While I haven't read Mariette in Ecstasy, I think Matthew Lickona is on to something when he notices the literary style of introducing characters as more telling than showing in Exiles. It didn't bother me in a novel, although it would if this were a screenplay. I have different expectations of cinematic narrative... a more rigorous standard of show, don't tell, I suppose.

After reading the first half of Exiles, I began to wonder if Hansen isn't working for an effect that is something like the hybrid of eulogy and obituary here. After all, we're told the end of the story up front (as we are in Jesse James), so in some sense any expectations about unfolding drama are already being upset. We know the end. The only question is... how do we want to arrive there?

I have read two short pieces by Ron Hansen and concluded from them a very unfavorable opinion of his religious views and literary tastes:

1. From the America magazine April 25, 2005, article "What Should the Next Pope [after John Paul II] Do":

The first thing I would like to see changed is the current restriction limiting priesthood only to those who are male and celibate. Also, the questions of Humanae Vitae should be revisited. A culture of suspicion, particularly concerning the American church, seems to exist in the Curia now. I find it unnecessary and in many ways evil. I hope the next pope will ratify the brilliant new English-language Sacramentary that has been waiting, unused, for too long. And I would like to see intensified an ecumenical outreach, especially to those Protestant denominations with which we have much in common.

2. From an advertisement of the inclusive-language NRSV Bible:

I HAVE USED THE HARPERCOLLINS STUDY BIBLE FOR LITERATURE CLASSES AND FOR MY PRIVATE PRAYER. THE NRSV [New Revised Standard Version] TRANSLATION IS OUTSTANDING.

"I have only my eyes to go by, after all" doesn't sound subtle enough to be an "intimation." It almost sounds too neat, too cute, a metaphor for faithlessness.

Hey Tom, I vote we stick to literature and hold off on the inquisitorial duties for today, aight? Anyway, were you writing a parody or are you really going to judge a novelist's output based on one piece of short-form opinion journalism and one ad blurb?

Tom, I don't wish to be dismissive, or to make light of your concern. The problem is, a comment like yours tends to short-circuit discussion. "What do you think of this book?" "I think the author is a dissenter, and has poor literary taste." Even if it's true, it's not exactly an answer. I think it would be more helpful if we kept this discussion to the matter at hand: the particular novel and Catholic fiction in general. No doubt there are ways in which Hansen's personal beliefs might influence the character of his fiction, but if you wanted to make an argument along those lines, you would need to read the book and make the case from the text.

Santiago - well, I guess I can see how you might say it was "too neat," but is it any more neat than choosing a perilous journey on a stormy sea as the subject for the story? Maybe you're right that it's more metaphor than intimation, but I still liked it. It runs precisely contrary to the attitude of the nuns, who go by something invisible to the world, a world nicely represented by the Deutschland.

Matthew: I much prefer Exiles to Mariette, which I think gave a false impression of religious life. I wish Hansen would quit writing about nuns. He always seems to make them erotic in some way. For example, in Exiles, why was it necessary to describe Sr. Henrica's bare breasts coming out of the warm bathing room?

Also, you criticise Exiles for not being poetic. I thought a novel was prose, not poetry. Actually, I felt there was quite a bit of poetic description in Exiles as Bishop flores quotes several times in his comments.

Bishop Flores: Reading your paragraph 4 I said to myself, "they are simply dying as they lived." (As we all will.) Then, you work your way through your reasoning to the same thought in paragraph 9. As we know, priests religious do not have special protection from tragedies.

I liked the book very much. I think the author's austerity is to present the darkness of faith, as you bring out in your comments.

The sisters' deaths, except perhaps for Sr. Henrica, reveal a kind of "merciful mastering" on the part of God. The cold gradually lulls them into the sleep of death. The sisters in the ship are spared the violent deaths of some of those on deck.

If I recall his life correctly, wasn't it Hopkins himself who tried to bury his talent? This was a sign of the jansenism of the times. His "simple" duties could have given him more time for writing... But perhaps he was too melancholy.

It often happens that we think more of what we aren't allowed to do, than exercise our talents within the given circumstances.

Admittedly, Hopkins was a genius before his time. A price such a person often pays is living a hidden forgotten life, known only to God. And in the end, it's our relationship with Him that matters, not our earthly gifts being "fulfilled".

Clayton, something that continually jumped out at me when Hansen introduced characters in the Deutschland sections was his habit of saying something like, "Mrs. So-and-So, who would later perish," or "Mr. X, who would survive, and his son Y, who would not..." It does have a reportorial tone (as Amy called it), and it does go against the standard rhythm of a novel (as the bishop pointed out).

But in many ways I found these walking memento mori to be more tragic than if we had learned their ultimate fate via the natural course of the story. As Amy points out, "We know what happens to all of us in the end" -- which, of course, leads to your point, that it's really a matter of how we get there.

Further, this is essentially how Hopkins would have come to know these characters, too -- he based his knowledge of the wreck on the daily papers' reports (additionally, you could say that he knew these people died before he knew them as people, either). In that way, the tone doesn't immediately strike me as out of place -- it didn't lessen the drama any for Hopkins; why should it be so for us?

So yes, it's a subversion of the norm, but for whatever reason I didn't find it particularly jarring -- I suppose because whether they live or die isn't the point Hansen's ultimately driving at. Anyone else?

Fair enough -- the context makes the line more believable, perhaps, less theatrical.

Sister Mary - yes, a novel is prose, not poetry. But Hansen is often on the opposite end of the spectrum from someone like Carver or Hemingway: "He ate the peanuts. In the rain. It was good." And even that is more poetic than Hansen's description of Bridges. And I granted that many of his nature descriptions, particularly those of the cold and storm, were quite lovely. And the whole point of my comment was self-criticism: I was bothered by the difference between Mariette and Exiles, and failed to properly approach the latter because of it. So I tried again, and I conclude my comment by suggesting two possible reasons why Hansen chose to go the way he did. That's not exactly criticizing.

