| Title | : | The Nun |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0192804308 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780192804303 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 234 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1796 |
This new translation includes Diderot's all-important prefatory material, which he placed, disconcertingly, at the end of the novel, and which turns what otherwise seems like an exercise in realism into what is now regarded as a masterpiece of proto-modernist fiction.
The Nun Reviews
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La Religieuse = Memoirs of a Nun, Denis Diderot
The Nun or Memoirs of a Nun is an 18th-century French novel by Denis Diderot. Completed in about 1780, the work was not published until 1796, after Diderot's death.
The novel consists of a series of letters purporting to be from a nun, Suzanne, who implores the Marquis to help her renounce her vows, and describes her intolerable life in the convent to which she has been committed against her will.
Based in the Eighteenth century, Suzanne Simonin is an intelligent and sensitive sixteen-year-old French girl who is forced against her will into a Catholic convent by her parents.
Suzanne’s parents initially inform her that she is being sent to the convent for financial reasons, stating it is cheaper for her to become a nun rather than paying a dowry in marriage.
However, while in the convent, it is revealed to Suzanne that she is actually there because she is an illegitimate child as her mother committed adultery with another man. By sending Suzanne to the convent, her mother thought she could make amends for her sins by using her daughter as a sacrificial offering for a new salvation.
تاریخ خوانش: پیش از سال1977میلادی
عنوان: راهبه؛ نویسنده: دنی دیدرو؛ مترجم: گیورگیس آقاسی؛ تهران، انتشارات پدیده؛ سال1350؛ جیبی، موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسه - سده 18م
عنوان: راهبه؛ نویسنده: دنی دیدرو؛ مترجم: قاسم صنعوی؛ تهران، فرهنگ جاوید؛ سال1394؛ در272ص؛ شابک9786006182704؛
کتاب را سالها پیش از امروز خوانده ام؛ زندگی راهبه ای جوان و شانزده ساله و نامشروع به نام «سوزان سیمونین» است، که نخست به دیری سنتی وارد می‌شود، در آنجا با اجرای احکام سخت و ریاضت‌های شدید، فشار وحشتناکی بر جسم و جان او وارد می‌آید؛ اما چندی بعد از این بدبختی نجات می‌یابد، و به دیری دیگر منتقل می‌شود؛ از شاهکارهای ادبیات کلاسیک سده ی هجدهم میلادی، سه رمان «راهبه»، «ژاک قضا و قدری» و«برادرزاده رامو» از آثار «دنی دیدرو» هستند؛ ایشان سبکی را در نوشته های خویش پیش گرفتند که خود آن را «قصه تاریخی» مینامیدند، و چیزی جز «رئالیسم» نبود؛ نخستین رمان تمام عیار ایشان همین کتاب «راهبه»، در توصیف و پرورش شخصیتها، و باز کردن لایه های داستان، نمونه ی کم نظیری است؛ ایشان در نگارش این رمان بیشترین تاثیر را از فضای حاکم بر کلیسا در «پاریس» و زندگی مذهبی اطرافیان خویش گرفته است
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 06/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 21/10/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی -
I used to talk to Diderot!
Seriously! He was my first literary crush, and the first author who inspired me without exception. From my very first encounter with him at university, I was captivated by the lively, humorous intellectual giant, who could juggle the Enlightenment questions while being social, human, and incredibly funny. I sat in the attic of our university library, where the whole Encyclopédie was arranged and remained rather untouched for decades on end. And I read random articles penned by Diderot, and laughed with the ghosts of wit past. For I could not find any living person who put so much energy and charm into loving literature, justice and life. Had Diderot been a contemporary of ours, he would spread bliss on Goodreads, I am sure. And probably, he would be a Goodreads librarian as well, reviewing non-existent books for fun, hoping for stupid pseudo-erudite comments from flatterers (and I would be one of them, maybe!).
For Diderot knew how to spread Fake News long before they made the real news and became an epidemic in the fake world of 2016. “La Religieuse” came into being as a practical joke played on a friend, a fake story supported by fake letters. What a grandiose time Diderot and his friends must have had, coming up with the procedure to make a mutual friend engage in support of a fugitive nun, who had been forced into a monastery against her will. In the end, they were very sad to have to kill her off, as a meeting between the real friend and the literary heroine was imminent. Che drama!
However, even though the text derives from a made-up story, and was created with the intention to play a trick on a friend, it would be entirely wrong to dismiss its message as a Don Quixotesque joke. For that is how Diderot got his message across: he disguised serious matters behind a curtain of silly adventures, exaggerations and inconsistencies. To be taken seriously, he made fun of the world. And that is what I find so incredibly compelling in him. My whole personality bows to the man who saw the injustice and idiocy of the world around him, but still found pleasure and amusement enough to be witty, not bitter.
Certainly, the misery of monastery life and its social implications is exaggerated in “La Religieuse”, or condensed to one story. For there were numerous cases of young girls forced by parents to become nuns, for social or pecuniary reasons. And there were trials that were lost. There were reports of cruelty and bullying, as well as sexual obsessions and abuse. Diderot collected the different experiences of monastery life and put them all together in the consecutive adventures of his protagonist in different monasteries. It is not very likely that one person would have experienced all of that, but all those abuses were common.
The interesting argument in the short novel, however, is not the inhumanity of the inhabitants of monasteries, and their meaningless, shallow rituals, but the reason why the young woman doesn’t want to stay there. She can’t expect to have a life in splendor anywhere else either, in fact. She will have to work hard, subject to all kinds of insecurities, and male violence. But she insists that she can’t be made to live in a monastery, for she is not suited for it: she wants her freedom, la liberté, and the monastery is a symbol for parental, religious and state dominance over individuals’ natural inclinations and instincts.
