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Post by augiesannie on Oct 1, 2013 10:31:17 GMT
This was actually my very first idea for a fanfic, although I then got caught up in the M/G romance, from which I will never recover. Anyway I always thought that there was a certain peculiar intensity to, "You must find out. You must go back." It seemed to me -- and I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of it -- that she might have had some regrets about choices she made in her young life. The story was going to be something about her family responsibilities, a terrible epidemic, and a sweet boy from the village. Anyway, thoughts about the RM? Attachment Deleted |
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Post by lemacd on Oct 1, 2013 11:16:02 GMT
hmm... i think... i think...
i think there was poverty and abandonment in her past. i think she sees a lot of herself in Maria. That is why she is so patient with her and sympathetic to her. they have a lot in common. maybe she had a "you have to go back" moment in her life too.
NO! NO MORE IDEAS! too late. i'm distracted.
but in a good way.
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Post by indigoblue on Oct 14, 2013 10:08:20 GMT
I think she came to a convent life late in life, as she has too much 'experience' for someone who has only spent it behind closed doors. I like to think she had quite a wild life before she gave it all up! That's why she identifies with Maria in her non-conformist ways and encourages her to follow her instincts rather than her duties (not what you'd expect!)
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Post by augiesannie on Oct 14, 2013 10:34:46 GMT
yes. I have been cogitating quite a bit about exactly what the RM tells Maria to do - RM tells her to make sure she can do what she needs to do if she expects herself (something like that, it's an impossible concept to unweave, I have learned) to join the Abbey, and later she tells her to find the life she was born to live. Not a word about God's will, which the book is ALL about in Maria's back-and-forth from Abbey to villa. Doors and windows in the film, God's will hath no why in the book. And you could say, depending on your beliefs, that all those things are the same, but I don't think they would necessarily have been for the RM and Maria. In my story, which is about Maria figuring out about romance and love and marriage, it matters quite a bit that she has been sent to do the things the film tells her to do. I'm not doing a lot with God's will, not well positioned to do that. So "follow her instincts" is where I ended up too.
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Post by lemacd on Oct 14, 2013 16:42:37 GMT
the movie is all about following your heart. sure, they are nuns, but you're writing a story about the movie, not nuns. and i seem to recall you giving me some good things to think about when i brought up the Captain's political views and the whole "fatal" comment being somewhat overstated. i don't remember what it was but it certainly got me off the hook. not that there's a hook. what am i talking about? i don't know either. seriously, i feel strange today.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2020 15:14:25 GMT
This was actually my very first idea for a fanfic, although I then got caught up in the M/G romance, from which I will never recover. Anyway I always thought that there was a certain peculiar intensity to, "You must find out. You must go back." It seemed to me -- and I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of it -- that she might have had some regrets about choices she made in her young life. The story was going to be something about her family responsibilities, a terrible epidemic, and a sweet boy from the village. Anyway, thoughts about the RM? I have often wondered about this before. what I've really pondered is what motivated her to join the covent, much less become the Reverend Mother? I'll have to think about that. Maybe I'll write something. What do you guys think? |
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Post by indigoblue on Jun 16, 2020 23:33:56 GMT
I remember reading an article about women who became nuns, which said that, particularly pre-1980, many joined to avoid poverty which was endemic in many cities; some of them got married and suffered abuse (often due to alcohol), and in an effort to escape all that, life in a nunnery with the peace and support it offered, seemed really appealing.
Also some women who didn't want children chose that life because contraception was not available to the very poor. Sorry, these are rather depressing reasons, and I'm sure many more chose the religious life for all the positive reasons, but one has to be realistic about the grim life many women led. I'm not sure the Rev Mother had such a life, but it is worth contemplating.
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Post by augiesannie on Jun 19, 2020 20:12:11 GMT
It’s one of the greatest challenges in writing, how to create a Maria who wants with all her heart to be a nun .... until she doesn’t. And I make it worse by making her a lusty wench.
I had forgotten that my very first story idea was about RM. Never did write that one.