The nun in Mariette was erotic because there was an erotic character to her religious experience. The nun's breasts in Exiles are described, I imagine, to drive home the point that she has given up the ordinary course of a woman's life, wherein breasts would serve both an erotic and a nurturing purpose. They are a reminder of what she has chosen to give up. I didn't find it erotic.

And while I take your point about the sisters' deaths - a subject that will come up again later in our back-and-forth - I think it worth noting that they had to listen to a baby scream as it froze to death while they were down there.

As for "fulfillment" - that too will get taken up... please stay with us!

I, too, really liked this book. The only Hansen book I read prior to this was Mariette in Ecstasy. Rather than find myself disappointed in Exiles because of Mariette, I was impressed Hansen could employ a different style and create another good book. He saved his poetry here for the forces of nature, and created an experience of real events through visuals and mood.

I found myself eager and anxious to continue with the nuns’ stories and the unfolding of the shipwreck, impatient with the Hopkins narrative. The rhythm of those sections seemed to become more and more like Hopkins’ poetry itself. Or maybe that was just me. Since I don’t find Hopkins’ poetry easy to interact with, perhaps it makes sense that these sections were hard to get into.

I appreciate Bishop Flores’ comment that he “wished the nuns had died with more literary grace” and that:



Though part of me would have loved the same, I think it would have lost something. Because this must be how it happens in many cases -- no perceivable moments of grace, dying as you’ve lived, no sense of the whys or wherefores of Providence. It’s rather ordinary, and perhaps upsetting to those of us who expect to be treated better by a God of love and tenderness.

I do agree with Sister Mary that it seemed part of God's mercy that the nuns -- except for Sister Henrica -- were "lulled into the sleep of death."

One of my favorite lines is when Sister Henrica is suddenly swept away -- in “cannoning seawater that seemed high and heavy as a house” and we read:



There we catch the Christian God -- mysteriously suffering along with us, rescuing us from eternal death, but not from the dying itself.

There was something moving and precious and dramatic about accompanying these nuns and their companions in their ignorance of what lay ahead. Because unless you or I are dying of a fatal disease, we have no idea the day or hour, and we too live our moments as though life extends around the corner.

I guess I'm the odd man out here, preferring "Hitler's Niece" to Hansen's other books, including "Mariette in Ecstasy," which I thought ever-so-slightly romanticized the religious life. Yes, the prose of "Exiles" is spare, but its not without its own poetry (I've already lent someone my copy or I would find one of the many examples.) I found the characterization of Hopkins so compelling I don't think I will ever get it out of my head, particularly those scenes of suffering from his Dublin years. (And I thought I knew the worst crimes of the Jesuits!).

I posted the following at www.korrektiv.org a couple of days ago (I'll try to engage in a separate comment what Matthew, Bishop and Amy have written; I'm nearly finished with Chapter 2 now, which I think is handled more deftly than Chapter 1):

Not a bad opening chapter, but a little too reeking of research--to the detriment of story. I'm not sure I can pin down from whence the reek arises, but I smelled it wafting through the entire chapter: things that Hansen the researcher kept inserting against the better angels of Hansen the storyteller. Just enough of a whiff of it, like a skunk outside one's bedroom window, to intrude on the proceedings. Perhaps it's partly a matter of not anchoring us firmly enough in Hopkins' point of view. We are anchored there much of the time, privy to Hopkins' thoughts and perceptions, but then Hansen the researcher intrudes like a documentary voice-over and enforces our awareness that we are in a fictional world "based on fact."

Hansen pulls off some very fine Hopkinsesque descriptions of clouds and such. For example: "The air smelled cleansed; the leaden sky was roped with cloud; a blue bloom seemed to have spread upon the distant south, enclosed by a basin of hills. And again he felt the charm and instress of Wales" (20). Nice use of Hopkins' trademark "instress" there, too.

And he offers up plenty of erudite banter and wit in the English style. All good. (And yet we've seen these scenes so many times before.) The nickname "Hop" is an interesting detail, as against the other Hopkins who is dubbed "the genteel Hop" (9). And yet this sort of detail plays into that reek of research I'm talking about, maybe.

Then there's the offhand suggestion that Hopkins is gay (11). Here I'm forced to wonder once again, in a different way, about the research. I'm forced to question whether there is evidence to support a gay Hopkins or whether this is idle speculation, based on ... what? And how much will our knowing that Hopkins is attracted to "big, bluff, confident, manly sorts" advance the story? Maybe it will, but, again, it's the oblique way Hansen introduces this detail that falls flat for me. OK, you're going to advance the thesis that Hopkins was gay. Fine. Take the ball and run with it. Show us Hopkins' view of it interiorly. We get a hint of that here--"Hopkins was vigilant in his vow of chastity"--but it's the exterior narrative voice-over again.

So in sum: I'm not entirely pleased with how Hansen is handling his material in this opening chapter. It's a pleasant enough read, as material for a documentary. But I think as a novelist Hansen should be a bit braver and make the leap into Hopkins' skin a bit more profoundly, anchor the story in Hopkins himself as a fictional character--even if that fictional Hopkins is a gay Hopkins.

I wonder if Hansen will prove braver and less bound to his sources in his treatment of the German nuns in the next chapter--since there is far less material to be bound by.