The story criticises four elements of French society:
The State that lets religious institutions take over such a big share of decision making regarding the liberty of its citizens
The Church that provides a system in which it earns money by withdrawing young people from active, social life
The Society that provides a moral code which allows for punishment of illegitimate children rather than their parents
The Catholic dogma that is inconsistent, confusing and outrageously evil in some respects
To me, the most shocking part was reading the “harmless” dialogues between the main character and different devout family members and nuns. I found it hard to understand that they actually believed they would “meet in heaven”, - that they would “sit down and talk” about the people they knew on Earth. When the protagonist is seriously ill, one of the nuns in her monastery laments that she is going to meet her favourite friend in heaven:
“And what is she going to tell her about me?”
Going to heaven to gossip about others? What?
Or the unfaithful mother, who pushes her child into a monastery, so that she can redeem herself in heaven. Utterly bizarre. What kind of a deity is that, who would punish a (dead) sinner if the (living) offspring doesn’t behave?
"Songez, mon enfant, que le sort de votre mère, dans l'autre monde, dépend beaucoup de la conduite que vous tiendrez dans celui-ci: Dieu, qui voit tout, m'appliquera, dans sa justice, tout le bien et tout le mal que vous ferez."
Reading Diderot sharpened my eyes and ears in this area, and I was completely taken aback when my finishing of the book coincided with the sudden deaths of two celebrities, and the news that one of them had “her stroke because she wanted to go and care for her deceased daughter”. What kind of care does her daughter need, if she is in that obscure place called heaven? Bizarre rationalisations still very much alive among human beings who can’t imagine that their influence on others will ever cease. That life is over when it’s over. We still need to think that we are needed, that we can watch over the world and gossip about it, that we will meet again, in a strangely familiar setting (where?). Diderot pointed it out with stunning accuracy, when he reflected that people invoke gods and devils and heavens and hells according to their current needs, without logic:
“Il me paraissait assez singulier que la même chose vînt de Dieu ou du diable, selon qu'il leur plaisait de l'envisager. Il y a beaucoup de circonstances pareilles dans la religion; et ceux qui m'ont consolée m'ont souvent dit de mes pensées, les uns que c'étaient autant d'instigations de Satan, et les autres, autant d'inspirations de Dieu. Le même mal vient, ou de Dieu qui nous éprouve, ou du diable qui nous tente.”
I strongly recommend reading “La Religieuse” as the perfect case for personal freedom, against prejudice and patented dogma. We need Diderot’s clear vision more than ever!
But I will close with another favourite of mine, reflecting on the strange group of people who all aspire to a place in that heavenly, gossiping beehive.
As Oscar Wilde said: “I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there!”
Just think about it! The Who’s Who In Heaven is a scary read! -
Suzanne, the narrator, is sixteen years old, has two sisters, and a lawyer father with "more fortune than necessary to establish them solidly."
The problem, her father is not her father, the two sisters will each have half of the fortune, and Suzanne will find herself in a convent to atone for her mother's sin.
Her parents' wish is not hers, and she will do everything to escape these convents, which will reserve cruel moments for her.
To write this book, Diderot started with a fact. "Work of public and general utility because it was the cruellest satire we had ever made of the cloisters." -
“So you’re not going to come to see me anymore?”
“No, dear Mother.”
“And you won’t let me come and see you in your cell anymore?”
“No, dear Mother.”
“Will you refuse my caresses?”
“It will be very difficult for me to do so, for I was born affectionate and I like being caressed, but I must. I’ve promised my confessor and I made a vow before the altar.”
Looking at the above, is that the normal conversation between a nun and her mother superior? Perhaps it was at that particular time?
On that note, where do you possibly start with even attempting to write a review on any work by this exceptional 18th century French author and philosopher?
Diderot has indeed excelled himself here. He was a leading literary figure and believed that people generally needed to socialize and he seemed to think it quite unhealthy that individuals could even contemplate withdrawing from society. So it seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum that he would write this 1770 novella (posthumously published in 1796 – he evidently was never in a hurry to get his written works to the public) against a backdrop of girls, as young as fifteen, who were forced by their parents to take their perpetual vows for life in the claustrophobic atmosphere of the convents.
In addition, what intrigued me more than anything about Diderot was that he was both an atheistic and a materialist, and yet he’s written a religious book and a satire at that. And to think that this book started as a hoax on a good friend:
“I have learned, written as a hoax: the purpose was initially to lure Marc-Antoine-Nicholas Croismare, Marquis of Lasson, back to Paris. Following the death of his wife, Suzanne Davy de La Pailleterie (a relation of Alexandre Dumas), the Marquis quit Paris and stayed away for eight years, during which time he had taken interest in the real life case of Marguerite Delamarre, who had claimed that, like the narrator of The Nun Suzanne Simonin, she was forced to take her vows against her will. Diderot, along with his friends, decided to trick the Marquis into returning, and the letters, turned into the novel, were purported to be from Suzanne, appealing to the Marquis for help.”
Unfortunately this all backfired, as the Marquis was not to be lured back and the issuance of this book subsequently took a different turn in its retelling.
In my naivety, I believed that nuns typified godliness, devoutness, modesty and kindness, amongst other things, but what do we have here in this remarkable work? Well nothing except nuns who are portrayed as conniving, murderous in thought, violent, lying and with a penchant for lesbian sexual pursuits. The contradictory aspect is that despite all of this, they are also very naïve and emotionally/sexually vulnerable. I was amused nevertheless to see how licentious mother superiors could bring these impressionable young girls round to their way of thinking. Some form of religious hysteria I guess. I was disappointed nonetheless at the lack of bondage (that was sad) but at least I had the evidence of several pieces of rope to encourage me in this vague possibility.
