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In This House of Brede
House of Brede - Feb 2021
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9. The Solution
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Mod
Yes, Mark, I had caught your meaning from your previous comments. However, it's difficult to separate literary questions from real-life questions when discussing a novel. When you say this:
My point is that we should not be distracted by debating if she was right or wrong, or if her solution was right or wrong, because that is not the point.
But in fact this was the point of the question we are discussing, the title of which is "The Solution" and the explanation is Sister Philippa, drawing on skills and talents from her prior life, identifies "the only solution" to the financial crisis facing Brede. This solution is embraced by Abbess Catherine and the rest of the Abbey. Only Dame Agnes and McTurk object. Who do you think was right? Who does Godden think was right?
We seem to have successfully answered the last question: Who does Godden think was right. But I insist on trying to answer the first question: Who do you think was right?
That may not be the point of the novel from the point of view of the author, but it may well be the point of the novel from the point of view of the reader (of this reader, at least).
When an author writes a book, what he or she intended when she wrote it, is a point of literary interest. But unless the book is the Bible, one shouldn't say that one should only discuss what was what the author intended, for the intention of the author may be mistaken. I know hundreds of authors with whose opinions and intentions I strongly disagree.
So I intend to keep discussing whether Philippa and Abbess Catherine were wrong or right. As I have said before, I think they were right. And I have given a few reasons in support of my view.
Manuel wrote: "Mark wrote: "And just to round out this..."Yes, Mark, I had caught your meaning from your previous comments. However, it's difficult to separate literary questions from real-life questions when discussing a novel"
Is it? I don't find it so. I think it is a matter of recognizing the role that the events play in the structure of the novel. Of course, that does not mean that, as part of discussing the book, you can't disagree with the author's assertions or conclusions. But then that is just a discussion of a general issue -- how worldly should people in religious life be in conducting their affairs, and is it more important for the monastery to develop the native talents of their members or to develop them spiritually by subjecting them to obedience and encouraging the abnegation of self through taking on whatever tasks are assigned to them? How utilitarian, in other words, should the administration of a religious order be.
It is a fair question, but one that could be discussed independently of any particular text.
What I think a novel gives us that such a discussion cannot give us, is not the rightness or wrongness of the question in abstract, but the specific human experience of living out such decisions, or making them, and of abiding by them.
Thus what I think In This House of Brede gives us is the experience of an extremely utilitarian woman of great practical competence who subjects herself to the life of a community that is not run on utilitarian grounds at all. The lack of utility of the life that the nuns have chosen is emphasized in the external chorus of frustrated families and lovers, but also in the conduct of life in the abbey itself. It is Philippa's experience in adapting and conforming herself to this non-utilitarian life, and the emptying of self that this entails, that is the subject of the novel.
So, sure, you can discuss whether monastic life should be run on a more utilitarian basis. My point is that the novel itself is not interested in that question. Rather, it is interested in portraying for us the strangeness of a life lived on a non-utilitarian basis. That, to me at least, is a far more important thing to contemplate.
Mod
Monastic communities... were often designed to be self sufficient, which meant that they needed people of every class and trade. But they were also centers of prayer and scholarship. So they needed both educated people (who would largely have come from the upper classes) and working people.
Here you are saying that monasteries were designed to be utilitarian, and that every person was used in the most efficient way. After all, St. Benedict's dictum (Ora et labora) is another way of saying the same.
You say: My point is that the novel itself is not interested in that question. But we had agreed with this a long time ago. I have said -more than once- that Rumer Godden probably fully agreed with your view.
But I'm just trying to answer the question proposed for discussion by our prime moderator, John. You may not be interested in that, but I am. And perhaps other readers are also interested.
I admit that i am interested in the temporary issues of House of Brede. I like really much The part of five japanese nuns i Will try to write about This in my review. In This House of Brede It Will be my Next review before of "The Zaphyr book" by Gilbert Sinoue.
Manuel wrote: "Here you are saying that monasteries were designed to be utilitarian,"No, I was saying the monasteries had utilitarian needs. That does not mean that they had utilitarian ends -- though in some cases that was definitely the case, which is why there was a need for monastic reform, which resulted in the various monastic rules, with their various degrees of spiritual discipline.
But you are quite right, my argument is that the question is not one that matters in analyzing the book (which is not to say that it does not matter in the wider world, where it has been the subject of debate for as long as there have been monasteries). So, yes, I was challenging the question. I think that the book gets at something of far deeper interest -- and specifically that it gets at something fiction is uniquely good at getting at. I think when studying fiction one should focus on the things that fiction does uniquely well.
