтезиран поглед към оруелските теми за градската мизерия. В този смисъл се изненадах, че "Пасторската дъщеря" е писана по-късно. Заради някои твърде разтеглени сцени не ми стана любима, но това е Оруел - ценната сърцевина е налице.
April 7, 2020
به جز چند تا جمله ی چشمگیر چیز دیگه ای نداشت.
پایان کتاب اونی که انتظار داشتم نشد. برگشت به همون دور باطل خودش. ولی کاش اینطور نمیشد. میتونست مهیج تر و دلچسب تر بشه.
پایان کتاب اونی که انتظار داشتم نشد. برگشت به همون دور باطل خودش. ولی کاش اینطور نمیشد. میتونست مهیج تر و دلچسب تر بشه.
December 23, 2022
“It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faith …as mysterious as faith itself. Like faith, it is ultimately not rooted in logic; it is a change in the climate of the mind”
Stifled by the smallness and narrow minded constraints of her father’s religious vocation and its associated life-smothering procedurals, Dorothy Hare, our title character and chief protagonist, experiences a disquieting and amnesiac mental breakdown.
Through narrative fiction, Orwell takes on religion, systemic poverty and the degradation and corruption of privately funded education (England, circa 1935). Somewhat experimental in nature—one chapter reads as though it were lifted from Joyce’s Ulysses—this was, by all accounts, Orwell’s least favorite novel. He even went so far as to call it “tripe!” and “bollocks!” Personally, I rather enjoyed it.
Stifled by the smallness and narrow minded constraints of her father’s religious vocation and its associated life-smothering procedurals, Dorothy Hare, our title character and chief protagonist, experiences a disquieting and amnesiac mental breakdown.
Through narrative fiction, Orwell takes on religion, systemic poverty and the degradation and corruption of privately funded education (England, circa 1935). Somewhat experimental in nature—one chapter reads as though it were lifted from Joyce’s Ulysses—this was, by all accounts, Orwell’s least favorite novel. He even went so far as to call it “tripe!” and “bollocks!” Personally, I rather enjoyed it.
February 6, 2015
A Note on the Text
--A Clergyman's Daughter
--A Clergyman's Daughter
February 10, 2021
Orwell'in distopya dışı romanlarından ayrı bir keyif alıyorum.
Papazın Kızı'nın önce muhafazakar bir şekilde yetişip, daha sonra sokağa düşüşünü, sefaletini ve hayatta kalmaya çalışmasını okuyoruz. Ve tabi ki küçük yer dedikodusu yer alıyor bolca.
💫💫
Papazın Kızı'nın önce muhafazakar bir şekilde yetişip, daha sonra sokağa düşüşünü, sefaletini ve hayatta kalmaya çalışmasını okuyoruz. Ve tabi ki küçük yer dedikodusu yer alıyor bolca.
💫💫
January 25, 2014
full review below!
reading in progress, but i have a couple of minutes for a few ideas i'll develop later on in the review.
- i love this.
- i really love this.
- main character, a believable woman, Dorothy, she's smart, but the smartness is triggered through her liberation from her former life
- the narrative has a few glitches - like, what happened with her memory? i have 50 more pages to go, maybe i'll find out!!
- the use of the adjective "subhuman" reffering to an 11 year old girl's glance to the world is brilliant and perfectly integrated in the phrase
- human typologies, human typologies everywhere!
- a teacher named "Strong" who "failed" - me likey the use of language
- Orwell can write, and write GOOD, other things than political brochures and dystopian worlds of doom and pain
- it's sad that this had to be censored, would've loved to read the original version of this
i'll finish it soon and come back with a full review!
final review
i must confess. i have this weird habbit, ever since i was about 8 or 9 years old, to read out loud the scenes of a book that i really like, and to do the same thing to the last like 30 pages of it. it slows my reaing down by a lot, and it allows me to fully process what i'm reading, so i enjoy doing this. if i'm at home, i read it like it should be, with characters and an objective tale teller voice, and when i'm at school or in the bus i mumble it under my breath, so no one calls any law department. there are books of which i don't read like this any page, at all, and there are works that i almost fully read out loud, because of how many lines are really good and impress me.
out of A Clergyman's daughter, i read about 70 pages total out loud. that is a lot, even for me. it means i had a blast reading this. which i did.
the woman character of this book, Dorothy, the clergyman's daughter, is a 28 year old virgin, and her life revolves around the church and caring for her father and old people. it's a bidimensional life, nothing happens that would change the original order, and she is content with it. misfortune follows her, and they are poor, the beginning of the book finding her struggle to obtain more money so that they have something to eat. she is constantly under stress and finds no time for herself, so her entire existance hangs by other people's presence.
throughout the book, she goes trough three major phases. first, she is presented as this still young, naive girl, who has no preparation for the real world and lives in her bubble, a small country village, where everyone knows everything about everyone. the moment that changes is the first "change" of her statute: she abruptly loses her memory and wakes up eight days later with no notion whatsoever about who she was or what she used to do. she finds herself in the company of thieves and beggars so, forced by her hunger, she becomes one too. after working on a plantation for a while, she is woken up to reality after she gets a shock when her man friend is arrested for theft. she remembers who she was, and what she had done, but she still has eight days missing from her memory. after desperately trying to reach out to her father, she moves to London, where after a week of fruitless job hunting, she spends 10 days as a beggar in Trafalgar Square, surrounded by low life and pain. the climax comes when she gets into jail, and is bailed out. by chance, she receives help from a relative and becomes a teacher at a small, unregistered school where the head mistress only cares for money. in the third and final phase, she is abruptly dismissed from the school and saved by an old acquaintance, and then comes what i thought was the most brilliant part of this work: the lecture he gives her and her return to her old habbits and life, as a clergyman's daughter, in her home village.