Sister Suzanne supposedly appears not to really understand (methinks that’s highly unlikely) the tame advances (and are they tame – there’s no leaping or bounding around with passion) made towards her by her new mother superior. Well it’s all rather unfortunate for the nuns in the convent that a certain confessor gets involved in the act with our sister and then everything escalates completely out of control…
I found the use of the first person as the narrator a powerful tool for describing the plight of these unfortunate girls. Most had their own dowries to pay for their time spent in the convents (few ever left before the laws were changed) but we also have the all-pervading atmosphere of pre-revolutionary France where the King had the right to sign “lettres de cachet”, whereupon an individual could be tossed into jail, or in this case, a convent without any recourse whatsoever. These letters “contained orders directly from the king, often to enforce arbitrary actions and judgments that could not be appealed.”
This book set my thought processes reeling from one of comedy and laughter through to black humour and tragedy and when I finished the last page, I smiled and in fact I was even tempted to laugh out loud at Diderot’s writing. Perhaps I was on the verge of hysteria. Weren’t nuns supposed to suffer from hysteria?
On one hand, there’s the violence demonstrated by the nuns and mother superior towards the supposedly reserved and innocent Sister Suzanne, who, on the other hand, basically seems to enjoy most aspects of her lifestyle at the three convents she stays in even though she’s going through the “wars”. On the surface she appears to remain mentally, not physically, untouched by everything that happens to her. Our sister is a survivor and I always have a very high regard for that type of individual, be it in life or in a novel such as this.
And as for Suzanne’s mother; could one really believe her story about her daughter’s birth or was it all contrived?
The letters written by “the likeable and ill-fated Sister Suzanne Saulier (known as Simonin in the story and in this correspondence)” to the Marquis and his replies are edifying and then what does he do, but throw a spanner in the works. And the letters of Madame Madin all add spice to the tale.
I don’t know what it is that I find fascinating about nuns, monks and monasteries but I do. One of those mysteries of life I guess.
On that final note, all I can say is that I adored this book and look forward to reading more books by this remarkable man. -
Through the halls and cells of a convent, guarded by high walls and austere religious customs, we follow a young nun making arrangements to escape a future that was imposed on her. She has a knack for logic and no ear for vocation, so she is not able to find any justification for all the suffering and pious rules that govern her. In her fight for freedom she uses all the means of revolt there are: open protest, rigid obedience, lawsuit, relocation etc. Embracing her destiny is not a viable alternative and even an ungodly reader prays with her that it will not become one.
The church’s aberrations are rarely so vividly coloured as in the journey of this nun, who happens to find herself surrounded by odd habits of nunneries and can’t make sense of them. Our habits and rituals may seem ridiculous to an outside observer, all the more so, when there is no reason behind them. She is as close to a spring of meaning as it gets and everything she encounters forces her to drink from it: old traditions, that must have some sense to have lasted for so long and to be so highly respected; the lives of fellow nuns that must be meaningful in some way. Nevertheless she finds none for herself and remains detached. There’s no hidden, internal logic of such a closed system, just an obliviousness to the general laws of the world.
Although this novel is an epitome of all the wrongdoings of religious institutions to a degree that it made me laugh, I still felt a bit cheated by the final twist; but in a most charming way there is. I wanted to go back in time when stories emerged in passing and there was still as much effort put in personal pursuits as it was in professional ones… If, of course, such a time ever existed and it was not reserved for the chosen few who might as well be living today. -
I’m applying for positions of paid work at the moment (known as a “job”—so I’m told), and after about a month of no replies I’m about ready to sign up for the convent. I would love to be a nun! Provided I had computer and broadband access, and was permitted to read any book I so pleased, I’d put on my habit and sing the sacraments! Unfortunately all the nun positions are filled at the moment, despite me faking three months nunning experience on my CV. (I’m considering changing the name on my CV to Jeffrey Archer, since everything else on there is made up—British joke, Google the bestselling turd). This book is amazing! Diderot is such a fiendishly funny satirist, wiping the floor with all his 18thC cronies. The Nun takes us from a sadistic convent regime of starving and torture into a sumptuous world of desirous shephebes (my coinage—hire me someone!), in breathless first-person prose: excellent rhythm, pacing and plotting. And a wee bit titillating. The book was originally orchestrated as a hoax, which makes me love Diderot even more.
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Comecei com dúvidas, rapidamente me senti presa na história, e acabei enfadada.
Não sendo um livro que condene a religião ou a vida monástica, pareceu-me sim, uma história bem conseguida de denúncia das regras apertadas sofridas no interior das instituições religiosas. Tal começa pelo isolamento anti-natural ao ser humano, e vai mais longe através das inúmeras provações a que são sujeitas as religiosas. As consequências psicológicas e físicas são graves, sendo, neste caso, acentuadas pela falta de vocação religiosa da protagonista e pela entrada forçada no convento. Situação que seria comum por razões familiares, sociais ou económicas, muitas jovens seriam atiradas para dentro de um convento sem uma palavra a dizer em sua defesa.
O que me cansou nesta história foi o excesso de desgraças que acontecem a uma só pessoa sem que haja um único momento de trégua, e a extrema inocência e candura da irmã Suzanne, sobretudo na última parte, que se torna inverosímil precisamente por tanta e inacreditável ingenuidade. -
Wowzers! how I loved this book. At face value, this is a slim and straight-forward epistolary novel about a young woman who is forced into covenant life by her awful, self-absorbed parents, who then proceeds to stand firm to her ideals as she is antagonized by sadistic, power-hungry hypocrites and mentally disturbed sex fiends. While Diderot was very much an atheist, he does a praiseworthy turn here giving voice to a sincerely religious narrator that has no desire to live the claustrophobic and tedious life of a nun. Not so much an attack against religion as much as an attack on the socially constructed institution of religion, Diderot weaves subtle and sublime satire into his novel, making it not only a potent lashing of the people who misuse religion as a means of taking out their petty, insensible vengeance on the world, but also a melancholy cry of empathy for the men and women who find themselves trapped in the repressed, anti-physical hologram that is the lifestyle of the insanely devout. Bonus points for Diderot's generous characterizations of the complexities of gender roles waaay before there was any modern idea such as lesbianism...and that ending...oh that ending! An act of pre-modern postmodern genius or just a helluva twist, take your pick. Read this book.