Mod
OK, so I'm now going to make fiction. I'll offer an alternative interpretation of the first half of the book we are discussing.
I start from the parable of the talents. From it, we can deduce that God wants us to use our talents to the utmost. He won't let us bury our talents so we won't lose them.
So when Brede's monastery found itself near economical bankruptcy, God inspired Philippa to offer her talents and save the situation. She answered God's prompt, and Abbess Catherine accepted her help and her solution, even though that solution would be a tremendous loss for Brede's monastery. A loss almost comparable to the loss of Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
As both Philippa and Abbess Catherine had answered God as God expected, God rewarded them in the same way as He rewarded Abraham: by refusing to accept their sacrifice and providing another way to solve the issue. Thus Abbess Catherine found the ruby, and Philippa was specially rewarded by being granted by the Government the amount of four thousand pounds, which she could give to help prevent the bankruptcy.
Notice that I'm not saying that this was what Rumer Godden intended. I fully accept that she agreed with Mark. I'm simply offering an alternative view, which I feel could also be considered. As we can't fathom God's actual intentions and decisions, this solution is also possible in principle.
When authors publish books, those books become, not their private property, but also the property of all their readers, who can see in them things that the authors themselves had never envisaged. A book is actually a social construction, in the sense that many people can collaborate in them.
And about your challenging this question, I think the question is fully justified by the fact that it has given rise to over 40% of all the comments made in the whole discussion of this book.
Manuel wrote: "A book is actually a social construction, in the sense that many people can collaborate in them."Well, here we differ fundamentally. Yours is certainly the fashionable modern position, but I would suggest that it is not the Catholic position. At least it is not the classical western position. I would refer you to the first section of Lewis's Abolition of Man for the argument.
Mr. Baker the Professor Alfonseca is a Big expert in C.S. Lewis indeed he belongs to spareroom. He is a Big wiseman in the C.S. Lewis's books. I know the abolition of the man where C.S. Lewis picked Up all traditions or rules of the ancient civilizations proving that the natural law exists.
The teaching from the parable of the talents that we should use our God given talents is certainly Catholic and not modern. Manuel wrote: "When authors publish books, those books become, not their private property, but also the property of all their readers, who can see in them things that the authors themselves had never envisaged."
Agreed, this is what Dorothy L. Sayers says about this:
"When we see Hamlet (or any other play that we already "know") we start already in this frame of mind. (...) Our knowledge of how the whole thing "hangs together" gives us a deeper understanding and a better judgment of each part, because we can now refer it, not only to the past but also to the future; and, more than that, to a unity of the work which exists for us right outside the sequence of time. It is as though the writer's Idea had passed from eternity into time and then back into eternity again-still the same Idea, but charged with a different emphasis of Power derived from our own response. Not only that: if it is a play like Hamlet, which has already stimulated powerful responses in the minds of other men, our personal response will be related to a greater unity which includes all those other foci of Power. Every scholar and critic who has written about Hamlet, every great actor who has ever played the part, every painter or musician who has found a source of power in Hamlet, retransmits that power to the spectator, in accordance with the capacity for response that is in each."
Mod
Exactly. Mark, however, has misunderstood me, probably because I used the phrase "social construction," but immediately explained in what sense I used it. I was aware that it could be misunderstood as a term related to post-modernism, which I abhor. But I refuse to let post-modernists (or PC-defenders, or gender-ideologists) to re-define old terms, give them new meanings, and make them unusable by others.
By the way, this is precisely what C.S.Lewis attacked in "The abolition of man," one of his books I most like. In fact, I've read it seven times by now, and have incorporated it with my mental structure, and quoted from it in several of my books and articles. I can point to it, therefore, as a proof of what I said before, that the meaning of "The abolition of man" has been enriched by my own use of it, which means that Lewis and I have collaborated in its construction :-)
Mark said: "Yours is certainly the fashionable modern position, but I would suggest that it is not the Catholic position."
Beware with this. Accusing others of not having "the" Catholic position because of a few words written in a comment is not a Catholic position :-)
I absolutely agree with The Professor Alfonseca and Mari Ángeles certainly as Mari Ángeles i referred to the parables of the talents when i said wasted talents. One must employ his talents in favor of God.
Manuel wrote: "Mariangel wrote: "Agreed, this is what Dorothy L. Sayers says about this:..."Exactly. Mark, however, has misunderstood me, probably because I used the phrase "social construction."
Fair enough. Understanding each other is hard sometimes. But I am struggling a bit here, because if your words are public property, if they belong to me as your reader and I am entitled to see things in them that you never intended, how can you say that I misunderstood you? Surely what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?