I liked this strange book. I’ve read most of it twice now, and I’m still puzzling over it. Thank you to Matthew, Amy, and Bp. Flores for their insightful comments.
Let me start with my big beef with the book: Hansen’s writing repeatedly called attention to itself and yanked me out of the story. Although I have read Mariette and Jesse, I didn’t come to this book with specific expectations, partly because those two books were wildly different. Well, on second thought, I did expect more of a window into Hopkins interior life (thanks to Amy for questioning that expectation). In any case, I was not bothered by the journalistic approach. The “telling” rather than “showing” was the first way the writing drew attention to itself. But also jarring was that after a paragraph or even a chapter of matter-of-fact, journalistic narrative, Hansen might launch into prose imitation of Hopkins style. Just one example: Chapter 3 begins with simple reporting about Hopkins’ day, reproduces a letter to his mother, and then gives us this: “Soon there were bright boroughs of starlight, like the may-mess of fruit-tree petals on a lawn”. A fine bit of word craft. A fine bit of word craft that makes you stop and admire it, like a patch of fine silk embroidery in the middle of a rough wool blanket: What’s it doing here?
Matthew, I don't think you see this as a fault. But if it is not, it is still worth asking: What is it doing there? Perhaps what we have here “notes for a novel,” but if that were the case, why was it such a compelling read? I couldn’t put the book down, even as I ranted at it. So I agree that there's something more going on here.

I wonder if we could find answers to some of our questions by looking at the relationship between The Deutschland and Exiles. Is the poem part of the novel or does the novel stand alone? If it is integral to it, then how is Hansen using it and what can we learn by studying the poem?

Is it significant to the novel that Hopkins began the poem with stanza 12, the historical narrative, and later developed the cosmic framework?

I hadn't read any Hansen prior to reading Exiles, so I had no expectations. I found the book disappointing. It seems I have the same issues many of you do. I expected a book based on Hopkins' "The Wreck of the Deutschland" to show some insight into Hopkins, the poem and the lives of the sisters--three strikes, Hansen's out! I found Hansen's frequent switching from reasonably nice passages about the sisters' journey together to flat descriptive sections that read like an obituary (which may be the point) to be jarring.

Matthew Lickona quotes this passage as an example of good writing by Hansen:



Maybe it's just me, but I laughed out loud when I read it.
Worms? I enjoyed the sentence until worms.
To give you an idea how funny (in a bad way)I thought that sentence was, you'll notice above that I spelled out "laughed out loud" rather than the internet-y LOL. Yes. That bad. Not perfect.

It is always a challenge to try to write about another writer, especially one as brilliant as Hopkins. Do you try to match his genius? Let him speak for himself? Hansen does neither. His attempts to imitate Hopkins style remind me that Hansen is no Hopkins. Quotes from Hopkins aside, I don't really know Hopkins any better after reading Exiles. I think I'd do better to read Mariani's biography of Hopkins.

Brian - yes, worms. Driving during winter snows in upstate New York, I saw exactly what he describes slinking across the highway in the glare of my headlights. Silvery worms of windblown snow. Sorry you found it so risible. But please stay with us through the week - it only gets better.

Also, Brian - I can understand your frustration - disappointed expectations tripped me up as well. But one of the advantages of a literary reputation - and Hansen's is pretty sterling - is that you can maybe ask the reader to play along with you a bit. "Yes, I'll disappoint your expectations, but bear with me - try to figure out what it is I'm up to. It's earned you rewards in the past..."

Ron Hansen stands "condemned" by his own words. To say the least, he is a dissenter from infallible church teachings regarding faith and morals as well as from church discipline (not infallible). His endorsement of a translations of the Roman Missal and a Bible (both discredited by the Holy See) reveal literary taste influenced by the principles of deconstructionism and inclusivism used in those two translations.

I live in New York and have seen my share of what you describe about driving in winter. The last thing that cimes to mind is worms. Ribbons, streams, mobius strips, scarves, yes. Not worms. It violates the image Hansen establishes with "gliding", "white wisps", "trailing" and "flying". None of those fit "worms". Not in NY anyway...<;-)=>

As to disappointed expectations, as I said. I really had no expectations since I hadn't read Hansen at all. I had hoped it would be a good read based on the subject and it's choice as the lead-off book of this circle. Oh, well.

PS Can we keep the trolls at bay? Whatever you do, don't let them get wet.

Maybe it is just a "given" for the rest but for me, Exiles was indeed riding the swells of waves. Any sea-side dwellers amongst the posters? Exiles started slow and began to rise into the storm that made all the characters either get washed away without agreement or acceptance; some given the chance to accept their fate and do the best they could with what they had. It seemed to me that Hansen was detailing Hopkins life as the same kind of shipwreck as the Deutschland. He seemed to have similar qualities/expereinces of the sisters as he faced his own exile (which was well prior to his Ireland posting).

I don't "get" Hopkin's work--not as literate as the rest of you all--or it's too much work for me at this time in my life. But I am happy that I've learned something about him through Hansen.

Hi Tom:

As Matt wrote, while we appreciate your comments, we want this specific conversation to center on the book, and not Hansen's doctrinal positions. This is a book discussion circle, and we want to stay focused (a difficult thing on the Web).

Thanks for understanding.

As you will see, my own expectations and disappointment were similiar to many who are writing in - but I must second Matthew's assumption. We must remember that the poet (and here, I mean in the classical sense, the "maker") can play with all sorts of mediums to make his work come alive. While not nearly as seamless, there are stylistic moments in Exiles which invoke the memory of Henry Adams, who used a flow of facts presented as a third-person narrative, almost ficitonal in its orginality and clarity, to write one of the greatest works of NON fiction in the 20th century - The Education of Henry Adams. While fiction and biography certainly have their own realms, there's nothing out of bounds for either, if they can make a successful go at it. Is Hansen purposely trying to imitate the reportorial in his novel? Was Adams purposely trying to imitate the ficitonal in his biography? Both Adams and Hansen know what they're about too well to spend their literary capital foolishly. At least we can afford to give them the benefit of the doubt. I finally liked the book despite myself. I was disapppointed, and make note of it during the discussion, and even thought the work imperfect - certainly less perfect than Hansen's other works.