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Μια νεαρή κοπέλα εξαναγκάζεται από τους γονείς της να γίνει καλόγρια. Εκείνη δε θέλει αυτή τη μοίρα, αλλά δεδομένου το ότι η ύπαρξή της ντροπιάζει την οικογένειά της, είναι κάτι το απαραίτητο και κάτι για το οποίο ΟΛΟΙ προσπαθούν την πείσουν πως είναι η καλύτερη και πιο συνετή επιλογή που μπορεί να κάνει.
Εκεί στο μοναστήρι θα γνωρίσει τα βασανιστήρια, σωματικά και ψυχικά, από ανθρώπους αφοσιωμένους στο Θεό, οι οποίοι στο όνομά του θεωρούν πως ό,τι κάνουν είναι για το καλό αυτής της ξεστρατισμένης ψυχής.
Αυτό είναι το πρώτο κομμάτι. Στο δεύτερο κομμάτι η Σουζάννα θα βιώσει τις συνέπειες του εγκλεισμού και της στέρησης της ελευθερίας ενός νέου ανθρώπου.
Θα μπορούσε να είναι γραμμένο οποιαδήποτε εποχή και για οποιαδήποτε κοινωνία και δε θα μπορούσε να ήταν πιο αληθινό.
Οι άνθρωποι μπορούν να γίνουν απίστευτα μικρόψυχοι όταν οι ισορροπίες τους απειλούνται από επαναστάτριες ψυχές που αρνούνται να συμμορφωθούν στο σύστημα-όποιο κι αν είναι αυτό. Από την άλλη όμως πόσο μπορεί να κρατήσει την ψυχική του ισορροπία ένας νέος άνθρωπος που στερείται την ελευθερία και αναγκάζεται να εναντιωθεί στην ίδια την ανθρώπινη φύση?
Ο Ντιντερό τελικά ήταν ένας φοβερός τύπος με πολύ χιούμορ και δεν μπόρεσα να μη γελάσω με τον επίλογο (που ήταν πρόλογος) του μικρού αυτού μεγάλου έργου. Διαμαρτύρεται ενάντια στη θεολογική κλίση που την υπαγορεύουν διάφορες κοινωνικές πιέσεις και καταγγέλλει τη μοναστηριακή απομόνωση σαν εναντίωση της ίδιας της ανθρώπινης φύσης. Η μαρτυρία της Σουζάννας αποκαλύπτει μια κοινωνία και μια εκκλησία που θέλουν να πνίξουν κάθε επιθυμία για ελευθερία, επικοινωνία και ανθρώπινη επαφή.
Η Καλόγρια είναι ένα έργο που άργησε πολύ να δημοσιευτεί κι όταν δημοσιεύτηκε ξεσήκωσε θύελλες αντιδράσεων από νοσταλγούς των παλαιών καθεστώτων που ξεκατινιάστηκαν βρίζοντας τους «νεαρούς που παριστάνουν τους φιλόσοφους και τρέφονται με τα μεταθανάτια περιττώματα του Ντιντερό» (έκλαψα) -
This is an interesting novella, written in the form of a letter, by a nun to someone she hopes will help her break the vows which she took by force.
The young French girl, Suzanne, is a victim of circumstances, hated by her family through no fault of her own, and forced to enter a convent. She takes the orders against her wishes although she realizes she has no vocation.
At the convent she falls into the bad books of the Mother Superior and is abused horrifically, sadistically even. Some of the methods the nuns used to abuse her were pretty shocking.
The book is not an attack on Catholicism by any means; Suzanne never loses her faith despite her ordeals. What it is is an attack on the “unnatural” atmosphere of a cloister. It brings to the forefront the awful practice of forcing young girls into convents, often when they were as young as 15 (too young to really know what was going on). Truly, Diderot paints convent life in the most awful way. The convent conditions sound dreadful and don’t seem to be conducive to growth or anything remotely positive. As Suzanne said, "I have plenty of courage, but no courage in the world can hold out in the face of neglect, solitude and persecution."
I think it was an interesting read for me as I had always assumed that convents wouldn’t be such places of pettiness, and that relations between nuns would be civil at least. Alas, this was not the case in this book. -
Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land.
Given the untimely arrival of our Arctic Vortex, it is fitting that The Nun shudders with a frozen despair. Bone chilling mornings are well suited for such guided tours of the dark side. Abandon your preconceptions of the Enlightenment and moral cautionary tales, Diderot's creation is terrifying. Apparently it was a practical joke used to trick a friend to return to Paris from the countryside. The novel takes the form of an escaped nun tracing her history in a lengthy letter about a series of convents, ones where the prevailing theme is obedience. One thinks of Martin Amis, "give some someone absolute control over another and thoughts soon turn to torture." Forget Sade or Huysmans, I was scared shitless by the novel's second Mother Superior: think Martha Stewart as Torquemada. -
Funny classic novel about a nun! This novel was originally written as a joke! And a joke it should be read and enjoyed!
La Religieuse (The Nun) is an 18th century French novel, by Denis Diderot. Completed in c. 1780, the work, however, wasn't published until 1796, after Diderot's death. Diderot wrote a letter to his retired companion Marquis de Croismare to entice him to retreat back to Paris. The letter was supposed to be from a nun incarcerated in a convent asking Croismare to save her. Many of Diderot's friends found the letters amusing so Diderot revised and made it into a novel.