for people that like thrillery stories, this won't impress you. but for the ones who like to watch and understand the development of the character through certain events, it is a fascinating story.
i have so many things to say about this i don't even know where to start.
from beginning to end, one of the main questions Dorothy comes with is if faith in God is good. she begins as a believer, but not an ardent follower. after she experiences hurt, hunger, pain, loss, detachment, she loses that faith, but still chooses to fake it, and go back to her mechanical, bidimensional life, because she thinks it's better to pretend you believe than to not believe and maybe make others not believe too. she thinks faith saves human beings, but it ironically didn't save her. any kind of philosophy she has doesn't seem to apply to her.
her returning to the old life resembles a "giving up" moment for most of us, but she really believes, in her heart, that going back to what dumbed her is correct and righteous and the best option she has.
at one point, near the end, the book becomes a sort of an essay on life and death, the meaning of both, the role faith plays in someone's life and how easy it is not to live, to truly live.
these kind of moments i find beautiful written, and i was absolutely stunned at how much depth Orwell can reach. this is my first Orwell book who had no tags on it, like the two ones everyone knows, Animal Farm and 1984. I read those and i found them amazing, especialli 1984, but this reaches a whole new level.
in the end, i want to talk about the thing that really made me propel this book from 4 stars to 5 stars. while being a teacher, Dorothy gives lessons to a class of 22 girls, the older being 15, and finds them completely empty of knowledge, with no thinking done for themselves. she manages to change the system, for a brief period of time, and sparks their interest at certain objects. after she reads the word "womb"in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" out loud to the class, some of them go home and ask their parents what that is. revolted, they come to the school and almost get her fired because she dared to teach their children such a thing. she is forced to go back to the old ways. she goes back to feeding them prepacked information in a manner that allows no understanding, no critical thinking, no analysis, no processing, just swallowing and shitting it out in a verbal diarrhea that, let's face it, any child is capable of. it made me think of my education and how lucky i am to have been given a kick in the ass and a smack over my head and a single task: "think for yourself". annalyze, question, compare, combat, connect, recreate. it's these notions that have almost zero value in today's education and i say this is one of the saddest things that we have to deal with.
by all means the girl's minds become a void again, and there is a sentence that goes like "she learned the sad art of being a teacher" (i'm translating now, i read it in romanian). Also, "she learned to protect her mind and become ruthless, she learned to feel proud that an absurd, useless system is paying off".
i read that and thought about my teachers, all throughout the 12 years of school i had. most of them i hated because, on some unconscious level, i saw them hating me. not me personally, but rather what i represented: a generation of proud idiots, tomorrow's proud idiot leaders. and then i thought about my good teachers, the people that have shaped me, as much as they could in the little span of time they had. the people that i will always remember as "that teacher...", women and men who by the power of example showed me how to achieve higher standards. i thought about them, and how they get up every day and deal with the swamp we call school and the invertebrates we call students, how they put up with the bovine looks and stupidity and lack of respect from 90% of the kids, just for the chance to plant a seed in some better kid mind's soil.
and i hope, i really hope, i have never ever given any of my good teachers a "subhuman" look or reason to despair over how useless it is to plow so many minds and gain no harvest at all.
i feel like i've written enough for this review, but i don't feel like i emptied the well of things-to-say-about-it.
it's a beautiful book and if you're open enough, it will make you think. and the one thing that unites good books all over the world is that they make you think.
reading in progress, but i have a couple of minutes for a few ideas i'll develop later on in the review.
- i love this.
- i really love this.
- main character, a believable woman, Dorothy, she's smart, but the smartness is triggered through her liberation from her former life
- the narrative has a few glitches - like, what happened with her memory? i have 50 more pages to go, maybe i'll find out!!
- the use of the adjective "subhuman" reffering to an 11 year old girl's glance to the world is brilliant and perfectly integrated in the phrase
- human typologies, human typologies everywhere!
- a teacher named "Strong" who "failed" - me likey the use of language
- Orwell can write, and write GOOD, other things than political brochures and dystopian worlds of doom and pain
- it's sad that this had to be censored, would've loved to read the original version of this
i'll finish it soon and come back with a full review!
final review
i must confess. i have this weird habbit, ever since i was about 8 or 9 years old, to read out loud the scenes of a book that i really like, and to do the same thing to the last like 30 pages of it. it slows my reaing down by a lot, and it allows me to fully process what i'm reading, so i enjoy doing this. if i'm at home, i read it like it should be, with characters and an objective tale teller voice, and when i'm at school or in the bus i mumble it under my breath, so no one calls any law department. there are books of which i don't read like this any page, at all, and there are works that i almost fully read out loud, because of how many lines are really good and impress me.
out of A Clergyman's daughter, i read about 70 pages total out loud. that is a lot, even for me. it means i had a blast reading this. which i did.
the woman character of this book, Dorothy, the clergyman's daughter, is a 28 year old virgin, and her life revolves around the church and caring for her father and old people. it's a bidimensional life, nothing happens that would change the original order, and she is content with it. misfortune follows her, and they are poor, the beginning of the book finding her struggle to obtain more money so that they have something to eat. she is constantly under stress and finds no time for herself, so her entire existance hangs by other people's presence.