That said, I would like to interject a point on criticism. I think that an author's personal life and opinions, while pertinent to some extent, is the last place we should look to first to understand a work of literature(Dante damned popes to hell; Cervantes and Malory were convicts; etc.) In the spirit of docility, the work should probably be judged by its own merits first. This is the approach of the critical group known as the formalists - T.S. Eliot; Cleanth Brooks; Yvor Winters; Robert Penn Warren; Russell Kirk; etc. T.S. Eliot, for instance, had a great respect for Djuna Barnes' "Nightwood" not on the basis of the author's personal life (she was a practicing and notoriously promiscuous lesbian) but on the basis of what she'd written.

There are a multitude of approaches to a work - the reader's response, emotionally and intellectually; the biographical and historical; the comparative; etc. I think a good argument can be made though that unless one understands the basic form of what one's reading first - Mortimer Adler was right on in this respect in his "How to Read a Book" - all these other approaches will only seem like so much sniping and impertinence.

It need not be pointed out, by the way, that those who convict an author of deconstructionist tendencies BASED ON INFORMATION EXTRANEOUS TO THE NOVEL might be accused of perpertrating the same crime themselves.

Which isn't to say there's not a perfectly legitimate way to decipher such tendencies within the work itself. Perhaps that is what Hansen is up to. If that's the case, though, I think the most effective argument should come from the text itself. I'm even willing to engage such an argument if it comes from the text itself.

Lets keep our eyes on the ball..

JOB

Brian, you wrote, "I expected a book based on Hopkins' "The Wreck of the Deutschland" to show some insight into Hopkins, the poem and the lives of the sisters--three strikes, Hansen's out!" I think that sentence indicated disappointed expectations - not of Hansen, but of a book based on Hopkins' "The Wreck of the Deutschland." Please do stay with us, though. See if we manage to dig up anything to change your mind a bit. I'm suggesting that, given Hansen's history, we ought to try to play along.

As for worms, I take your point. And yet - "wriggling worm" seems to me a fine description of the motion of those wisps. The wisps are gliding and flying, but their gliding and flying is not the swooping of an eagle. It's an undulating, wriggling thing - like a worm.

[quote=Someone]Brian - yes, worms. Driving during winter snows in upstate New York, I saw exactly what he describes slinking across the highway in the glare of my headlights. Silvery worms of windblown snow. Sorry you found it so risible. But please stay with us through the week - it only gets better.[/quote.

I have seen this phenomenon, but I thought more "spaghetti"

OK, one last, hopefully not risible, point. How about something like "silvery serpents" which keeps the flying vermiform metaphor but brings in the Serpent in Eden, not to mention sea serpents. At any rate, it's interesting that you mentioned this in your article as a example of Hansen's writing, calling it "perfect". Yet when I read it, I thought it one of the worst things I ever read.

Looking forward to the next set of articles!

Brian - I'm sorry; I should just let this go. But it's so much fun! Here's why I like "worm" better than "serpent" - blindness. The serpent moves toward an objective - there is purpose in it, and regularity to the motion. "I need to get from point A to point B, and undulating happens to be how I roll." But the twisting of those wisps seems much more aimless, much more, "I move, but I know not whither." Much more like the twisting of a worm, writhing on a wet sidewalk. It is indeed interesting that we had such powerful and opposite reactions. By "perfect," I meant that it perfectly captured, for me, the image of windblown wisps of snow.

Now that round two is up, I'd like someone (Who, me?) to take up Ms. Peacock's notion:

"I wonder if we could find answers to some of our questions by looking at the relationship between The Deutschland and Exiles. Is the poem part of the novel or does the novel stand alone? If it is integral to it, then how is Hansen using it and what can we learn by studying the poem?

Is it significant to the novel that Hopkins began the poem with stanza 12, the historical narrative, and later developed the cosmic framework?"

Divining these kinds of parallels, the sort that Beth alluded to in comparing Hopkins' life to the shipwreck, will only help matters, I think...

I note with sympathy Tom's desire to get into what Hansen's personal convictions are about the Catholic Church. I remember trying to grill Walker Percy about his only to be charmed into silence by his smile and sly avoidances. If this was a hurdle that had to be jumped before we could discuss serious a work of fiction by a Catholic writer, I'm afraid there wouldn't be many left, particularly those who are notable, such as Graham Greene and Murial Spark whose names come immediately to mind. I am enjoying this close reading of Hansen's "Exiles," and I agree with keeping the focus on the work not the author.

Matthew,

I think that Ms. Peacock's question is crucial in more than one way. First, because it seems the border between Father Hopkins and the sisters. It is the point of contact, the only point, between the two concerns in the novel, and therefore should be the focus.

But secondly, and I think in a sense more importantly, the poem is also crucial becasue by it we are better able to judge whether Hansen succeeds in portraying the drama of the story. Is the poem essential as this particular poem in the story? For instance, is it important even to quote the poem, or can the drama rest simply on the fact that he wrote a poem, unleashed his repressed talents, etc. Later in the original discussion, I reference Auden's essay, "Genius & Apostle" to get at some of hte problems inherent in portraying artistic genius in drama. I'd like to do so again here, to explain better what I mean.

"...while deeds and character are identical, works and character are not; the realtion between who an artist is and what he makes is too vague to discuss. To say that Lesbia's treatment of Catullus and his love for her were the cause of his poetry is a very different thing from saying that Macbeth's ambition and the prophecies of the witches were the cause of Banquo's murder. Had both their characters been different, the poems would, no doubt, have been different, but their characters do not explain why Catullus wrote the actual poems he did, and not an infinite number of others which he might equally well have written but did not."