But I am sorry for describing your position as not Catholic. You are right that I don't have sufficient evidence to reach that conclusion, or to tell you what your position is at all. But let me describe my position, and see if that helps.
We experience things imperfectly. Whether it be Lewis's waterfall or Godden's book, none of us will receive it perfectly. Our senses are imperfect. Our mental ability to perceive and interpret is imperfect. We do not see as God sees.
And because we experience things imperfectly, we experience them differently from each other. The differences are of two kinds: the things we miss (omissions), and the things we think we see that are not really there (illusions). Put ten people in a room, then, and you will get ten different interpretations of a book or a waterfall, and each of those interpretations will include both omissions and illusions. Add more people and even if some of the omissions are filled in, the illusions will multiply.
If you take a subjectivist view of the world, you will say that all of those illusions add to the richness of the experience, even though they are false to the object, because subjective impressions are all we have anyway. All the reality exists in the impression we take away, not in the object that we see. Therefore the distinction between a true impression and an illusion is a false one. There are only personal impressions, one as valid as another.
If we take an objectivist view of the world, you will say that all of those illusions are obscuring the richness of the experience, getting in the way of our appreciating the object as in itself it really is. This is my position, and I take it to be Lewis's position as well. I suspect is it Sayer's position also, but I would require more context to be certain.
In the objectivist school of thought, what we should be trying to do in discussing any object is to help each other to strip away the illusions we inevitably have about it and to uncover the parts of it that we individually have failed to see. We strive together to bring our individual experiences of the object closer to God's experience of it. The truth of the object is, then, more a social discovery than a social construction. We are not adding onto the object, but attempting to fully expose it as in itself it really is.
This will always be an imperfect enterprise. Our faculties remain imperfect, and our ability to communicate with each other in the process of social discovery is similarly imperfect. We see as through a glass darkly. Omissions and illusions will remain in our experience of every object, no matter how hard we strive to remove the illusions and fill in the omissions. But we should not praise the illusions, or put them on an equal footing with the experience of the real. If we do that, we will grow further and further from seeing the thing as in itself it really is. Our vision of it will diverge from God's vision of it (and each other's vision of it) more, not less.
And to me there is something tragic in that. There is an existential loneliness to human life. We never truly know another mind. Our ability to communicate with each other is the only comfort in this loneliness, and coming into harmonious agreement on the nature of the world around us is a profound way of bridging that gulf of loneliness. Indulging our personal illusions about the nature of the real, on the other hand, isolates us from our fellows more and more. Objectivism is, in this sense, are far more social enterprise than subjectivism.
This, to me, is the point of discussing a book, or any other object, to help each other strip away our illusions fix our omissions. We certainly won't be entirely successful. We will all still go away from the book with different impressions. Quite probably with entrenched disagreements. But maybe we can get a little closer to reading it as God would read it.
Dear Mr. Baker his speech is really Interesting his ideas are really Interesting, of course i totally agree with the fallacy of the senses as It was defended by the English Empiricists particularly David Hume now i am following a Game Planescape Torment and One of the factions has This idea the sensitives, perhaps i increase my review of Baldur's Gates of course i totally his critic against the relativism, but the fact that Mari Ángeles, The Professor Manuel Alfonseca have diferent points of views It does not Matter that their opinions were wrong or even were opposite to the Catholic Religion. I do not know if It was G.K. Chesterton Who told the parable of the blind person and the Elephant. It is and evidence that the person Who touchs the tail, the trunk, and the legs were right although everybody are obssessed with his truth and nobody realise that everything It was the Elephant. The catholicism has different schools, or currents of thinking the method of Saint Bonaventure It is accepted as the Saint Thomas Aquinas or the school of Chartres ever that you did not go against the Catholic Church and only the Holy Father is infallible in faith questions. In my opinion everyone we have seen different questions of the novel, besides the existencialism It is not against the christianity before the atheist existencialism of Camus or Sartre existed a Christian existencialism defended by Kierkegard and in the catholics by Gabriel Marcel in my case i am a Big admirer of Mika Waltari.
Thank you, Fonch, the blind men and the elephant was exactly what came to mind when I read this conversation. The man who found the elephant like a rope had neither an illusion nor a false perception, but each of us only incompletely perceives a whole much more rich and complex than we can apprehend, and what each "sees" deepens the reality for all of us.
Yes for This reason i caught This Story :-).
Neither Lewis nor Sayers are subjectivist, but they would not agree that the only correct interpretation of a book is the one the author intended, and any other is an illusion.Take a prophetic book of the Bible. The prophet announced something to a specific king, and it came to pass. But now we read an additional meaning that was referring to Jesus, and that the prophet did not intend. Is that an illusion?