Suzanne was a 19-y/o girl who was the youngest in the family of 3 girls. Her mother had an affair with another man and although Suzanne grew up with her mother's real husband, she felt unloved. When she began to have admirers, her parents brought her to a convent to become a nun. In front of the altar when the priest asked if she wanted to be come a nun, she answered no. Her parents plead to her but she persisted. But they died. So, with nowhere else to go, she finally agreed. However, she still felt trapped and she started to create scenes in the convent. She was punished until a priest transferred her to another convent. In that other convent, she was molested by the Mother Superior.
The plot is not funny. Rather, if it were true in the 18th century France (where most people are catholics), it could have created a scandal. Also, learning in the book's introduction that it was supposed to be a joke, I could not help but laugh in many scenes in it. My favorite is that part when after Suzanne was punished by the nuns, she prayed loud to God to forgive her tormentors. The Mother Superior said that she Suzanne compared herself to Jesus Christ and they (the nuns) as the Jews who crucified Him.
However, it is also written in Wikipedia that Diderot had a nun sister who died in a French Catholic church from overwork. This was said to have changed his view on religion.
Yesterday, I was in Fullybooked Rockwell with my father-in-law. We were celebrating Father's Day together with my family and his wife and our US-based visiting ninang. My father-in-law bought two non-fiction books worth P1,600+. One of them was about WWII and the other one is a book on humor (jokes). He said that he does not read fiction because they are just gawa-gawa ng tao. Unknown to him, I had already bought two books worth P900+: Pnin by my favorite Vladimir Nabokov and At-Swim Two Birds by Flann O'Brien. I retorted that fiction books may have been that but most of them have basis in real life. They are just made into fiction to be more interesting. Non-fiction could also be gawa-gawa so we cannot be sure if they are all true.
Like The Nun. We know about those scandals inside the church. Like the valiant story of McArthur or the fake medals of President Marcos that were erroneously written in our history. That episode in Desperate Housewives was not funny at all. Some Filipino doctors in the US even marched on the streets demanding apology from Fox and the producers of the show.
I seldom buy regular-priced books. For more than a year now, I have not been buying clothes except those given to me during holidays (Father's Day, my birthday and Christmas) by my family and friends. I have "rainy days" fund. However, I still know how to share and how to enjoy money to bring me happiness. Good friends and books (like The Nun) do make me happy. -
3 stars for the first half, 4 stars for the sudden turn into softcore 1796-appropriate lesbian nun erotica*. rounding up from 3.5 for the batshit circumstances of how it was written**. on a meta level, the association of convents with seduction (in the sense that young girls are seduced into convents when they don’t know better and then trapped/ruined for the outside world) is fascinating social commentary. on a character level, i’m sending sister susan the lesbian masterdoc
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*some quotes, because it's hard to overstate the degree to which i was reading this thinking "am i going insane? am i reading too deep? did he know what he was doing. he had to know what he was doing. am i LOSING it or-" (all from the francis birrel translation. nsfw warning?)"Meanwhile she had raised her neckerchief and placed one of my hands on her breast. She was silent and so was I. She appeared to experience the greatest rapture. She asked me to kiss her forehead, her cheeks, her eyes, and her lips. I obeyed her. I do not think there can have been any harm in that. Meanwhile her pleasure increased, and as I asked nothing better than to add to her pleasure in any innocent way, I kissed her again on her forehead, her cheeks, her eyes, and her lips... She exhorted me stammering and in a low and strange voice to redouble my caresses, and I did so. Then came a moment, I do not know if it was pleasure or pain, when she turned pale as death: her eyes closed, all her body stiffened violently, her lips first were tightened and then wet as if with a light froth; then her mouth opened slightly and she seemed to me to die, as she uttered a deep sigh. I got up quickly: I thought she was ill. I wished to go out and call for help. She opened her eyes fully and said in a dying voice: 'My innocent, it is nothing. What are you going to do? It is nothing.' I looked at her with puzzled eyes, uncertain if I should go or stay. She opened her eyes once more. She could no longer say anything. She signaled to me to approach and put me on to her knees again. I do not understand what went on inside me. I was afraid, I trembled, my heart thumped, I had difficulty in breathing, I felt disturbed, oppressed, agitated; I was frightened. I felt that my strength was abandoning me and that I was going to swoon. But I cannot say that the experience was exactly painful."
^ the moment i went from "this is a little homo" to "is this about to be porn.""She took my arms and kissed them. 'Fancy drowning these eyes in tears,' and she kissed them, 'or calling forth from these lips complaints and groans,' and she kissed my lips, 'or condemning this charming and serene countenance to continual clouds of sorrow,' and she kissed my face, 'or withering the roses on these cheeks,' and she stroked them with her hand and kissed them, 'or destroying the beauty of that head, tearing that hair out, and lining that brow with care,' and she kissed my head, my brow, and my hair. 'Fancy daring to put a rope round that neck and tear those shoulders with pointed nails!' She pushed aside the covering of my neck and head and opened the top of my dress. My hair fell scattered on my bare shoulders: my breast was half-exposed, and she covered with kisses my neck, bare shoulders, and half-naked breast. [...] I do not know what was happening inside me, but I was seized with a terror, a trembling, and a desire to swoon which verified my suspicion that her illness was contagious."
^ contagious... susan i have something to tell you but you're not gonna like it"She paused here, and properly so, for what she was going to ask me was not right. And perhaps I am still more wrong to repeat it. But I have made up my mind to hide nothing.
'You have never been tempted to observe with satisfaction how handsome you are?'
'No, Mother; I am not sure I am as handsome as you say. And even if I were, one is handsome for others, not for oneself.'
'You have never thought of running your hands over your lovely breast, over your body, your flesh, which is so firm, so soft, and so white.'"
^ need to clarify that "mother" is the convent's mother superior. not literally her mother. anyway #justnunthings: "hey susan do you ever feel tempted to jerk off to your own beautiful body""'One only goes to confession to accuse oneself of one's sins; and I see none in my tender love for such a lovable girl as Saint Susan.'"