throughout the book, she goes trough three major phases. first, she is presented as this still young, naive girl, who has no preparation for the real world and lives in her bubble, a small country village, where everyone knows everything about everyone. the moment that changes is the first "change" of her statute: she abruptly loses her memory and wakes up eight days later with no notion whatsoever about who she was or what she used to do. she finds herself in the company of thieves and beggars so, forced by her hunger, she becomes one too. after working on a plantation for a while, she is woken up to reality after she gets a shock when her man friend is arrested for theft. she remembers who she was, and what she had done, but she still has eight days missing from her memory. after desperately trying to reach out to her father, she moves to London, where after a week of fruitless job hunting, she spends 10 days as a beggar in Trafalgar Square, surrounded by low life and pain. the climax comes when she gets into jail, and is bailed out. by chance, she receives help from a relative and becomes a teacher at a small, unregistered school where the head mistress only cares for money. in the third and final phase, she is abruptly dismissed from the school and saved by an old acquaintance, and then comes what i thought was the most brilliant part of this work: the lecture he gives her and her return to her old habbits and life, as a clergyman's daughter, in her home village.
for people that like thrillery stories, this won't impress you. but for the ones who like to watch and understand the development of the character through certain events, it is a fascinating story.
i have so many things to say about this i don't even know where to start.
from beginning to end, one of the main questions Dorothy comes with is if faith in God is good. she begins as a believer, but not an ardent follower. after she experiences hurt, hunger, pain, loss, detachment, she loses that faith, but still chooses to fake it, and go back to her mechanical, bidimensional life, because she thinks it's better to pretend you believe than to not believe and maybe make others not believe too. she thinks faith saves human beings, but it ironically didn't save her. any kind of philosophy she has doesn't seem to apply to her.
her returning to the old life resembles a "giving up" moment for most of us, but she really believes, in her heart, that going back to what dumbed her is correct and righteous and the best option she has.
at one point, near the end, the book becomes a sort of an essay on life and death, the meaning of both, the role faith plays in someone's life and how easy it is not to live, to truly live.
“And in every detail of your life, if no ultimate purpose redeemed it, there was a quality of greyness, of desolation, that could never be described, but which you could feel like a physical pang at your heart. Life, if the grave really ends it, is monstrous and dreadful. No use trying to argue it away. Think of life as it really is, think of the details of life; and then think that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without flinching?”
these kind of moments i find beautiful written, and i was absolutely stunned at how much depth Orwell can reach. this is my first Orwell book who had no tags on it, like the two ones everyone knows, Animal Farm and 1984. I read those and i found them amazing, especialli 1984, but this reaches a whole new level.
in the end, i want to talk about the thing that really made me propel this book from 4 stars to 5 stars. while being a teacher, Dorothy gives lessons to a class of 22 girls, the older being 15, and finds them completely empty of knowledge, with no thinking done for themselves. she manages to change the system, for a brief period of time, and sparks their interest at certain objects. after she reads the word "womb"in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" out loud to the class, some of them go home and ask their parents what that is. revolted, they come to the school and almost get her fired because she dared to teach their children such a thing. she is forced to go back to the old ways. she goes back to feeding them prepacked information in a manner that allows no understanding, no critical thinking, no analysis, no processing, just swallowing and shitting it out in a verbal diarrhea that, let's face it, any child is capable of. it made me think of my education and how lucky i am to have been given a kick in the ass and a smack over my head and a single task: "think for yourself". annalyze, question, compare, combat, connect, recreate. it's these notions that have almost zero value in today's education and i say this is one of the saddest things that we have to deal with.
by all means the girl's minds become a void again, and there is a sentence that goes like "she learned the sad art of being a teacher" (i'm translating now, i read it in romanian). Also, "she learned to protect her mind and become ruthless, she learned to feel proud that an absurd, useless system is paying off".
i read that and thought about my teachers, all throughout the 12 years of school i had. most of them i hated because, on some unconscious level, i saw them hating me. not me personally, but rather what i represented: a generation of proud idiots, tomorrow's proud idiot leaders. and then i thought about my good teachers, the people that have shaped me, as much as they could in the little span of time they had. the people that i will always remember as "that teacher...", women and men who by the power of example showed me how to achieve higher standards. i thought about them, and how they get up every day and deal with the swamp we call school and the invertebrates we call students, how they put up with the bovine looks and stupidity and lack of respect from 90% of the kids, just for the chance to plant a seed in some better kid mind's soil.
and i hope, i really hope, i have never ever given any of my good teachers a "subhuman" look or reason to despair over how useless it is to plow so many minds and gain no harvest at all.
i feel like i've written enough for this review, but i don't feel like i emptied the well of things-to-say-about-it.
it's a beautiful book and if you're open enough, it will make you think. and the one thing that unites good books all over the world is that they make you think.
November 14, 2025
“A Clergyman’s Daughter” is George Orwell’s scathing critique of organized religion and a personal lamentation of the death of faith. It is, to a believer, probably not a pleasant read. It is, however, to those of us who don’t believe or have once believed and, for whatever reason, do not anymore, a heartwarming and bittersweet understanding of what disbelief feels like. To fellow atheists/agnostics, Orwell’s novel is a comfort, an acknowledgment, and a reminder that while it may not feel like the faithless have any place in a world of faith, the truth is: we do.
The protagonist of the novel is Dorothy Hare, the titular daughter of the rector in a small English town. Amiable, hard-working, and dedicated to the congregation of the small Anglican church of which her father is pastor, Dorothy leads a life of singular unquestioned faith, a faith that brings her joy.