In the same, way, the question can be posed: Why did Hopkins write this actual poem and not an infinite number of others...etc.?

Oh, sure, JOB. Way to get all heavy and kill the conversational buzz.

But seriously - I guess we all have to go back and take a closer look at the poem...

I don't know if Hopkins wrote many drafts before he wrote this published version. If he did (and that seems likely if only in his head) then you could say he did write an infinite number of poems on his way to writing this one.

It seems to me that the poem is not fully integrated, only a few quotes. Maybe if Hansen had used quotes from the poem and related them to the shipwreck, like a soundtrack to a film, then the poem would have been incarnated by the book.



Well, it was where Hopkins started as he read the accounts if the wreck. Then as he meditated on what he had read in a sort of lectio divina of the shipping news, the cosmic implications opened to him.

"I was left with the literary equivalent to the night of the senses. Mother Henrica was washed away so quickly, never really able to fulfill any real role as shepherdess of this tiny flock." --Bishop Flores

I've been considering Bishop Flores' comment in his first reflection. Actually, I think Mother Henrica did fulfill a real role as shepherdess. She was their leader of prayer and the schedule of their life. But more important, she led the way to safety, although she died in the process.

Could she be a Christ-figure? Christ is our Leader in our faith, as the Letter to the Hebrews says. Christ showed us the way to salvation by his death on the cross. He even said one of the first principle of being a disciple is to take up one's cross daily, to die to self.

Mother Henrica, was trying to lead the sisters out of the ship to the safer part. She gave her life in that act, but it did not negate her leading the Sisters to the safe place. Like Christ, she died to give the others a chance for life. The problem is that the 4 other sisters were not brave enough to follow her. they cannot die to their cowardly old selves and so the perish in their mediocre shallowness.

Sister Mary,

Unless you want to take it a step further and look at the sisters' returning to the interior of the Deutschland as an outward sign of their inward movement of the soul - a return to their interior life, as it were, which was both the source of their original calling as brides of Christ and also - given their watery death - a sign of their baptismal death to the world when they were recieved in the arms of the Church (Madame Sosostris' Wasteland exhortation, "Fear death by water" was ringing in my ears throughout the novel, and especially the section on the sisters). By the way, without ruining any surprises, Bishop Flores makes much more of the flooding saloon scenes which fill out what I'm trying to say here.

Stay tuned!

JOB

JOB quoting Auden:

"...but their characters do not explain why Catullus wrote the actual poems he did, and not an infinite number of others which he might equally well have written but did not."

And, JOB:

"Why did Hopkins write this actual poem and not an infinite number of others...etc.?"

The same is true of Hansen, wouldn't you agree? Why has Rob Hansen chosen THIS particular man (Hopkins) and this particular event (loss of the Deutschland) on which to spend his "literary capital?"

Hansen's work (my own favorite is Atticus) does not fall into a neat category. How does one swerve from The Assassination of Jesse James to Exiles? Have others wondered what moved Hansen to explore Hopkins? What was it about Hopkins' life and work that grabbed Hansen and would not let go? Surely Rob Hansen has a file folder crammed with outlined stories. There is something intimate and revealing about a serious author's choice of subject matter.


On the matter of Hansen's (or Percy's) orthodoxy one might imagine that the *struggle* to abide, or to extricate oneself from Catholicism is the drama that fuels an artist.

Lastly, we are all pilgrims, exiles, true. But not all will have deaths that are so sudden or tragic. Some do die "gently" of age or long infirmities after productive lives and time to prepare. But isn't it precisely the shock of untimely deaths (save the martyrs) that stares back at our comfortable lives of faith and then nags the mind to seek meaning in those "inexplicable" events?

32
"Stanching, quenching ocean of a motionable mind;
Ground of being, and granite of it: past all
Grasp God, throned behind
Death with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes but abides;"


Thanks to all for this intriguing discussion!

Good point in regard to my questioning. I'll have to return inside to ponder it further.

Yes, I think you've got something. The sisters may be returning to their "first love" and surrender.

"It seems to me that the poem is not fully integrated, only a few quotes. Maybe if Hansen had used quotes from the poem and related them to the shipwreck, like a soundtrack to a film, then the poem would have been incarnated by the book."

Brian - sorry to keep pestering you. But I think the poem need not be integrated explicitly - i.e. say, with a stanza at the opening of every pertinent section - for there to be a deep and intimate connection between poem and book. I'm really hoping to take some time today to consider the texts side by side.

I had a hard time with this. I shook my head when the sisters went back down to the saloon. More than once I asked why they didn't stay up top and hope for rescue. I kept wanting the reason to be because they felt a connection with the others in the saloon that were weak and vulnerable.

But I have finally decided it was due to their own weakness, vulnerability and fear. Matthew I think you pointed out that the sister who so loved children didn't even try to comfort the crying child until it was too late---too late to make a difference.

I do think they all in their own way came to acceptance of their fate--even Sr. Henrica who had little chance to think once she accepted obedience as her reason for going above. She accepted her fate when she accepted the assignment that would take her away from her beloved prioress---remember her poem.

...the sisters' returning to the interior of the Deutschland as an outward sign of their inward movement of the soul - a return to their interior life, as it were, which was both the source of their original calling as brides of Christ and also - given their watery death - a sign of their baptismal death to the world when they were recieved in the arms of the Church...

(Can't get the quotes to work) THe above is from JOB---

I felt they all died as children---waiting for their Father to take care of them. I didn't get that their decision to stay below was more theologically rooted yet nonetheless, their decision was indeed one of surrender to a merciful Father. They all felt their helplessness to save themselves.