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Post by reverendcaptain on Jun 25, 2020 17:44:57 GMT
I remember reading an article about women who became nuns, which said that, particularly pre-1980, many joined to avoid poverty which was endemic in many cities; some of them got married and suffered abuse (often due to alcohol), and in an effort to escape all that, life in a nunnery with the peace and support it offered, seemed really appealing. Also some women who didn't want children chose that life because contraception was not available to the very poor. Sorry, these are rather depressing reasons, and I'm sure many more chose the religious life for all the positive reasons, but one has to be realistic about the grim life many women led. I'm not sure the Rev Mother had such a life, but it is worth contemplating. I think this was very common in past generations, and is still the case in many poor countries. Being a nun is a life of poverty and obedience, but at least you aren't getting beat up, and you have food and shelter. Many feel that they have no choice but to join because of their status in society. It's sad really. There are also families that are so devout that they push their children into religious life. I know many families (in my grandparent's generation) that sent all of their children to the convent or the seminary for high school so that the children could see if being a nun or priest was their calling. I can't imagine sending a 13 year old kid away to school so that they can decide if their life path is the convent. Though, I am of a different generation and things have changed. As for RM, I think she had a life outside the convent before joining. I think in order to be a RM you would need some life experience. She would need to advise others on many different scenarios. It would be hard to talk to Maria about the love of a man and a woman, for example, if she joined the convent when she was 13 and had no experience with love. |
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Post by indigoblue on Jun 25, 2020 23:50:29 GMT
Yes, I know someone who visits a nun-friend sometimes, and she says some of them have had high-powered careers before entering the convent.
I always imagine the RM was one of those.
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Post by reverendcaptain on Oct 13, 2020 15:13:55 GMT
I looked up Peggy Wood this morning just to see if there are any other movies that she is in that I've seen, which there aren't, but I came across this pic of her, and thought, "Wow, Reverend Mother?!" Maybe this was what her young life was like before she became a nun. hahaha. Attachments:
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Post by indigoblue on Oct 13, 2020 21:54:43 GMT
Yes, she does seem quite liberated for a RM!
I had always imagined that she had a high-powered job before she entered the Abbey, but not that...
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Post by Silver-White-Winters on Oct 26, 2020 2:40:27 GMT
*poof*
A half-dozen story ideas popped into my mind... 😂
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Post by indigoblue on Jun 18, 2021 23:00:03 GMT
I was reading an obituary of Ann Russell Miller today. I'm not sure whether she was a well-known figure in the US, but she had a heck of a life before becoming a Carmelite nun (like wild parties and ten children!). Her obit was quite eye-popping, one of her 28 grandchildren describing her life as 'From The Great Gatsby to The Sound of Music'! Perhaps the RM was similar?
If you all know of her lifestyle, I won't bother to repeat it, but could paraphrase some of the juicier bits if required.
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Post by augiesannie on Jun 19, 2021 23:59:56 GMT
wow, that sounds pretty intriguing! We seriously need some RM stories and sounds like ARM might be inspiration!! I looked her up in Wikipedia, having never heard the story, and she actually sounds kind of like Maria:
"According to one of her sons, Mark Miller, 'She was kind of an unusual nun. She didn't sing very well. She was frequently late to her required duties around the
convent. She threw sticks for the [community] dogs, which was not allowed. Also, she was my mother.'
I wonder what she wore under her wimple!
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Post by indigoblue on Jun 23, 2021 22:57:33 GMT
Yes, she seems to have been quite a girl...I'll precis her obit from the London Times here, because I have a sneaking suspicion this person is actually the Rev Mother...
In 1989 Ann Russell Miller threw a party for 800 guests at the Hilton hotel in San Francisco, friends flying in from around the world to dine on caviar and to enjoy a live orchestra. An heiress with 10 children, Ann had been widowed after leading a packed life as a Californian socialite, hosting dinner parties at her 9-bedroom mansion overlooking San Francisco bay as she smoked, drank champagne and played cards; she travelled all over the world, and skiied and scuba-dived. She had a season ticket to the opera, was a patron of many charities and drove her sports car at such reckless speed that her son said "people got out of her car with a sore foot from slamming on an imaginary brake".
Yet the party at the Hilton was not just another sybaritic event in her social whirl. Guests had been summoned to bid her adieu, as she was about the leave the material world behind. At the party she wore a flower crown and a balloon with the words"Here I am", so people could find her among the throng. It was, one guest said, like a funeral with much weeping, except the subject of their tears looked serene and happy.