This is not only exclusive to the Bible. Many ancient texts (Plato and Virgil are the better known) have passages that to Christians appear to be referring to Christ - and Lewis called this "good dreams" sent by God to people who did not know Him, as a hint.
Mark wrote: "If you take a subjectivist view of the world, you will say that all of those illusions add to the richness of the experience, even though they are false to the object, because subjective impressions are all we have anyway."If you are talking about God, I agree. But we are talking about a book. A book is not God, there is no "absolute truth" in a book. A book is a particular person's way of understanding life, God, what have you; it is that person's illusion, if you wish.
We are not "false" to a book when we are inspired by it and discover new things about ourselves, the world, and God that were not consciously in the intention of the writer. In fact, God acts in people through books in such a way. This is what Sayers meant in her quote about Hamlet.
Mod
Now you are quibbling with my words. Fonch has offered an apposite visual description of what I meant: the story of the four blind men and the elephant. Jill is spot-on in her comment, and Mariangel is also right when she says that a book has many interpretations that complement one another and can all be perfectly correct, even though the author may be unaware of them. I can speak about this, for I have been surprised at several interpretations of my own works, made by others, which fit as a jigsaw-puzzle piece with the work itself.
But then, there is an exception to this: it happens when a critic tells us what the author really thought, which usually is revolutionary and completely different from what everybody had thought before. Let me say it in the words of C.S. Lewis:
Every week a clever undergraduate, every quarter a dull American don, discovers for the first time what some Shakesperian play really meant. ("Modern theology & biblical criticism", also titled "Fern-seeds & elephants")
This is the reason why, as a true follower of C.S.Lewis, while we were discussing "In this house of Brede", I have never stated what Rumer Godden really thought, what where her real intentions, and always inserted the word "probably" whenever I said that she probably had the same view as that stated by Mark.
Mark is right when he says that God's view (of anything, including books) is the only fully complete one. But I think this is precisely the same as what I was saying. Our views about a book being essentially partial, including the author's, makes it possible for different views to be right at the same time, and to complement and enrich one another.
And yes, you are also right when you say that personal illusions about the nature of the real, on the other hand, isolates us from our fellows. This is because we are fallen. Nothing is perfect with us, and everything that can be used well can also be used wrongly.
Finally I want to state that I am, and always have been, a confessed realist. I thought I had left it clear when I authored this post in my blog on popular science: The 528th digit of Pi, but I'm afraid perhaps I was too subtle :-)
Here is another passage from Fernseed and Elephants. Then turn to John. Read the dialogues ...
I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage -- though it may no doubt contain errors -- pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without know predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who does not see this has simply not learned to read.
This is the very opposite of "a book has many interpretations that complement one another and can all be perfectly correct, even though the author may be unaware of them."
No. Lewis is stating the a whole class of interpretation of the Gospels are simply objectively wrong and not valid at all. Yes, many people come up with incorrect interpretations, as Lewis says in the quote you give. But that does not mean that there are no right interpretations. Lewis is explicit that the wrong interpretations come from people who don't know how to read.
The problem with author intention, though, is not that we can't know it. Sometimes we can and sometimes we can't. The problem is that the work they produce may not actually express their intention fully, because they are imperfect creators. So what we are left with is the artefact itself. It is the nature of the artefact that we should be interested in. We may perceive something of the creators intention in its form and construction, but ultimately the question is, what is it. And to answer that, people with an appropriate background and education are, per Lewis, much better equipped to come up with a correct answer.
The blind men and the elephant story isn't saying that each of the four blind men's interpretations is valid. It is saying that they are all incorrect because none of them sees the object whole. Lewis is saying that the interpretations of the gospel that he is critiquing are wrong because the writers don't understand the types of literature they are comparing it to. The blind man thinks the tail is a rope because he has no experience of tails.
But I think there is another problem of interpretation of author's intent involved in the original question. It is not a matter of whether Godden thinks that religious orders should or should not be more utilitarian in the administration of their worldly affairs. I see no evidence to suggest that Godden was trying to make a statement on that subject one way or the other. What I see in the book is a portrait of people who believe that spiritual development takes precedence over utility in the conduct of their affairs, and the affect that that has on a woman who has excelled in the utilitarian administration of affairs. You don't have to have an opinion, or express and opinion, on how utilitarian religious order ought to be in order to be interested in what it is like for someone like Philippa to have to adapt to living and working in that environment.
I have no qualms in claiming, based on the structure of the novel itself, that it was Rumer Goddens's intention to paint such a portrait, or that it is that portrait that should primarily interest us in reading this book.
The other questions are perfectly valid questions, out in the world. They just aren't questions about the book as an object in its own right, and answering them would not throw any more light on the experience of the book itself.