Her apparent joyful faith is in sharp contrast to her father’s joyless one. The Rector (as he is called throughout the novel) is a thoroughly unlikable person, who hates his job and treats his “faith” as a burden. A misanthrope, the Rector cares little to nothing for his congregation, many of which he treats as lower-class scum. The only members of the congregation to which he is in anyway pleasant are the wealthy members of the community that he sucks up to during times of fundraising. His legalistic Anglicanism is in sharp contrast to his daughter’s kind-hearted openness and non-denominationalism. She is friendly and kind to everyone, even the town Catholics and non-churchgoers---a constant source of annoyance to her father.
Despite her faith, she is still occasionally troubled by thoughts of doubt. She “corrects” this thinking by cutting little marks in her skin: the pain and the blood a self-punishment for her “sin” of questioning dogma. She cuts herself when she angrily questions her father about why he refuses to baptize a dying child because the family lives too far away and the trip would cut into his precious lunch hour. (It is not her place to question: her father is the Rector.) She cuts herself when she has thoughts of disobeying her father’s commands and helping the impoverished families in the neighborhood. (It is a sin to disobey one’s parents and, besides, those families are poor because God clearly deigns them to be poor.) She cuts herself after she stops the wealthy men of the congregation from occasionally trying to cop a feel or making even more blatant sexual advances. (They are helping to pay for the church upkeep with their generous donations, so they have, probably, earned an occasional tit-grab.)
Things take a surreal turn one day when she awakens to find herself in the busy streets of London without any memory of who she is. All memories of her past life---her name, her place of birth, her upbringing---have simply vanished. She awakens to find herself just one of the poor, untethered masses roaming the city, trying to find a job and a life.
As weeks and months go by, Dorothy’s memories come back in pieces. She begins to realize, though, that she is no longer the girl that she once was. Not after her experience being homeless, working in the inhuman conditions of England’s sweatshops and hopfields, experiencing first-hand the sense of “Christian charity” of the upper classes.
As her memory gradually returns, she begins to see how ridiculous her life was prior to her inexplicable black-out. She begins to see the lies and half-truths that comprised her dutiful entrapment to living a “biblical” life. The Scriptures---once sacred and unmoving in her eyes---are now merely empty words. The God she once worshipped and adored is now nothing but a fairy tale in which she has stopped believing.
Eventually, Dorothy finds herself back home, but she is not the weak-minded silly girl she once was. She has, in a sense, found a strength in her new faithlessness.
This is, perhaps, the hardest thing for people of faith to understand about those of us who have lost faith. For the most part, we don’t celebrate it. It is not necessarily something for which we are proud. We rarely like to advertise it, although most of us are not afraid to admit it if asked.
I can truly only speak for myself when I explain my own feelings of faithlessness. It is not something that makes me feel “better” or “more enlightened” than those who have faith. I do not feel superior. I often lament the loss of my faith, and there is a part of me that still holds out hope that I may, one day, find it again.
At the same time, however, there is a liberating sense that I am not tethered or chained to a set of beliefs that I don’t necessarily believe in. My freethinking isn’t a philosophy that I necessarily think is “right”, but it’s definitely one that feels right to me.
Of course, there are days where I certainly feel that having faith, in anything, would be an analgesic to the misery of life’s meaninglessness.
As Dorothy so aptly puts it: “There was... no possible substitute for faith; no pagan acceptance of life as sufficient to itself, no pantheistic cheer-up stuff, no pseudo-religion of “progress” with visions of glittering Utopias and ant-heaps of steel and concrete. It is all or nothing. Either life on earth is a preparation for something greater and more lasting, or it is meaningless, dark and dreadful. (p. 316)”
Of course, as Dorothy discovers, life has a way of finding ways to temporarily forget about one’s dilemmas with faith and faithlessness. There are always dishes to be cleaned, bills to be paid, and dinners to cook.
The protagonist of the novel is Dorothy Hare, the titular daughter of the rector in a small English town. Amiable, hard-working, and dedicated to the congregation of the small Anglican church of which her father is pastor, Dorothy leads a life of singular unquestioned faith, a faith that brings her joy.
Her apparent joyful faith is in sharp contrast to her father’s joyless one. The Rector (as he is called throughout the novel) is a thoroughly unlikable person, who hates his job and treats his “faith” as a burden. A misanthrope, the Rector cares little to nothing for his congregation, many of which he treats as lower-class scum. The only members of the congregation to which he is in anyway pleasant are the wealthy members of the community that he sucks up to during times of fundraising. His legalistic Anglicanism is in sharp contrast to his daughter’s kind-hearted openness and non-denominationalism. She is friendly and kind to everyone, even the town Catholics and non-churchgoers---a constant source of annoyance to her father.
Despite her faith, she is still occasionally troubled by thoughts of doubt. She “corrects” this thinking by cutting little marks in her skin: the pain and the blood a self-punishment for her “sin” of questioning dogma. She cuts herself when she angrily questions her father about why he refuses to baptize a dying child because the family lives too far away and the trip would cut into his precious lunch hour. (It is not her place to question: her father is the Rector.) She cuts herself when she has thoughts of disobeying her father’s commands and helping the impoverished families in the neighborhood. (It is a sin to disobey one’s parents and, besides, those families are poor because God clearly deigns them to be poor.) She cuts herself after she stops the wealthy men of the congregation from occasionally trying to cop a feel or making even more blatant sexual advances. (They are helping to pay for the church upkeep with their generous donations, so they have, probably, earned an occasional tit-grab.)