^ do susan and the mother superior have a "good" relationship. no. because it is hard for susan to say no to the woman who leads the convent. however. this line did get me in the heart"By day, if I was walking or in the work- or recreation-room and placed in such a manner that I could not see her, she passed whole hours gazing at me."
^ let me mention that the mother superior is one of TWO nuns who"Follow his advice [to avoid the Mother Superior] and try to be ignorant of the reasons for it [lesbianism] as long as you live."
"But it seems to me that if I knew the danger I should be the more attentive to avoid it."
"The opposite might perhaps be the case."
^ they don't tell her about lesbianism because they're afraid she'll enjoy it too much. the convent is SO afraid of this woman getting her pussy ate"But can the caresses and familiarities of one woman be dangerous to another?"
There was no answer from Dom Morel.
"Am I not the same as when I arrived here?"
There was no answer from Dom Morel.
"Should I not have continued to be the same? Where, then, is the harm of loving, of saying so, and testifying to it? It is so sweet."
^ susan i'm getting you out of that nunnery and we're going to pride."Alone in bed, [the Mother Superior] sees me, talks to me, asks me to come and stand beside her, addresses me the tenderest remarks. If she hears steps round her room she cries: 'It is she who is going by. I recognize her step. Let her be called in... No, no, let her be.'
The curious thing is that she never made a mistake, taking another for me."
^ that last line? girl the way i felt realizing i was deeply deeply invested in the eighteenth-century lesbian nun class reading
and finally:"'Her eyes, her lips. When shall I see her again? Sister Agatha, tell her I love her. Describe my condition to her. Tell her I am dying...'"
^ this is right before . DUDE.
halfway through this book the other nuns accused susan of doing Untoward Things with another girl and i wrote in my status update "on god sister susan we're gonna get you some gay sex." little did i Fucking Know. no it isn't GOOD gay rep; it falls into the predatory older lesbian stereotype; but oh my fucking god i was not expecting it and the emotional journey i went through.
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**you thought that was wild for 1796? guess what. there's more. this book is fucking nuts. it's a fictionalized memoir, but it's based off the story of a real nun who appealed in court to be released from her convent (an appeal which failed). diderot had a friend who got really into the case. and so, a few years down the line when that friend moved away and his old buddies missed him, said buddies decided the only thing to do, naturally, was START WRITING HIM LETTERS PRETENDING TO BE THE REAL NUN ASKING HIM TO COME BACK HOME TO HELP HER BEFORE SHE KILLS HERSELF. and it got so intense that to avoid getting caught (because of course they could not actually produce a nun at the end of this shtick), THEY KILLED HER OFF. like. the last letter was someone being like "ya she died lol sorry." eventually they did have to confess it was a prank, but not before diderot got so deep into it that he brought himself to tears writing the fake nun's 200-page fake memoir. from the bottom of my heart all i've got is "girl what the fuck." this book is nuts -
A novel about nun-and-nun lesbian love. In a broader context, about what happens when piety is imposed against one's free will. From his personal experience, Denis Diderot knew it is tragic. His own sister, forced into an Ursuline convent, lost her mind and died there, insane. He himself was once locked up in a monastery by his own father who had wanted him to become a priest. He escaped and instead married his Nanette.
This is an 18th century novel and when it was written by this Frenchman Diderot one (1) in every 200 Frenchwomen was a nun. Young, beautiful French girls were being sent to convents against their will for all sorts of reasons (e.g., they're illegitimate, unmarried still and past the age of marrying, etc.). The country then remarkably had more nuns than monks: 5,000 convents with around 55,000 nuns compared to only 3,000 monasteries which were homes to around 30,000 monks. It would have been not much a problem had these nuns and monks been allowed to socialize or interact with each other but these were Catholic nuns and monks so celibacy and chastity were rigid rules--at least on paper.
Through a character in the novel Diderot passionately lashes at this system, at these rash, forced and unnatural vows taken by these creatures of the flesh:
"Can these vows, which fly in the face of our natural inclinations, ever be properly observed by anyone other than a few abnormal creatures in whom the seeds of passion have withered and whom we should rightly consider as monsters, if the current state of our knowledge allow us to understand the internal structure of man as easily and as well as we understand his external form? Do all those doleful ceremonies that are performed at the taking of the habit and at the profession, when a man or woman is dedicated to the monastic life and to misfortune, actually suspend our animal instincts? On the contrary, are not those very instincts stirred up in the silence, constraint, and idleness, and with a violence unknown to people in the world outside who are swept along by a host of distractions? Where does one see minds obsessed by impure visions which haunt them and torment them? Where does one see that profound boredom, that pallor, and those skeletal forms which are all symptoms of nature languishing and wasting away? Where are the nights troubled by groans and days filled with tears shed needlessly and preceded by some mysterious melancholy? Where does nature, revolted by a constraint for which it is not intended, smash the obstacles put in its way, become enraged, and throw the whole animal system into incurable disarray? Where have spite and whim destroyed all social qualities? ...Where does man, considering himself but an ephemeral, transitory being, treat the sweetest relationships of this world with disinterest, as a traveller treats the things he comes across? Where is the dwelling place of coercion, disgust, and hysteria? Where is the home of servitude and despotism? Where is undying hatred? Where are the passions nurtured in silence? "
Indeed, where but in the whole of France was it that nuns kiss each other, mouth-to-mouth, tongues skirmishing, and attaching their country's very name to this delicious intimacy they have invented? Mother Superiors having orgasms while newly entered nuns, fresh and innocent, sat on their laps? Or one, after having touched and praised every part of a young nun's body, who would piously intone:
"No, it is the greatest joy that God has called her to the cloistered life; with a figure like that in the outside world she would have driven every man she set her eyes on to damnation, and she would have bee damned with them. All God's ways are just!" -
O enredo de A Religiosa, de Denis Diderot, é relativamente simples: uma jovem parisiense de boas famílias, Maria Susana Simonin, é obrigada a professar votos numa comunidade religiosa feminina, para preservar a herança da família apenas entre as suas irmãs mais velhas e, secretamente, por ser filha ilegítima de sua mãe. Uma vez no convento, todas as suas forças e desejos são devotadas ao projecto de obtenção da sua liberdade, que, ao final de peripécias e agruras várias, consegue finalmente alcançar, pese embora a custo elevado.