And with that I feel I have come full circle, at least once, if not twice, so I will leave it here.
Mark wrote: "This is the very opposite of "a book has many interpretations that complement one another and can all be perfectly correct, even though the author may be unaware of them."No. Lewis is stating the a whole class of interpretation of the Gospels are simply objectively wrong and not valid at all. "
We agree on this. There are false interpretations. We are not saying that any interpretation of a book is valid. We are saying that there may be interpretations of a book, which are not what the author had in mind, but are still valid. And this is because the book as God understands it is larger than the book as the author understands it.
Mark wrote: "The other questions are perfectly valid questions, out in the world. They just aren't questions about the book as an object in its own right, and answering them would not throw any more light on the experience of the book itself."
This is where we disagree. Answering those questions does throw more light in the experience of the book. And I believe that Lewis and Sayers would agree with this (in fact, this is precisely what Sayers is saying in my previous quote). Only if the person who thinks the elephant is a rope discusses his experience with those who think it's a snake or a trunk will they be able to put together the bigger picture. So discussing those questions does bring light.
Mod
I may agree with this.
or that it is that portrait that should primarily interest us in reading this book."
I deny this. Nobody can tell me what should interest me while reading a book, unless the book is a textbook and the person who tells me is my teacher.
I'm going to add here a quote from C.S. Lewis that I think agrees with what I have been saying here:
It is the author who intends; the book means. The author's intention is that which, if it is realized, will in his eyes constitute success. If all or most readers, or such readers as he chiefly desires, laugh at a passage, and he is pleased with this result, then his intention was comic, or he intended to be comic. If he is disappointed and humiliated at it, then he intended to be grave, or his intention was serious. Meaning is a much more difficult term... What are we talking about when we talk, as we do, of the 'meaning' of Twelfth Night, Wuthering Heights, or The Brothers Karamazov? And especially when we differ and dispute as we do, about their real or true meaning? The nearest I have yet got to a definition is something like this: the meaning of a book is the series or system of emotions, reflections and attitudes produced by reading it. But of course this product differs with different readers... The ideally true or right 'meaning' would be that shared (in some measure) by the largest number of the best readers after repeated and careful readings over several generations, different periods, nationalities, moods, degrees of alertness, private pre-occupations, states of health, spirits, and the like canceling one another out when (this is an important reservation) they cannot be fused so as to enrich one another. (This happens when one's readings of a work at widely different periods of one's own life, influenced by the readings that reach us indirectly through the works of critics, all modify our present reading so as to improve it.) ("On criticism", 1964)
In my case the thing, which interested more me is that the author tells a good Story and she assist to me to increase my faith without denying the spiritual progress of the nuns in my case i can interest in following of Sor Philippa Talbot. In my case for instance the thing, which has interested me more has been the japanese part because i am a lover of This country i want to see the advance of the Catholic religion in Japan. This question is not discussed in This group. This thing does not get angry because there are some rules and the moderators decided the topics and the people decide the topic. Is It for This reason that my opinion is worse than Others, not. I give other opinion of This issue. In my opinion Sor Talbot did the right and more with the abbess asked for her professional, after God took his decission. Sometimes we get angry in my case when This thing happens i took a decission to wait a reflection time to think and avoid saying something that i could regret me or i could cause damage to the Others. Mr. Mark we do not go against you and your orthodoxy and you would mind rereading our posts you Will see for yourself. Simply we have a different opinion of This opinión that you. It would be a pity that you could get angry for few thing. We are not heretics Who wanted to cause damage to you and your faith. Simply we have defended an opinion, yours sincerely Fonch.
Mod
If the charge is that the question is flawed, I can only plead guilty.
I probably would not have used this question if I had finished the book before pulling together questions, but if I recall correctly, not only had I not finished the book, I hadn't gotten to the ruby yet. We select our book with about 10 - 12 days left in the month. If it is my month to create the discussion questions, I try to read the book first, but it is often not possible. I can easily say that generating discussion questions is my least favorite task as a moderator, probably because I'm not very good at it. I have in the past offered to let anyone who wants to do so create discussion questions - it should be considered a standing offer.
So we end up with a flawed question, a utilitarian question in a story about the ultimately non-utilitarian nature of Christian vocation - and yet . . . this question has generated the most discussion we have ever had on a discussion question at the Catholic Book Club. Perhaps God writes straight with crooked lines?
A final thought, you note "when studying fiction one should focus on the things that fiction does uniquely well." Fair enough, but studying fiction isn't what we do here. Rather we study the Catholic faith, ideally in its reflection in our lived lives and we do so through reading and discussing various books. I think a fair number of our members don't participate much because they are afraid of saying "the wrong thing." While it is probably going too far to say there is no wrong thing, there is certainly no one right thing either.