Things take a surreal turn one day when she awakens to find herself in the busy streets of London without any memory of who she is. All memories of her past life---her name, her place of birth, her upbringing---have simply vanished. She awakens to find herself just one of the poor, untethered masses roaming the city, trying to find a job and a life.
As weeks and months go by, Dorothy’s memories come back in pieces. She begins to realize, though, that she is no longer the girl that she once was. Not after her experience being homeless, working in the inhuman conditions of England’s sweatshops and hopfields, experiencing first-hand the sense of “Christian charity” of the upper classes.
As her memory gradually returns, she begins to see how ridiculous her life was prior to her inexplicable black-out. She begins to see the lies and half-truths that comprised her dutiful entrapment to living a “biblical” life. The Scriptures---once sacred and unmoving in her eyes---are now merely empty words. The God she once worshipped and adored is now nothing but a fairy tale in which she has stopped believing.
Eventually, Dorothy finds herself back home, but she is not the weak-minded silly girl she once was. She has, in a sense, found a strength in her new faithlessness.
This is, perhaps, the hardest thing for people of faith to understand about those of us who have lost faith. For the most part, we don’t celebrate it. It is not necessarily something for which we are proud. We rarely like to advertise it, although most of us are not afraid to admit it if asked.
I can truly only speak for myself when I explain my own feelings of faithlessness. It is not something that makes me feel “better” or “more enlightened” than those who have faith. I do not feel superior. I often lament the loss of my faith, and there is a part of me that still holds out hope that I may, one day, find it again.
At the same time, however, there is a liberating sense that I am not tethered or chained to a set of beliefs that I don’t necessarily believe in. My freethinking isn’t a philosophy that I necessarily think is “right”, but it’s definitely one that feels right to me.
Of course, there are days where I certainly feel that having faith, in anything, would be an analgesic to the misery of life’s meaninglessness.
As Dorothy so aptly puts it: “There was... no possible substitute for faith; no pagan acceptance of life as sufficient to itself, no pantheistic cheer-up stuff, no pseudo-religion of “progress” with visions of glittering Utopias and ant-heaps of steel and concrete. It is all or nothing. Either life on earth is a preparation for something greater and more lasting, or it is meaningless, dark and dreadful. (p. 316)”
Of course, as Dorothy discovers, life has a way of finding ways to temporarily forget about one’s dilemmas with faith and faithlessness. There are always dishes to be cleaned, bills to be paid, and dinners to cook.
March 24, 2021
Šopaholiķa tsundoku mierinājuma grāmata. Lai kā tur ar grāmatas atnākšanas iemesliem pie manis, pēc Parīzes un Londonas posta Londonas nabadzīgo dzīve nelaida mani vaļā un šo to no Londonas mācītāja meita parādīja ar'. Arī šī tāda lieliska laikmetīga klasika, kas nenoveco. Varbūt Parīzes restorānu un Londonas klaidoņu dzīve man patika mazliet labāk, bet arī mācītāja saimniecības bezjēdzīgajai rutīnai, ignorantajam tēvam, apiņošanai un Londonas privātskolām nebija ne vainas.
Plašāk blogā: http://lalksne.blogspot.com/2021/03/d...
Plašāk blogā: http://lalksne.blogspot.com/2021/03/d...
June 8, 2020
I was surprised I enjoyed this novel as Orwell hated it and did not want it reprinted in his lifetime. However, it was for me an enjoyable read. Dorothy a clergyman daughter is basically a slave to her father a rector. A disappointed man who was born into aristocracy, but was the youngest son and ended up in the clergy. His ability is reflected in that his congregation has gone from 600 to 200. He does not pay his bills, speculates badly in the stock market and complains a lot.
Poor Dorothy does everything she manages the house for her father, fends off the bill chasers in particular the butcher, visits parishioners, listens to their ramblings and makes costumes for fund-raising events. She also pricks her arm with a pin to keep herself focused on her prayers and to be true to her faith. Her life of ritual is upset when it all gets on top of her and she wakes up 8 days later in London with no memory. The catalyst for losing her memory is a meeting with Mr Warburton an atheist and old leacher who wants to seduce her.
So begins several poverty and hunger focused adventures. She joins a group led by Nobby a small time happy crook who go hop picking. He gets arrested for the heinous crime of stealing apples. Dorothy alias Ellen goes to London and becomes broke ending up for several nights in Trafalgar Square in winter with other down and outs. Is arrested for begging. Her cousin intervened and gets her a job teaching in a fourth rate school run by Mrs Creasey an odious woman. The education standards are horrific as the conditions. Then as her memory has returned she is able to return to the rectory albeit faithless.
The story ends with Dorothy going back to her old routine, with the exception that she no longer believes in God. This story shows glimmers of Orwell’s greatest work 1984. Dorothy is part spied on, does a boring routine everyday, escapes and then returns to her life of drudgery.
Poor Dorothy does everything she manages the house for her father, fends off the bill chasers in particular the butcher, visits parishioners, listens to their ramblings and makes costumes for fund-raising events. She also pricks her arm with a pin to keep herself focused on her prayers and to be true to her faith. Her life of ritual is upset when it all gets on top of her and she wakes up 8 days later in London with no memory. The catalyst for losing her memory is a meeting with Mr Warburton an atheist and old leacher who wants to seduce her.