Originalmente concebida em 1780, e apenas publicada a título póstumo em 1796, Diderot afirma que a sua escrita foi, na verdade, uma falsificação elaborada de forma a interessar o seu amigo, o marquês de Croismare, retirado na província, no caso fictício de uma freira em apuros e traze-lo de volta a Paris, para junto dos seus companheiros. No entanto, subsistem até hoje dúvidas, entre os historiadores, se a própria justificação da narrativa de A Religiosa não é, em si mesma, uma piada ou um embuste com propósitos obscuros. Podemos afirmar, todavia, com segurança, que Diderot teve como modelo o caso de Marguerite Delamarre, a filha de um joalheiro parisiense, obrigada a professar votos de castidade, obediência e pobreza no convento de Longchamp (o mesmo de Susana Simonin) devida à ganância de seus pais, que a sacrificaram, usando o dinheiro do dote que lhe caberia em casamento para comprar um título de nobreza de toga no Parlamento de Paris.
A obra afirmou-se como vector importante de discussão iluminista sobre a validade dos votos religiosos, dos potenciais abusos das ordens religiosas sobre os seus membros, do lado pernicioso da imposição de castidade e isolamento social e comunitário, e, em última análise, de todo o sistema jurídico que permitia aos pais dispor do destino dos filhos de forma absoluta e sem direito a apelo.
Talvez a única grande falha a apontar a A Religiosa é a de estar muito bem escrita. Que haja uma freira contrafeita com a sua ordenação, é um facto várias vezes repetido ao longo da história. Que essa freira tentasse obter a liberdade, não é ocorrência inaudita, veja-se o caso da irmã Delamarre. Que uma freira pudesse possuir conhecimento e erudição superiores, ao nível até dos melhores filósofos do seu tempo, é um feito devidamente comprovado por inúmeros exemplos, como o de Hildegarda de Bingen e Heloísa de Argenteuil. Todavia, que uma religiosa, que iniciou o seu noviciado aos dezasseis anos, detentora de uma formação de base satisfatória mas não esmerada, tendo apenas acesso aos estudos bíblicos e exegéticos dos santos evangelhos, bem como aos escritos edificantes das abadessas ilustres de tempos passados, consiga argumentar com tanta eloquência e propriedade todos estes pontos filosóficos anticlericais e resistir firme, com pertinácia inquebrável, em busca da sua emancipação é demasiado rebuscado.
A irmã Susana Simonin é, na verdade, Diderot metamorfoseado, em combate contra a Igreja e vários dos seus princípios, acima enunciados, que feriam a nascente sensibilidade moderna e o seu culto da liberdade, por oposição ao da obediência hierárquica secular, proveniente em linha directa da Idade Média. Um filósofo iluminista com as roupagens de uma religiosa insubmissa arguindo incansavelmente contra a autoridade clerical. A título de exemplo, atente-se no seguinte discurso entre Susana e o seu confessor, D. Morel, revelador das intenções programáticas de Diderot:
“– E que esperanças pode ter uma religiosa?
– Que esperanças? A primeira, a de que os seus votos sejam resignados.
– E quando essa esperança se perde?
– Que virá um dia a encontrar as portas abertas; que os homens deixem de ter a extravagância de encerrar em sepulcros jovens criaturas cheias de vida e que os conventos sejam abolidos; que o fogo devore estas casas; que as paredes de clausura caiam por terra; que alguém venha em seu auxílio. Todas estas suposições lhe vêm à cabeça; o tempo passa; enquanto passeiam pela cerca, olham para os muros, mesmo sem pensar que eles são altos de mais; se estão na cela, abanam as grades das janelas, distraidamente, como se não soubessem o que estão a fazer; se vêem a rua da janela, olham para baixo; se ouvem passar alguém, sentem o coração bater mais depressa no peito, surdamente desejam um libertador; se ouvem lá fora qualquer ruído, ficam à espera; pensam numa doença que os aproxime de alguém ou que os mandem para umas termas.” (DIDEROT, p. 170-71)
Mal Diderot sabia que este seu programa anticlerical seria seguido bem à risca pelos revolucionários franceses, poucos anos após a escrita destas linhas.
Referências
DIDEROT (1973) – A Religiosa. Trad. de João Gaspar Simões. Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores. -
خشيت لمدة طويلة اقتحام عالم ديدرو فكما اعلم انه عالم موسوعي فهالني ان اقتحم روايتاه التي قد تكون مغرقة في مفردات غريبة و صعبة..الترجمة العربية شجعتني و لم اندم وروز مخلوف ابدعت بصدق في الترجمة ..الرواية بدأت برسالة مطولة لراهبة تعيش الأمرين بين عائلة قتلتها الاسرار ففضلت الأم تقديم سوزان كقربان للدير علها تكفر عن خطيئتها و بين ثلاث اديرة كل منها كانت له عذاباته التي تنسيها في سابقاتها..سوزان الفتاة المتصالحة مع ذاتها رغم صغر سنها البريئة و التي تعرف بالضبط ما الذي تستطيع تقديمه لله و لنفسها حاربت سجنها داخل الدير بشتى الوسائل و لم تصمت رغم كل العذاب الذي قاسته...ادخلتنا سوزان لعالم كئيب للرهبنة _التي تحرمه ديانتنا الاسلام و ما احكمها ديانة_ عالم من الصرامة المبالغ فيها سجن تحت اسم الرب و اغتيال للمشاعر الدنيوية و اغتصاب للحريات و للاجساد بداعي التقرب من الله ..ديدرو كان حكيما و هو المعروف بكتاباته المحروقة او التي زجت به في السجن فتناول طريقة سرد غريبة قد تقتل الرواية او قد تحييها حسب مزاج القارئ بالنسبة لي اغرمت بالرواية لكني صدمت بآخر قسم فيها كنت افضل لو تغاضى عنه ديدرو و لن اخبر بالكثير حتى لا تفقد الرواية طعمها للقراء..مع ذلك اقول اني ندمت انني أجلت دخول عالم الراهبة سوزان ..