Mod
If the charge is that the question is flawed, I can only plead guilty."
No, John, you don't have to plead guilty. It's only Mark who has challenged this question. The rest of us have found it quite opportune, as indicated by the fact that we have challenged his challenge.
The problem with Mark, as I stated in my previous comment, is that he mistakes the "intention" of the writer with the "meaning" of the book. As C.S. Lewis said in my quote, although the first may be interesting, what really matters is the second. Mark believes that when discussing a book we should only be interested in the author's intention. I think this is a mistake. Therefore the last part of your question (what did the reader think) is important. Probably even more important than the first (what do you think the author intended).
The author could write memoirs but It is really difficult that we can know totally the author intention only can do It partially and for an indirect method and a good writer looks for that the people Read his book and he also that the person is subjective and there Will not be two equal readers that It is inmoral for instance is that the reader changed the original meaning of the author and he make out of opposite way to the text and author.
I was thinking in the novel of the Professor Manuel Alfonseca "The Jacob's ladder" what Is It the control of the author of his own creatures? every character has his own personality. The author must get effort for giving a personality and original ideas to his creatures and It is not ever coincide with the idea of the author. The author does not control his fictional book totally. We have the case of Graham Greene he confessed in his biography The confidential agent wrote under the effect of drugs and he had to Read his novel. He has not idea that he has written, sometimes and This said to me my friend (in case that he let me giving This title) the Professor Manuel Alfonseca that sometimes his characters took his own decissions and he did something that the author has never Thought that they would do It being the First surprised the own author. I think that the writing is a question of subcreation and only God knows that the author really has written. It is possible This is an idea explored by Calderón de la Barca in the Big theatre of the world that we are fictional creatures and God was the Big writer of the history of the mankind and the salvation This thing is explored in the Neverending Story and in The Jacob's ladder with the theory of different level we are the third level and God would be The superior level.
Mod
You mean "intention," not "meaning." It's immoral to say that the author's intention was different from the real intention, if you know what was the real intention of the author (otherwise it's not immoral, it's just a mistake).
However, using the "meaning" of the book in the opposite direction as the author's intention is not immoral. I'll give an example:
It is clear that the intention of Richard Dawkins when he wrote The God Delusion was converting all his readers to atheism. But it's a fact that several of his readers, originally atheists, converted to Christianity after reading the book. Therefore they found in the book a meaning which was the opposite of Dawkins's intention. And this is obviously not immoral, but the readers's right.
Of course sometimes the writers write books with bad intentions (i apologize for the employ of meaning, and intention It is a problem of my lack of English vocabulary) One example of This It is the french novel "The Crimes of the feather" by Raoul de Navery. This novel was published by a small publishing called Laoconte in Navarre i think that This book had hardly been sold. The plot of the Story is that a good man wants to earn easy money and he writes inmoral novels because he knows that the people Will buy This novel at the beggining he earns a lot of money but then he sees the effect of his novels in his family he converted and although he tries to write religious books he can not do It and he gives Up writing books. Óscar Wilde said that there was not moral and inmoral books in his foreword of The Dorian's Gray Picture but he was his own contradiction because his books were totally moral. The inmorality was in his Life, although equal as the main character of The Crimes of the feather he regret his actions. About Óscar Wilde we can Read the marevellous biography was written by Joseph Pearce. But It is not an evidence that i am wrong and the writing was a subcreation labor.
John wrote: "Who do you think was right? Who does Godden think was right?"John wrote: "If the charge is that the question is flawed, I can only plead guilty.
I do not think the question is flawed. We are reading the book in order to discuss it, and I do not see why talking about who we think was right is a question that should be avoided.
-It helps us wonder what we would do in the same situation as the characters.
-It helps us know ourselves and our fellow readers better.
-The fact that an author's understanding of the faith makes the characters behave in a certain way does not mean that it is the only correct way. For several reasons:
(1) The author may be mistaken
(2) Even if the author is correct, another person in the same situation could come to a different conclusion after carefully discerning. After all, we have free will and God's path is not the same for everyone.
Tomorrow i Will start to write my review of In This House of Brede. In my particular opinion It has been a good reading and a very Interesting discussion something good Will have done John and The Professor Manuel Alfonseca.
Mod
John wrote: "If the charge is that the question is flawed, I can only plead guilty.
I do not think the question is flawe..."