So begins several poverty and hunger focused adventures. She joins a group led by Nobby a small time happy crook who go hop picking. He gets arrested for the heinous crime of stealing apples. Dorothy alias Ellen goes to London and becomes broke ending up for several nights in Trafalgar Square in winter with other down and outs. Is arrested for begging. Her cousin intervened and gets her a job teaching in a fourth rate school run by Mrs Creasey an odious woman. The education standards are horrific as the conditions. Then as her memory has returned she is able to return to the rectory albeit faithless.
The story ends with Dorothy going back to her old routine, with the exception that she no longer believes in God. This story shows glimmers of Orwell’s greatest work 1984. Dorothy is part spied on, does a boring routine everyday, escapes and then returns to her life of drudgery.
June 12, 2020
Reconozco que me entró la curiosidad cuando descubrí que George Orwell tenia una novela titulada “La Hija del Clérigo” publicada en 1935 y leyendo el argumento, a priori, no parecía tener mucho en común con las obras que luego le convertirían en un maestro de utopías imaginarias. Sin embargo, una vez terminada la novela veo que la esencia de "1984", publicada quince años después de "La Hija del Clérigo", ya estaba aquí. Porque Dorothy Hale también es un personaje alienado y subordinado a los demás que la manejan a su antojo. En esta novela al igual que en "1984", Dorothy también empieza viviendo como una especie de zombie sin cuestionarse nada en todos los ámbitos sobre todo en cuanto a la religión, y no solo alienada, sino continuamente angustiada por esos poderes que la manejan.
""No puede uno debatirse con nebulosos problemas mentales cuando está siempre cansado y ocupado".
Sin embargo, la diferencia aquí con respecto a "1984", es que “La Hija del Clérigo” es una novela realista que nos empieza contando la vida que Dorothy lleva en la parroquia de su padre, que es un rector tiránico, misógino y egoista que maneja a su hija a su antojo para que no solo se ocupe de llevar su casa, sino de las relaciones sociales y el manejo de la parroquia. El comienzo de la novela puede llevar a engaño ya que su primera parte se puede parecer a una novela salida de Dickens con un personaje central siempre vapuleado y acosado realizando trabajos pesados y en este caso el padre de Dorothy, el rector, si que parece salido de una novela de Dickens, por lo represor y por obligar a su hija a vivir en una pobreza continua.
"Se sermoneó a si misma. ¡No, Dorothy! ¡Nada de adorar a la naturaleza, por favor! Su padre la había prevenido contra la adoración a la naturaleza. Le había oído predicar más de un sermón en contra de lo que él consideraba mero panteísmo y, lo que le parecía mucho peor, un repugnante capricho moderno".
La novela da un giro casi total, al final de la primera parte que no voy a desvelar aquí, porque es esencial que el lector llegue a este giro totalmente inocente de lo que le espera, pero si que puedo decir que el resto de la novela es el viaje de autodescubrimiento de Dorothy Hale como mujer; una mujer que hasta ahora se había visto realizando tareas cotidianas, e incluso que no se atrevía a pensar por si misma pero a lo largo de la historia, comienza a pensar por si misma, a verse como un individuo independiente capaz de tomar sus propias decisiones. Dorothy Hale pierde de alguna forma el sentido de si misma, y cuando lo recobra en este viaje de autodescubrimiento, se ha convertido casi en otra persona.
"Solo entonces, después de tener conciencia de casi todo lo que la rodeaba, empezó a tener conciencia de sí misma. Hasta ese momento había sido solo un par de ojos con un cerebro receptivo, pero puramente impersonal. En cambio ahora, con un curioso sobresalto, descubrió que tenía existencia independiente, notó que existía, igual que si algo en su interior exclamara: ¡Soy yo!"
Tengo entendido que muchos de los pasajes, y ambientes de esta novela son aubiográficos por parte de Orwell, sacados de sus diferentes trabajos y experiencias antes de afianzarse como escritor; los reúne aquí y convierte a Dorothy en la protagonista de muchas de sus vivencias. A mi es una novela que me ha encantado, no solo por la evolución del personaje de Dorothy sino también por lo que mencioné antes, porque ya están aquí en esta novela temprana, los temas que Orwell desarrollaría luego más sólidamente.
"¿Qué había sido de aquella chica ridícula y bienintencionada que rezaba extasiada en los campos cargados de aromas estivales y se pinchaba en el brazo como castigo por tener pensamientos sacrílegos?".
""No puede uno debatirse con nebulosos problemas mentales cuando está siempre cansado y ocupado".
Sin embargo, la diferencia aquí con respecto a "1984", es que “La Hija del Clérigo” es una novela realista que nos empieza contando la vida que Dorothy lleva en la parroquia de su padre, que es un rector tiránico, misógino y egoista que maneja a su hija a su antojo para que no solo se ocupe de llevar su casa, sino de las relaciones sociales y el manejo de la parroquia. El comienzo de la novela puede llevar a engaño ya que su primera parte se puede parecer a una novela salida de Dickens con un personaje central siempre vapuleado y acosado realizando trabajos pesados y en este caso el padre de Dorothy, el rector, si que parece salido de una novela de Dickens, por lo represor y por obligar a su hija a vivir en una pobreza continua.
"Se sermoneó a si misma. ¡No, Dorothy! ¡Nada de adorar a la naturaleza, por favor! Su padre la había prevenido contra la adoración a la naturaleza. Le había oído predicar más de un sermón en contra de lo que él consideraba mero panteísmo y, lo que le parecía mucho peor, un repugnante capricho moderno".