Maybe I'm hitting upon the same theme as you are JOB but I just didn't think it was a faith-calculated decision to "go down to the saloon".....

again, I'm out of my league here---I'll stop for now--

That's what I was getting at with the soundtrack analogy. Hopkins poem in the background with occasional cues to bring out a atronger connection point. I like having the whole poem in the appendix. I just think it could have been more present in the text in a sacremental way.

PS I have a new insight into worms! Hansen used such an obviously wrong inmage of worms in to shock us into thinking not of the animal, but of the Diet of Worms! This connects Protestant Germany to the German vessel the "Deutschland". The sisters represent the schism between the Catholic Church and Lutheranism, so they are exiles on the "Deutschland" just as they were exiles in Germany. Wow, this Hansen guy is brilliant! Who knew he could get so much out of this can of worms. Or, maybe not...<;-).>

Beth,

Sister Barbara, at thirty-two the oldest, considered her desolate sisters and decided she was the Superior now. She seriously asked, "Sister Norberta, will you be able to climb the riggings?"
The stricken woman sobbed as she considered the rope webbing overhead. "I'm too fat. I can't. I'll fall."
"We'll go down, then," Sister Barbara told the three, and they obediently descended the gangway, sloshing the icy, falf-high seawater as they returned to the saloon. (171)

On the face of it, the motive on Sister Barbara's part was one of maintaining the community - one for all and all for one. Notice, that it is with *obedience* that the sisters return to the saloon, not fear, although I can only imagine that they were frightened for their lives too (who wouldn't be at that moment - having just witnessed their leader perish in the cold sea?)

So, you're right, Beth, it wasn't a faith-based calculation on the part of the characters.

On the other hand, I think we are meant to take it as a craft-based calculation on the part of the author. Hansen wants us to make this connection between where their lives began - as Catholics and as religous.

Again, Bishop Flores has some good things to say about this as support, and I don't want to steal his thunder.

But I think it's at least interesting to note that fear did not drive them down below deck again, but the very virtue - obedience - which put them on the ship as Exiles in the first place.

JOB

Beth,

I posted the previous same time as the post for the initial discussion.

This is what I'm referring to by Bishop Flores above:

Hopkins, I think, is more willing to give us the scene of death in noble terms (the lioness that "arose breasting the babble, / A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told") than Hansen is. The best light afforded me during the saloon scene is the light of the six tapers: "Six tapers were found and lit and stuck in their wax to the highest shelves."I do not know if this is a detail someone in the newspaper accounts remembered or a feature of interpretation insinuated by the author. Either way, I know that it took six candles to say a High Mass (a seventh only -- forgive me for saying it -- if a bishop were present), placed indeed on the highest shelf, the altar itself. The sacrifice was prepared in that saloon, and the wine and hosts awaited transferral through the action that would both extinguish and complete them.

JOB

Job--thanks for your replies and special thanks to Bishop Flores for your observations--

"Sister Barbara may have slipped, finally, into the water, but I think Hansen wants us to see that the Master came for her on the waves, picked her up by the arm, and brought her, like Peter, to walk on the water. Hopkins slipped into death in his exile, but the happiness of which he truly spoke came toward him from the other side. I could not see the advent in the scene, but I think I saw it through the scene." Bishop Flores

Yes--as children being 'collected'. I like the fact that they were afraid---they are more REAL to me. It would not have 'worked' to have them clinging to the hope on the top deck, straining to see the rescue boat, shouting and waving. As if their actions could effect the rescue. Yes, the Master came for them--and they KNEW He was coming. It did not erase the fear but held in place the obedience---yes, obedience--thanks for pointing that out.

Again, the narrative just rolled as the waves for me. I truly was on the ship throughout. I really like how Mr. Hansen introduced us to the history of the sisters---the current action took us to the top of the wave and the background took us back out, away from the impending disaster. Did Hopkins see his own life in that way? Because he was familiar with the sea did it hold special significance for him---did he relate to the nature of the sea as perhaps some of us just relate to a certain landscape over another, as in mountains versus plains?

I hate to bring this up in the comments, but...
It's 2pm on the East Coast and no new articles or replies to comments by the moderators and only Mr. Lickona at that. I know it's a busy week with WYD and nice summer weather, but seems like there's more to be said.

Brian - not just me. JOB is short for Joseph O'Brien, another of the participants. We're here, and will continue to be here, even after this thing has run its course. I for one intend to return after I've done that whole structure of poem/structure of novel comparison that I should have done in the initial back-and-forth... Thanks for staying with us!

By the by, everybody: we've had our say. But Joseph asked a great question at the end of his last post, and I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts on it in light of our discussion...

Mr. Sullivan,

Yes, as Matthew pointed out, I have been at it with thought and tooth since the beginning.

And a true pleasure it has been!

I don't know if the discussion has run its course - and I certainly commend Matthew for taking on a job it seems we've only touched on in our original discussion. But after all, it is not for no reason, I believe, that Hansen provides a complete copy of the poem as an appendix to the novel.

The question remains - is it merely an appendix IN the novel?

I will do what I can contribute to this point, as well.

Speaking of fiction/poetry, by the way, a little factoid which Hugh Kenner mentions in his essay on Hopkins should be mentioned here as well: The same Trinity University which proves to be Hopkins' last port of call (here I go again!) also happens to be the University sprung from Cardinal Newman's Idea for a University. It ALSO happens to be the university where James Joyce learned his letters - and his sentences - and his paragraphs which streamlikeconsciousnessthroughhiswork...

So, historically, Hopkins was, in a certain figurative sense, the go-between for Catholic thought and fiction (if we can agree, as most people do, that Joyce is the avatar of modern fiction). This may or mayn't add to the overall discussion, but it suggests certain obsequies which Hansen could be paying to Hopkins, howeverso indirectly, in his own fiction.

