A House of Contemplation

I don’t think there are many novels about nuns, and that too, nuns who are not out and about in schools and hospitals, but those who retire to a nunnery to pray and work in solitude and isolation. One would imagine that there is little to write about in such cases apart from deep dives into the process of contemplative life, perhaps most interesting to those readers of a philosophical bent. And yet, In This House of Brede is not only a fascinating view into that life, but also an engaging story with personalities and conflict that could rival a novel set in any other mileu.

In 1954, Philippa Talbot is a rising star in the British civil service, fully expected to break glass ceilings, when she announces that she is leaving, and what’s more, leaving to become a nun.

`A nun!’ Penny [..] blurted out the first thing in her mind. ‘At your age!’

Philippa is 42, elegant, cultured, successful, and of an age when most people are becoming set in their ways. Her friends are shocked, but for herself too, such a huge change will be difficult. Most women who join Brede Abbey are very young when they ‘get the call’, although they are not legally allowed to enter the novitiate until they are 18 or have a parent’s permission.

The novel is a tapestry with Philippa’s story as just one thread among the many. It is also full of fascinating detail about the abbey, its buildings, its residents, and even the clothing and food.

In the trunk were the two long-sleeved high-necked black dresses she would wear as a postulant; black stockings and ‘silent’ shoes; plain underclothes; two black shawls — those had been difficult to get in London and Maggie had crocheted them; blankets and sheets — ‘not too luxurious’, Dame Ursula had warned her. A small workbox — Philippa had not owned such a thing since she was in school — a fountain pen, a plain silver watch on a pin — ‘We don’t wear watches on our wrists’, and a gold watch would have been considered ‘unmonastic’, a word Philippa was speedily to learn; a Bible, a missal and a few chosen books.

There you have a snippet of Godden’s writing style, informative but not tedious, with plenty of delightful side comments about each item that lure you in, wanting to know more about ‘Dame Ursula’ and Philippa’s unmonastic behaviour.

Five years as a ‘postulant’ (novice) before she will be ‘Clothed’, if she can stay the course. Many of the senior nuns were doubtful about her:

‘Your age is against you.’ It was unmercifully true: while Philippa had toiled, the young ones finished their housework, gobbled up the unfamiliar words and phrases of the liturgy, learned to chant, compelled their bodies into discipline, while she had felt hopelessness creeping into her very bones.

The nuns must clean, cook, garden, wash, care for the elderly, work in the sickroom, practice their singing and music, but first of all comes prayer.

Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline; seven times a day — and the long office of Matins.

Six hours a day of prayer in this Catholic abbey, and all the other work must fit around it.

Discipline. At the sound of the bell, a speaker must stop — ‘Well, not in mid-sentence,’ said Dame Clare, ‘but stop.’ A writer must stop too even in the middle of a paragraph, the artist must lay down her brush, the cleaner her broom or dustpan.

Devoted to prayer and God, but they are still very human. There are cliques and factions. There is gossip and malice. There are errors and mistakes, as might happen when the daughter of a viscount learns to do laundry, but there are also intentional actions that destabilize the community because of one person’s self-importance or self-interest. Beyond the quotidian, there are larger story arcs. There is drama, but never melodrama.

The Abbess rules, but most decisions are made within the Council of senior nuns and sometimes even the vote of the entire community. For anyone who has been through workplace meetings, their discussions are educational: plain-spoken (so that every nun gets her say) yet polite, with a non-hierarchical willingness to raise objections and questions at every turn, and leading to a resolution. The artistic Abbess wants to restore the stone cloister at enormous cost, but

‘Brick!’ Abbess Hester had moaned in despair. “They have no eyes.”

“We have to think of the cost.” [says the Council]

This novel blows the Bechdel Test out of the water, incidentally. Set in a community of women, there are only a few peripheral male characters, and very little discussion about them.

The characters are wonderfully drawn, in the way a new entrant to the abbey would notice them, through personalities and impressions gleaned from a conversation here and there, a bit of gossip from another postulant, an action here and a quick glance there.

“It’s remarkable”, Philippa once said, “how much one notices a nun’s eyes.” Wimple, fillet and veil made a frame that set them off so they were enhanced. Philippa thought of Dame Veronica’s beautiful eyes, of Dame Beatrice’s, a paler blue but that had a shine that made them almost luminous. Dame Ursula’s were like pebbles behind her spectacles. [..] The Abbess herself had quick black eyes, lively and snapping.

The novel mirrors the seasons in the Abbey, but there are continuous threads as well. Monasteries have tight finances and fewer young people wanting to enter, fewer older people wanting to donate their estates, and large cold stone buildings to heat and cool — how is all this to be sustained, even with tight belts and poverty vows? It often be amusing too, as with some of the comments passed by the nuns which can only be described as snarky.

‘If you ask a direct question,’ said Dame Agnes, ‘Dame Veronica looks pathetic and her chin starts to quiver.’

Despite their seclusion, the outside world impinges upon their lives. They have visitors with problems, and friends (male and female) with whom they carry on lengthy conversations. Some nuns are artists or sculptors with large followings, some are writers and scholars. The fabric they weave and embroider is much in demand, and the quality of books from the Abbey press is widely admired.

In the 60s, the Vatican II council brings a wind of change: masses and music in English rather than Latin, simpler and more modern clothing.

Some of the nuns rejoiced, but at least half recoiled.

A side-plot about Philippa’s former assistant Penny who comes for her help is a little unconvincing. Penny and her husband are grateful to Philippa forever, but it was actually Penny’s colleague who took her to the hospital and saved her life. The incident is set up as a framework to show the power of prayer. It is described movingly, and Philippa felt and saw it, but I did not.

Rumer Godden grew up in colonial India, and her affection for India comes through, but this is also a novel of its times and there are occasional phrases which seem dated. An Ethiopian is described as “slender and handsome with chiselled features but broad lips”. Some rather discomfiting practices are described defensively, such as ‘taking the discipline’, which involves nuns whipping themselves once a week. Other practices, such as the requirement that even venerated Mothers cannot perform mass or other religious rites, and must require a male priest to do so, are taken for granted.

50 years after publication, this is still a lovely read, even for areligious readers like myself.

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