La novela da un giro casi total, al final de la primera parte que no voy a desvelar aquí, porque es esencial que el lector llegue a este giro totalmente inocente de lo que le espera, pero si que puedo decir que el resto de la novela es el viaje de autodescubrimiento de Dorothy Hale como mujer; una mujer que hasta ahora se había visto realizando tareas cotidianas, e incluso que no se atrevía a pensar por si misma pero a lo largo de la historia, comienza a pensar por si misma, a verse como un individuo independiente capaz de tomar sus propias decisiones. Dorothy Hale pierde de alguna forma el sentido de si misma, y cuando lo recobra en este viaje de autodescubrimiento, se ha convertido casi en otra persona.
"Solo entonces, después de tener conciencia de casi todo lo que la rodeaba, empezó a tener conciencia de sí misma. Hasta ese momento había sido solo un par de ojos con un cerebro receptivo, pero puramente impersonal. En cambio ahora, con un curioso sobresalto, descubrió que tenía existencia independiente, notó que existía, igual que si algo en su interior exclamara: ¡Soy yo!"
Tengo entendido que muchos de los pasajes, y ambientes de esta novela son aubiográficos por parte de Orwell, sacados de sus diferentes trabajos y experiencias antes de afianzarse como escritor; los reúne aquí y convierte a Dorothy en la protagonista de muchas de sus vivencias. A mi es una novela que me ha encantado, no solo por la evolución del personaje de Dorothy sino también por lo que mencioné antes, porque ya están aquí en esta novela temprana, los temas que Orwell desarrollaría luego más sólidamente.
"¿Qué había sido de aquella chica ridícula y bienintencionada que rezaba extasiada en los campos cargados de aromas estivales y se pinchaba en el brazo como castigo por tener pensamientos sacrílegos?".
August 2, 2020
إن كُنتَ قد قرأت رواية "متشرداً في باريس"، وهي الرواية الأولى لجورج أورويل، وأُعجبت بها، فستعجبك هذه الرواية أيضاً، والعكس صحيح.
ليس لدي ما أقوله عنها.. لأنها تُحيرك.. تارةً تجد اماطة لأحداث بدرجة تجعلك تستطيع القول أن هذا "حشو فارغ". ومرةً أخرى نجد تحليلات عظيمة القيمة ورؤية عميقة لوقائع واقعة في العتمة غالباً ان لم يكن أبداً.
لكني عندما أنهيتها أحسست وكأني ودعت عزيزاً سافر. ولربما لن أنسى "دوروثي" وقدرها العجيب.
*اقتباسات
"حتى شهر آب عندها تكون قد نسيت الليالي الباردة والأجر الزهيد والضرر الذي تسببه ليديك، ولا تتذكر سوى أوقات العصر الوردية في الشمس وشرب البيرة من الأواني الحجرية، حول المخيم المضاء بلهيب النار الأحمر في الليل."
"وفقدت الأمل تقريباً بمساعدة والدها. ومن الغريب أن ذعرها الأول قد مات. وكلما ازداد جوعها وأصبحت فرص حصولها على عمل أبعد منالاً تحول رعبها الى ضروب من اللامبالاة البائسة. عانت لكنها لم تكن خائفة كثيراً، وبدا العالم السفلي الذي كانت تهبط فيه أقل فظاعة كلما اقترب أكثر. "
"أيتها الليالي والأيام، أيها الضوء والظلام، أيها البرق والغيم العنوا المولى. "
دوروثي : "أوه، يا رب يا رب! "
السيــــد تولبويز، [متوقفاً] : " لماذا تنادين الرب، بكاءک بكاء تائب يحتضر؟ تشبثي بأسلحتك واستدع الشيطان كما أفعل أنا... مرحباً بك يا ابليس، يا أمير الأثير! "
"اشربي من قرب المقبض ولن تتضري"
"لكنهن بدأن بشكسبير بسهولة وطيب خاطر كما يفعل كل الصغار، عندما لا يفسدوهم بالإعراب والتحليل. "
"ان ضياع الإيمان شيء غامض كالإيمان نفسه. ان الإيمان غير متأصل في المنطق أساساً، وهو تغير في مناخ العقل."
