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Joseph, thank you for your previous post. The bare facts of it all are dreadful and tragic. But the relating of bare facts has no intrinsic, immediately evident meaning. So the poet -- the person of faith, any human being -- draws out the meaning.

 

Is that close? -- in my simple (hopefully not simplistic) way of understanding?

 

The power at my house was out for seven hours today, so I had plenty of time to sit with all of this, free from the temptation of various technological distractions. As I re-read the poem itself, what I think Joseph is saying became very clear to me. In the Hopkins sections, there are no clearly drawn lines indicating why Hopkins wrote this poem, except that he was deeply moved by the nuns' deaths. (And perhaps that is enough.) However, the answer to that question is answered in the poem itself, if we trust that the poet is telling the truth about himself in the writing.

 

And so what I was left wondering about the Hopkins material was: All of that reveals no more, and perhaps less, about the mind, heart, and soul behind the poem than the poem itself. So what is its purpose?

 

I also mused on what a doubter -- or even an atheist -- would come away with after reading Exiles. In fact, if I were leading an actual, physical reading group centered on this novel, I think I would bring that up as a discussion question. Imagine you are a non-believer. When you consider the events described in this book, what do you see?

 

A group of women who have denied themselves marriage and family life in an answer to . . . something. Who get on a boat on a dangerous voyage in further response to this . . . something. And while begging for this . . . something . . . to whom they have given their lives to save them . . . die.

 

And then a brilliant, yet strange little man writes about them, never sees the poem published, and . . . dies.

 

Why write about that? Why read about it?

 

And yet here we are. Why?

 

Perhaps our answer to that question sheds light on why Hopkins wrote the poem at all.

It also pointed me back to the much-discussed question of "Catholic" fiction. What is it? Do we need more of it?

 

As we've all seen in discussions of the topics, there are varied views on what people say they want in Catholic fiction. Is it high literature we're looking for, or simply stories with Catholic characters that affirm the truth of the Catholic faith by portraying lessons learned and dots helpfully connected?

 

Would Exiles please that last group or leave them cold? It seems to me it would have been so easy to put one toe over the line and render these events in a sentimental manner, with the nuns martyrs to Kulterkampf, sacrificial lambs for the New World; Hopkins's life as a Catholic in 19th-century England and, as Matthew pointed out, a Jesuit to boot; all beautifully drawn to point us to some clear conclusions about purpose and meaning.

 

But Exiles doesn't, I think. I am pretty convinced that both the believer and the doubter could read this novel and come away, partly confirmed in their own convictions, but both still a little shaken, wondering, each from a different perspective about the death of the nuns (and the rest), "Hmm . . . was there a point?"

 

I know this because both of those readers live in my head.

 

 

I'm going to end this by throwing out two aspects of both ends of the story -- Hopkins and the nuns -- that I thought did indeed bind them together, despite their initial apparent distance.

 

1) As everyone has mentioned: exile. Obviously. I see this very much a reminder of who we all are, myself. It is at the root of the Christian sensibility. We are not home, but we are going home. The journey might be awful at times, but in the end, Christ waits, as we call out to Him.

 

2) Serendipity, chance, and circumstance. I have to admit that this is an abiding fascination with me -- to ponder how a wrong turn, a quick decision, a change of mind, can change a life. For both Hopkins and the nuns, this is bound up not only in their own decisions but in the decisions of others: In a way, their deaths can actually be blamed on the decisions of others to send them into even greater exile -- to America or to Ireland (no offense!).

 

I was particularly interested in the nuns' response to this. To my recollection, as they suffer in the midst of this horrific tragedy, none of the nuns ever utters a "If only we hadn't been sent on this journey." They certainly pray for rescue, and put up the good fight, but there is also a bracing lack of wishful thinking -- something I am not sure would be the case were I in that situation.

 

Now I'm veering from the literary into spiritual considerations, but it's the direction I tend to veer. That question of the tension (or is it balance?) between what seems to be chance or the vagaries of human decisions and God's will and purpose is a sticky one, and I think Exiles gives a good foundation for exploring it. Here I am, where I am. I may be sinking, I may be swimming, I may be clinging to the mast. Should I be eaten with regret about where I am, am I finding someone to blame, or is there another way?

 

A final note for this attempt: The scenes of the shipwreck were terribly difficult to read, as you might expect. While I can read about or view a lot of things, one thing I tend to avoid, if I can, are depictions of children suffering. When, as the awful events are progressing, Hansen takes us from the upper decks back to the lounge where the nuns are, I dragged my mental feet. I didn't want to go because I knew there were also children down there, and the thought of it tore me up.

 

But then, if I may get moralistic (even if Hansen doesn't -- as well he shouldn't), confronting these moments -- and even as they come from a fiction writer, I cannot forget they were real moments, and his prose in these sections gives those moments a vivid reality --is necessary for me. It is why, we used to be told, we have crucifixes in our homes -- in every room, if we can -- because as we endure our relatively small sufferings, we can look to Christ to put it all in perspective, a perspective that includes not only the child frozen in death in its mother's arms on the Deutschland, but in Christ suffering in children right now, closer than I could imagine. Even if I don't want to.

 

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Amy Welborn is a prolific and popular Catholic author and speaker who blogs at amywelborn.wordpress.com.