The next day Miller flew to Chicago and joined a Carmelite nunnery as a novitiate, and spent the next 3 decades living as Sister Mary Joseph of the Trinity, exchanging her Hermes scares and Versace shoes for a coarse brown habit and sandals, and her social life for vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The hours she had spent on the phone each day to people such as Nancy Reagan and Bob hope were replaced by round-the-clock silence and prayer. Her bed was a wooden plank covered by a thin mattress in a cell, where she spent 5 year as a novitiate before taking her final vows. She never left the convent again or had any physical contact with her ten children or grandchildren. The Carmelite order is secluded one, and meetings once a month were conducted from behind two sets of metal bars separating her from her visitors; she never left the place in the ensuing years. Her daughter said "For those who have faith, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, no explanation is possible." Mother Anne, the present prioress who has lived at the nunnery since 1966, said "She was just a lot of fun, she had all sorts of stories from her past life which we were happy to hear."
My,my!
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Post by augiesannie on Jun 24, 2021 12:12:36 GMT
"The Carmelite order is secluded one,"
HEY does this mean that she was, you know, "in seclusion?"
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Post by indigoblue on Jun 24, 2021 13:20:24 GMT
Yes, for quite a lot of the time, except for services etc. From what I could gather, they didn't speak unless they needed to most of the time, and never went out of the nunnery. Except Mother Anne's last sentence above (no, not Augiesannie's!) shows they clearly did have a laugh when they could, and enjoyed it.
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Post by reverendcaptain on Jun 27, 2021 21:17:45 GMT
"For those who have faith, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, no explanation is possible." Yes.
I understand how someone who has lived a party life could desire dramatic change. I do not understand how someone could choose a life that would not allow them to ever see their children again.
Do you think RM had kids? Do you think she was a party girl? She does seem very wise, and very capable of handling various personalities. These things come from having life experience. I just don't know how crazy of a life I think she had.
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laurynvi
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I ask you to stay.
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Post by laurynvi on Jun 28, 2021 0:46:56 GMT
What a fascinating life! Thanks for sharing, Indigo - I had no idea but did some sleuthing. It's interesting that she'd wanted to be a nun but ended up falling in love and getting married (like Maria!) It's funny the way her son talks about her planning all these wild globe-trotting adventures, brining along her friends, family, and a catholic priest!
I always imagine RM as someone who took her own advice - always felt the higher calling, but went out into the world all the same to see if she could expect it of herself.
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Post by juliemadlydeeply on Jun 28, 2021 17:06:50 GMT
It’s one of the greatest challenges in writing, how to create a Maria who wants with all her heart to be a nun .... until she doesn’t. And I make it worse by making her a lusty wench. I had forgotten that my very first story idea was about RM. Never did write that one. Oddly enough, I had a great-aunt who was a nun until she met my Uncle Tom and left the convent to marry him. We tormented the both of them with TSOM jokes. For my aunt, leaving had already been on her mind. The new rules of Vatican II had just been implemented and she hated them. Meeting the right man just cemented in her mind that life in the convent was no longer her path. I equate this, in Maria's situation, to the way that European states and the NSDAP were pressuring the Catholic church from all angles. Perhaps she was unhappy with the way the Church dealt with the rise of Hitler. Suddenly, the church is not the same for her, and she already feels like she might not belong there to begin with. When I try to get into her head, it's these earlier factors that allow her to let go of her dream of being a nun once she realizes she is in love with Georg. |
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Post by utility_singer on Jun 30, 2021 12:41:46 GMT
I don't know about RM having had a 'high-powered career', for women of her time that would have been highly unusual. Perhaps she had married young and had a family, then went into the convent, which I understand was not uncommon. That would have given her a very maternal view of Maria and her antics, and the special patience she seems to have for her.
As for Maria---I think her search for a family and a place to belong where she felt valued and could give her love freely led her to the abbey. She thought she would find it there, and she did, but that was just a stop on the journey to her ultimate place with Georg and the children. I believe (in the story, and in life) that was God's plan (God's will, if you will)
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