JOB

Greetings to everyone from Sydney, Australia where WYD is in full swing. The pilgrims and the city have given the Holy Father a truly gracious and moving welcome. We are looking forward to the Vigil on Saturday, and the Mass on Sunday.

I had a chance to read the conversation that has followed the posts, and want to say I find them very engaging, and wish I could make a number of comments. But, I wanted in particular to comment on Sister Mary's comments about Mother Henrica. I agree that she did indeed fulfill a shepherding role, but it ended before the crisis reached its pitch-point. They had to take the lessons she tried to confide to them to heart in such a way as to put them into practice without her firm hand of guidance. That was part of the hardness of the end. That, I think, was partly due to the historical fact that her body was never found, and the reports that she was in fact washed over-board before the other sisters. This turn of providence also provided the circumstance that made Sister Barbara take up the yoke, so to speak, of authority. She was called on by providence to lead the little flock at the end. Her love for Sister Norberta was very moving to me, especially her decision to keep the flock together (and go into the saloon) once it was determined Norberta could not remain up-side. The more I think about that decision, the more I see it as the grace of the communal life (and death) lived out in a most radical way. They would not leave her alone.

One more comment: Being here in Sydney, it occurred to me that it makes quite a difference to craft a Christian tale with exile serving the predominant image for human life. The other image that surfaces in the Christian tradition, perhaps more frequently, for the movement of human life is pilgrimage. Makes me wonder how the tale would have been differently told if the sense of pilgrimage had been more the focus. I know that the poem and the story lend themselves to the exilic motif, but the thought is worth pondering, I think. Would the story of the sisters and of Hopkins, written with more of an eye to the intentions of a pilgrim, homo viator, have looked significantly different? And what does that say to us about how we conceive our lives as at once a kind of pilgrimage and a kind of exile?

Blessings to all,
Bishop Flores

Greetings from Duluth where the gales of November come crashing as early as...today.

Regarding Exiles...

Where on the waves is the Kingdom? Has it come?

Are the waves dappled? Do they praise Him?

When asked how one becomes a great Catholic writer, J.F. Powers (a great Catholic writer) replied: "Get rid of that word Catholic right now."

Where in the exiled words is the Kingdom? Has it sprung?

What if Hopkins had lived...for another century...and written about the Edmund Fitzgerald? Would the drowning shipworkers be nuns enough to save the book?

Why would the world care about Catholic fiction? They consider it fiction fiction.

Can a wave of sprung words trick anyone into the Kingdom? Like a cold splash of awakening?

Hopkins may have drowned in his ecstasy; and yet it all came out (kingdom clean) in the Wash.

Write what you know, my friends, and what you know not. Everyone else does.

Kindness and regards (and the great lake says hello).

David Athey
author, Danny Gospel

A couple observations:
1. Yesterday I had reason to contact Bishop Conley, recently consecrated and auxiliary in Denver. Bp. Conley's motto, which is appended to his emails, is Cor ad Cor Loquitur, heart speaks to heart, which was Cardinal Newman's motto. We know the influence that Newman had in Hopkins life. Is not the tone of the poem one of heart crying out to heart? The poetic voice crying out to God: come quickly; the poetic voice crying out to the reader: repent, for kingdom is at hand; Hopkins himself crying out to God over the shipwreck of his life and of every life: eucatastrophe.
2. Regarding the relationship of the poem to the novel, I ran across this quote from T.K. Bender in Fr. Aidan Nichols book Hopkins: Theologian's Poet:

"Never again" would Hopkins go "to such lengths in non-logical structure, disjunctive diction, or far-fetched imagery."

Which neatly summarizes many of our frustrations with Exiles.

I’m so glad you raised the question, Bishop, because the concept of pilgrimage has been on my mind. My brother - a young Canadian priest - is also in Sydney with a group of pilgrims for WYD, and a friend just returned from walking the Camino de Santiago Compostela. Reading emails from both of them, I’m struck by how pilgrimages are peak times in a Christian’s life, and how necessary they are to understanding “normal” life in the same way.

But back to Exiles...

Exile is a state -- experienced as loss, disconnection, disorientation, loneliness, angst, and even wonder. But what is the experience of pilgrimage? It could include the same, but I think it’s more. Rather than being a restricted place, which is how exile feels to me, pilgrimage seems more expansive -- there is possibility there, hope, something ahead that can’t yet be seen, but anticipated. Exile is the valley of tears. Pilgrimage surely goes through the valley, but encompasses peaks and plains and streams.

Obviously, Hansen wanted to explore exile, particularly from the religious person’s experience -- from God, from home, from consolation and understanding. If he had approached this with a pilgrimage metaphor in mind, I wonder if there would have been more to the stories, or details about the characters’ spiritual lives. Surely the tone would have been different. There may have been greater speculation or discussion among the characters about what lay ahead, including the afterlife. If memory serves me correctly, there wasn’t much looking forward by Hopkins or the nuns -- they seemed rather exiled from their futures, too.

This makes me more convinced that the poem does stand at the center of the book, joining the two stories of exile. If this is the case, perhaps the poem defines the parameters of the story and doesn’t allow it to move into something like pilgrimage.

Bishop Flores may be familiar with Jacques Maritain's Integral Human where talks about earthly happiness as "peregrinal." When I first read that word I didn't know quite was to do with it, so I look it up in the original French and found it comes from a word that can means both a certain kind of hawk -- peregrine falcon -- and a spiritual pilgrim. It's simply the case -- isn't it? -- that our lives begin in exile from our origin and final destination and our way of getting their is by pilgrimage, by beating our wings toward the sun.

"It's simply the case -- isn't it? -- that our lives begin in exile from our origin and final destination and our way of getting there is by pilgrimage, by beating our wings toward the sun."