Thank you Mariangel (and Manuel), though I guess this means I am not relieved of the duty of generating discussion questions. ;-)
Actually, this discussion has been helpful to me. With the hindsight of this discussion, and having finished the book, I think a more interesting questions would have been to observe the three times where Philippa puts herself forward to solve a problem: the re-zoning, publication of Agnes' book and Japan. In each of these there is, apparently one solution. The difference, and the spiritual importance, it seems to me, is in the first it is Philippa putting herself as the solver of problems, while in the second she is proposes a solution that only she can unlock, but in a way that keeps her out of the limelight as much as possible, and of course in the final she volunteers for something for which she is the only possible choice, but which she loathes, in an act of total self giving. It ends up being a fairly beautiful external depiction of the internal changes wrought through a life of contemplation and prayer.
John wrote: "Mariangel wrote: "John wrote: "Who do you think was right? Who does Godden think was right?"John wrote: "If the charge is that the question is flawed, I can only plead guilty.
I do not think the..."
Yes i like the japanese plot :-).
I would say the the question has a flawed premise in that it suggests that the book is about solving the financial question, which it is not. But flawed questions can generate lots of discussion, so if the point of a questions it to generate discussion, then this one clearly did. And, of course, challenging the premise of the question is a useful form of discussion. Manuel wrote: The problem with Mark, as I stated in my previous comment, is that he mistakes the "intention" of the writer with the "meaning" of the book. As C.S. Lewis said in my quote, although the first may be interesting, what really matters is the second. Mark believes that when discussing a book we should only be interested in the author's intention.
No I don't.
I do believe that we can sometimes perceive the author's intention, at least the intention of the parts of a work. If a man builds a large box, some 20 feet high, and gives it doors and windows and inside divides it into rooms and runs water into two of those rooms and electricity into all of them, I can perceive that their intention is to build a house. I can't tell if the house that resulted is exactly the house that they intended to build or if there are mistakes that make it less than they intended, but I can tell that this was intended to be a bathroom and this was intended to be a kitchen. If it is hard to judge the full intent of the whole, it is easy enough, with experience and education, to judge the practical intention of the pieces. Similarly with a novel, I can recognize the use of literary forms and judge the practical intention in their use.
But with the house, it is not the builders intention that matters, but the actual artifact that they built. In other words is the nature of the artefact that matters. If I find that there is no 240 volt stove outlet in the room that is clearly, from its plumbing and its location in the structure, meant to be a kitchen, I can reasonably say that the builder intended this to be a kitchen but that they make a mistake and the construction is imperfect. (This would apply to North America where we require special circuits for the stove.) And my decision whether to move in or not is based on whether or not there is a functioning kitchen in the house, not what the builder intended. It is the nature of the artifact that matters, not the intent. As Lewis said, an author may intend a passage to be funny, and it may be clear that they intended it to be funny, but if it is not actually funny, you probably won't recommend the book. It is the nature of the artefact that matters, not the intent.
You can also judge the intent from external sources. The author may state their intent publicly (or privately, as in a diary or letters published after their death). But again, it is the nature of the artefact that matters, not the intent.
Some part of the authors intent will probably always remain hidden from us though, and that is fine because we have the artefact, and it is the nature of the artefact that matters.
The issue of meaning is a tricky one. A house has a nature and a function, but not really a meaning. A novel has meaning in the sense that its words have meaning, but does it have a larger meaning, a meaning of the whole beyond the meaning of its parts? I think this form of analysis is problematic. I think a novel creates an experience. To seek meaning in a novel means neither more nor less than to seek meaning in a real life experience.
The quest for meaning in a novel often takes the form or reducing the experience of the novel down to a proposition. Oliver Twist means that workhouses are bad. This House of Brede means that religious orders should be more/less utilitarian in the administration of their worldly affairs. But if that is what the authors intended to convey, an essay would have done the job better. The point of a novel is not to argue a case but to provide an experience. (Experiences may change minds, but they change them in a different way from arguments.)
The problem in framing discussion questions for a novel is that one is always in danger of turning experience into proposition, or of inviting others to do so. But if we are arguing propositions rather than trying to refine an experience, we are not using a novel for it primary purpose. Extracting propositions from stories and arguing about whether those were the propositions that the author intended is an easy form of discussion, but it misses the point. The author (if they knew their trade) was not creating propositions, but experiences.
The problem with the experience created by a novel is that the experience is created by words, and the images and emotions evoked by words. Thus it depends on memory, and not every reader will have the memories that it depends on, and so not every reader will get the full experience. The task of a critical interpretation of a novel, therefore, is to assist the reader in getting the full experience.