"ماذا تريدين بالمعنى؟ عندما أتناول عشائي لا أقوم بذالك من أجل مجد الرب، أقوم بذالك لأنني أستمتع به، العالم مملوء بالأشياء المسلية–الكتب والسينما والخمر والسفر والأصدقاء، كل شيء–التي لا أرى معنى فيها ولا أريد أن أرى. لماذا لا تأخذين الحياة كما تجدينها؟. "
"كيف يمكن لأي شيء أن يبقى مهماً لولا الإيمان؟ كيف يمكن أن تخاف لو كان لديك هدف في العالم تخدمه وتتمكن من فهمه وأنت تخدمه؟ إن الإحساس بالهدف ينير حياتك كلها ولن يعرف قلبك الإرهاق ولا الشعور بالعبث أو الملل البودليري في انتظار ساعات غير محمية. وسيكون كل عمل ذو مغزى وكل لحظة طاهرة محاكاة بالإيمان في قالب من الفرح الأبدي. "
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"بدأت تتأمل الحياة الطبيعية. يخرج المرء من الرحم ليعيش ستين أو سبعين سنة ثم يموت ويتعفن. وسيواجه نوع من الكآبة والتعاسة التي لا يمكن وصفها لكن يمكن الشعور بها مثل غصة جسدية في القلب في كل جزئية من حياته ان لم يكن له هدف أساسي يعوضها. ان كان القبر يضع نهاية للحياة فهي بشعة ومروعة جداً. لا فائدة من محاولة تعميق الجدل حولها. فكر في الحياة كما هي عليه في الواقع، فكر في تفاصيلها وسترى بأنها لا معنى ولا غرض ولا أمل لها سوى القبر، وبالتأكيد هل هناك من يستطيع أن يواجه تلك الفكرة بدون احجام سوى الأغبياء ومن يخدعون أنفسهم أو الذين يعيشون سعداء بشكل استثنائي! "
"حولت محلها على الكرسي. لكن في النهاية لابد أن يكون هناك مغزى وغرض لكل شيء! لا يمكن أن يكون العالم مجرد حادث عابر. كل شيء يحدث يجب أن يكون له سبب نهائي ومنوثم غرض. بما أنك موجود فإن الرب هو من خلقك ولأنه خلقك كائناً عاقلاً فهو عاقل أيضاً لأن الأكبر لا يأتي من الأصغر، هو من خلقك وهو الذي سيقتلك لغرضه الخاص. لكن ذالك الغرض مبهم. انها طبيعة الأشياء التي لا يمكنك اكتشافها وحتى لو اكتشفتها فستنفر منها. ان حياتك وموتك مجرد نغمة منفردة في الغرفة الموسيقية الخالدة التي تعزف لتسليته. وبفرض أنك لم تحب اللحن؟ –وفكرَت بالقس المخلوع في ساحة ترافليغار. هل كانت تحلم بالأشياء التي قالها أم أنه قالها فعلاً؟ ستحشر مع الشياطين وملوكهم ومع كل أهل جهنم– لكن تلك سخافة، لأن عدم حُب اللحن كان جزء من اللحن أيضاً."
"كما رأت بوضوح بأنه لا يوجد بديل ممكن عن الإيمان، لا القبول الوثني بأن الحياة مكتفية بنفسها ولا هراء الوجوديين بالإبتهاج ولا الأديان الزائفة التي تتحدث عن (التقدم) ورؤى المدن الفاصلة المتألقة وأكوم النمل من الفولاذ والإسمنت. ليس هناك حل وسط. إما الحياة على الأرض ليست الا تحضير لشيء أعظم وأظول ديمومة، وإما هي بلا معنى وقاتمة ومرعبة. "
"أولاً وأخيراً ألا يوجد عدد لا يحصى من الناس يعاني من نفس حالتها! الآف وملايين من الناس في العالم فقدوا ايمانهم دون أن يفقدوا الحاجة الى الإيمان. نصف بنات الكهنة في انجلترا–كما قال السيد وربيرتون الذي ربما كان مصيباً– وليس فقط بنات الكهنة، بل من كل أنواع البشر الذين يعانون من المرض والعزلة والفشل وكل الذين يعيشون حياة احباط وخزلان، الذين يحتاجون الى الإيمان ولا يملكونه كي يدعمهم ويقويهم. حتى راهبات الأديرة اللواتي ينظفن الأرض وينشدن في مارياس بالسر غير مؤمنات. "
January 26, 2025
Бритким језиком написан живот младе девојке, свештеникове ћерке, која у једном тренутку изгуби свој пређашњи живот и не знајући како нађе се у ситуацијама голог преживљаваља, на самој ивици глади у позицији да преиспитује своју веру којој је тако ревносно служила под окриљем очевог дома да би схватила да је никада није ни имала, макар не у правом облику, па повратак у очев дом и под окриље цркве ипак јој пружа извесну, не малу, дозу спокоја.
March 9, 2024
العلاقة الزوجية غير السليمة يدفع ثمنها الأبناء حتى مهما بلغوا من العمر.
من الأدب الكلاسيكي الانجليزي و بقلم جورج أوريل الناقد اللاذع يحكي لنا قصة دوروثي الفتاة المطيعة لأبيها القس الوحيد البخيل تعيش تحت جناحه طوال سنوات حياتها لم تجادل قط لم يكن لها رأي قط ! عاشت سنوات طفولتها ومراهقتها في بؤس، ليحكم عليها القدر من خلال حادث فقدان ذاكرتها أن تعيش بؤس التشرد في شوارع لندن الباردة، دون معيل ودون بيت يأويها، ظلت أمواج الحياة القاسية تتقاذفها دون رحمة بكل بديهية تعرضت للاستغلال كثيرا.
رفض أبيها عودتها لأنها دنست إسمه و شرفه.
و رفضت هي الزواج من حبيب عمرها بسبب تشويه أبيها لكل ذكريات طفولتها من خلال معاملته القاسية جدا مع أمها ومعها.
رواية موجعا تنضح بالبؤس.
من الأدب الكلاسيكي الانجليزي و بقلم جورج أوريل الناقد اللاذع يحكي لنا قصة دوروثي الفتاة المطيعة لأبيها القس الوحيد البخيل تعيش تحت جناحه طوال سنوات حياتها لم تجادل قط لم يكن لها رأي قط ! عاشت سنوات طفولتها ومراهقتها في بؤس، ليحكم عليها القدر من خلال حادث فقدان ذاكرتها أن تعيش بؤس التشرد في شوارع لندن الباردة، دون معيل ودون بيت يأويها، ظلت أمواج الحياة القاسية تتقاذفها دون رحمة بكل بديهية تعرضت للاستغلال كثيرا.
رفض أبيها عودتها لأنها دنست إسمه و شرفه.
و رفضت هي الزواج من حبيب عمرها بسبب تشويه أبيها لكل ذكريات طفولتها من خلال معاملته القاسية جدا مع أمها ومعها.
رواية موجعا تنضح بالبؤس.
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