Deal, that's a succinct and terrific way to weave exile and pilgrimage together. They do go hand in hand.

On page 100 Spliane asks Hopkins the innocent "Are you writing a poem?" and gets a lesson on sprung rhythm in nursey rhymes. Then maybe the best part of the book:

Oh. it's a wreck this "Wreck.' My rhymes carry over from one line to another, and there's a peculiar chiming inspiried by Welsh poetry, and a great many more oddnesses that cannot but dismay an editor's eye. I shan't publish it. The journals will think it barbarous."
Splaine asked, "Why write it, then?"
In puzzlement Hopkins replied, "Why pray?"

If God can't handle or carry-overs, our peculiar chiming, our great many more oddnesses, why pray? Or write poetry?

I haven't read through all the reviews, but I was struck by Amy Welborn's question - "Do writers striving to live as disciples of Jesus confront the challenge of writing imaginatively about real people -- either contemporary or historical -- in any kind of unique way?" I love the definition of charity as being respect, reverance and restraint towards another. So if a writer is Christian and strives toward charity, I would think that it would guide his writing. I have noticed this in Hansen's other books - a deep respect and, most noticeably in Exiles, a disciplined restraint. Yes, I would think Christian authors would set themselves apart by being guided by charity. Hansen is a great example of this.

<li>Looking first to the sisters, they die as they lived: imperfect, at times startlingly petty, and seemingly so ill-prepared. Yet the Master works all the while to master them; sometimes we perceive it, most of the time we do not.</i>

That's a remarkably hopeful comment; probably the most hope-inducing thing I've read all year.

I'm thrilled to have Ron Hansen join in at the end of this very interesting conversation. It certainly must be strange to wander into a forum like this and read others' musings about you and your work. It takes humility to do it with grace and appreciation.

I'm reminded of the mystery of the artist's calling when Mr. Hansen says:



Thanks to all the discussion leaders and participants for the conversation, questions and insights.

Until next time...

I quite agree with Mr. Lickona that opinions on quotes from Mr. Hansen aren't what we want to dissect.

I think it's a common problem among Christians reading fiction (and participating in other fields of artistic expression, in general.) There are those who must connect the piece itself with the practices of the author. The book itself, the prose, the narrative, the characters---all these, in a well-written piece, stand on their own. Mr. Hansen's views are just that, his views. If he is good writer, which he is, his personal views should not be clear...only the minds and motivations of his characters.

I also don't see the need to inform us, as readers, on the above quotes. They have nothing to do with the novel's discussion here and, to me, create division. Mr. Hansen is not running for office. He's a novelist and a well-respected one within the literary community, not just the faith-based community. These are the guys we should be rallying around, in my opinion, encouraging others to read their works.

When I begin to read a work of fiction (no matter if it is purely fictional or a work of historical fiction) I try to conjure up a visual image of the characters as the author has described them. I think in this instance Mr. Hansen has done a masterful job of crafting sketches of the nuns, and GMH in his schoolastic years. I can clearly get a sense of what they are like as living, breathing people inhabiting the world within the narrative.

I don't know much about literary criticism, but I do know that I am finding the story compelling, and while knowing the fate of the nuns as we follow their initial steps onto the doomed ship, I am still just as excited as Sr. Aurea is at the ammenities she sees. For me, good prose creates a visual picture and in this instance I think Mr. Hansen has done a creditable job.

I am looking forward to reading the rest of the novel, as well as the rest of the discussion.

Has anyone yet, discussed Amy's questions about what constitutes Catholic Fiction?

While I do not think it has to contain specifically religious images, it seems there should be an underlying Catholic worldview about the various topics brought up in the novel.

As Evelyn Waugh has Sebastian say in Brideshead Revisited, in speaking of Catholics... "Everything they think is important, is different than anyone else."

Does the author have to be always conscious of all the spiritual innuendos in the finished product? Can a truly great work take on a life of its own, presenting deeper levels of thought than the author intended? I do not know, that's why I am asking

The Dappled Things community has been appropriately chastised for our neglect of the conversation. This belated contribution is offered in a true spirit of penitence:



It bodes well that such a question be asked in the context of a discussion of an actual book. It is too easy to be caught up in abstractions when discussing "the Catholic novel". When we can actually sit and ponder the influence and effects of Catholicism on an author and his text – that is when we will reap fruitful discussions (see above).

In answer to your question, Sister Mary, I think that great work does have a life of its own in a sense. There is often a direction and an inspiration beyond the intentionality of the author. (Of course, at the same time, I fiercely deny the claims of tenured literary critics who go about attributing the most ridiculous and obscene desires to authors on the basis of what is supposedly hidden in the text -- not that anyone here has done such a reprehensible thing!)

For Catholic writers the challenge must be to write in what Ralph McInerny aptly describes (although in another context) as the “ambiance of faith”; Catholicism informs and illuminates our work on every level whether there are priests and nuns running around the plot. If there ARE priests and nuns, it cannot be assumed that their very presence makes the work a treasure of Catholic art. They must be compelling and fitting parts of the work as a whole, as I believe they are in Mr. Hansen’s novel (the Salzkotten sisters perhaps more dramatically than Hopkins).

I do think that the richest contributions to the Catholic literary revival will be those born of a happy union between devout faith and close literary-critical community. The former will bring metaphysical and theological richness to the work (consciously or unconsciously); the latter will inspire and elevate the quality of the prose. In the end, I think that the scarcity of contemporary Catholic literature and the difficulty of becoming published in a world where so much really awful stuff is published will prove advantageous to the burgeoning movement. Mr. Hansen is an inspiration in that respect—he is a highly talented writer.

I conclude, in the interests of community and supporting the burgeoning movement, by making this promotional observation: the latest issue of Dappled Things is now available online! Check it out and let us know what you think!