Novels are not the only artefacts that require this assistance. Historical sites, for instance, often have plaques providing critical interpretation of the artefacts to aid the visitor in getting the full experience. How we recognize the kitchen in a modern house may be different from how we recognize he kitchen in a Roman villa or a medieval priory. When I visited an archeological site in the American Southwest, I was struck to see underfloor drains that looked exactly like those I had seen in Roman Vindolanda. When I mentioned this to the guide, he said that on this site they were more likely collecting water and directing it to a cistern rather than draining it away. Critical interpretation refines the experience and helps us avoid illusions. The critical interpretation of a novel can help us avoid exactly the same kind of mistake.
Here is where the streams cross a little, because perceiving the authors intention is one of the tools of critical interpretation that helps us see the artefact as in itself it really is, and therefore receive the fullness of the experience. Thus we can perceive the intent of the incompetent builder to make this room a kitchen even though one of the necessary aspects of a kitchen is missing. Perceiving intention is not the point of the exercise, but it is one of its tools.
So no, I do not believe that when discussing a book we should only be interested in the author's intention. That in itself involves the fallacy of preferring the proposition to the experience. I believe that we should be interested in the nature of the experience that the novel provides. (Non-fiction is a different beast.)
Of course, the experience of a novel, like any other experience, can provoke discussion of other issues. You can choose to use a novel merely to provoke such discussions if you like, ignoring the nature of the experience altogether. But as with real experiences, if you are going to discuss other issues arising, it is at least fair to ask if the subject you are discussing is actually present in the artefact that produced the discussion. Of course, you may not care about that either. You may say that all opinions on all subject that happened to occur to you in the proximity of the artefact are equally valid, and in some sense they are.
But there is still the artefact itself, and the experience of the artefact itself, which is worth having in full and without illusion, to the greatest extent we are capable of. And that is what interests me when I read a novel.
Mod
But the question was this: Sister Philippa, drawing on skills and talents from her prior life, identifies "the only solution" to the financial crisis facing Brede. This solution is embraced by Abbess Catherine and the rest of the Abbey. Only Dame Agnes and McTurk object. Who do you think was right? Who does Godden think was right?
I can find nothing in this question that suggests that the book is mainly about solving financial problems. It deals with something important in the first part of the book, although once solved it disappears from consideration. Perhaps the problem was with the header: "The solution", which is too general.
But I cannot consider flawed a question that asks the opinion of the reader about something that is clearly an important part of the book.
I do think that this not a case of either or but both. Phillipa offers a a well thought out solution with discretion to Abbess Catherine. I think that by doing that she has done her part. By holding back she would not only be hiding her skills (God given skills) but also it would take away the informed decision of others. What she did was offer a solution. It could be taken or discounted. Either way one could continue to trust in God. I liken this to... I take my medicine but I also trust in God. There is the possibility that she didn’t consider Gods will. But I didn’t get a sense of that one way or another.
The Catholic Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The God Delusion (other topics)Sancti Bernardi Abbatis De Consideratione Ad Eugenium Papam Libri V Juxta Editionem Ad Ss. D.n. Clementem Xi Dicatam Adduntur...... (other topics)
And just to round out this thought, my larger point was a literary one about the structure of the novel -- that this business over the money is not the central conflict of the novel, but merely a device to explore the challenges presented by the vocations of the various characters.
So my point is not really that Philippa was wrong to intervene, though Godden makes it quite clear that she was. My point is that we should not be distracted by debating if she was right or wrong, of if her solution was right or wrong, because that is not the point. If it were the point then the discovery of the ruby would be a complete deus ex machina device that would ruin the novel. But while is does perhaps strike us as a little clumsy as a literary device, it does not ruin the novel, because the novel is about something else.
Fundamentally, the reality that the novel portrays is that vocation means submitting in obedience to things you may not want to do. (It is easy to think of vocation as a strong desire to do something pleasing to you. But Christian vocation is about doing what Christ asks you to do, not what you want to do, and Christ does not always call us to do his will by making us want to do it. Dame Catherine does not want to be abbess. Philippa does not want to leave Brede and go to Japan. They accept these roles, with regret, in obedience. Obedience is the emptying of self. Not my will, but thine, be done.
Philippa's intervention over the money, and Abbess Catherine's acceptance of that aid, both represent deviations from this path. Philippa is not acting in obedience but is asserting her old self. Catherine is putting off the burden that belongs to her and allowing Philippa to carry it. Both are wrong, and the reasons have nothing to do with who is financially more astute. Both are wrong because both are failing to accept in humility and obedience the tasks laid upon them. And the reason this matters has nothing to do with whether or not they have been assigned the roles best suited to their talents. It has to do with the emptying of self, the reformation of manners, that is the point of religious life (and, I suppose, more broadly, of Christian life).