قراءة ممتعة -
رواية كئيبة ومملة.
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Mi-a plăcut cartea, dar nu din cauza modului în care e scrisă, nu pentru moralitatea înaltă, nu pentru eroina principală. Îmi voi aminti de această carte pentru emoțiile pe care le-a trezit. De la primele pagini am fost cuprinsă de furie.
Și nu de mânia față de oamenii religioși, am o atitudine neutră de multă vreme față de biserică. Furia a fost cauzată în mod special de acele femei, din acea mănăstire, de starețele despotice, care de fapt nu aveau nici o vocație de a fi călugărițe. Furie cauzată de părinții care au trăit în păcat și au făcut ca o fiică nevinovată să plătească pentru asta.
Pentru mine este o carte despre detenție pe viață, despre singurătate și nedorința de a accepta soarta de a fi tăiată de lumea exterioară. -
Kérem Istent, hogy ilyen a valóságba ne fordulhasson elő. Sem most, sem régen. De azt hiszem, hogy bizony előfordul, sajnos még rosszabb is. Ilyenkor elgondolkozok, hogy az ilyen minek imádkozik? Biztos van ennek értelme, de én nem hiszek benne.
Egyébként ahhoz képest amire számítottam meglepően olvasmányos volt és érdekes. Megérdemli, hogy felkerült az 1001 listára. -
Doesn't get into the hot girl-on-girl action 'til like halfway through the book, and then it's super not hot. If you're looking for hot 18th-century girl on girl action, you gotta go with Fanny Hill.
It's pleasant and enjoyable to read. I think one problem with The Nun is that I read it right after The Monk, which is way awesomer. If you're only going to read one blasphemous 18th-century lit book this ear, it has to be The Monk, and you can put that on your movie posters.
So, yeah, there you go. Better evil clergy in The Monk; better lesbian sex in Fanny Hill. The Nun: fine. -
Denis Diderot, among other talents, complied the multi-volume "Encyclopedia."
In 1760 M. Diderot orchestrated a scenario about a nun who claimed she had been abused in her convent; and was, consequently, asking to be released from her vows.
The story, in part, had some validity. A Marguerite Delamarre alleged that she had been abused at the hands of her Superiors.
M. Diderot, however, devised his "Memoirs of a Nun" to be amusing. In fact, M. Diderot's book was intended to be an attack on the Roman Catholic Church.
The book was well written. And I enjoyed reading it. -
Diderot finished The Nun in 1760, but it wasn't published in book form until 1796, twelve years after Diderot's death. What's interesting about this is that the novel is based on a practical joke played on the Marquis de Croismare. The Marquis had stayed in Normandy for several years, when one day he received a letter, where a young nun asked help after having escaped from a convent. This "nun" was actually Diderot and his friends. The story was believable, because the letter was based on Marguerite Delamarre's case, in which de Croismare had been involved (details
here). The joke failed, because the Marquis, instead of returning to Paris, offered the girl a sanctuary in Normandy, so naturally the girl had to be "killed". Surprisingly, after finding out the truth, the Marquis just laughed and didn't mind at all.
Diderot then developed his novel from these letters. His sister went mad and died in a convent, and as one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, a critic of religion, and a defender of women (or at least he was aware that they were treated as children), Diderot's stance on the convent system doesn't come as a surprise.
Although, to be more specific, the novel deals with the practice of sending girls to convents against their will for various reasons (Delamarre was three when she began her convent life). Financial difficulties and too many mouths to feed? Off to the convent! Immoral behavior? Off to the convent! Difficult to gather up a dowry, so that your daughter can't get married? Off to the convent! In mid-18th century every 200th Frenchwoman was a nun, and there were double as many convents (5000) and nuns (55 000) than monasteries and monks.
Suzanne, the protagonist, is genuinely religious, but she doesn't have a calling to be a nun. Her parents force her into a convent, because she's a consequence from her mother's affair, so her (step)father's and mother's hate and guilt lead to Suzanne feeling like she has a duty to move away from her family's, especially her siblings' who worry about their inheritance, range of vision. In short, she has way too much understanding toward her mother's situation.
When Suzanne realizes the truth about convent life, it's already too late. She's forced to suffer from physical abuse and the childish bullying of the nuns and the Mother Superior. A Mother Superior, who brags about how she's able to turn the nuns into monsters at any given moment. It's distressing to read how Suzanne tries to escape her predicament by appealing to outsiders and by getting a lawyer, because the canon law had great weight in 18th century France. An individual, especially a girl, had very little power to decide about their own life.
In real cases, the lawyers who appealed on behalf of their clients, drew attention to the women's passiveness, childlikeness, and their inability to make decisions. One case had a monk, and he was described with the same terms, so that he appeared more feminine and pathetic. The society simply considered those who wanted to get out of the convents hysterical and too keen on independence. The vow you made to God was binding, and if you tried to sever that tie, the society's family values were practically about to get destroyed (Convents and Nuns in Eighteenth-century French Politics and Culture by Mita Choudhury).
When Suzanne switches convents, her inexperience once again leads to trouble with the Mother Superior, but this time just causes confusion in the girl's naive mind. Diderot addresses women's sexual frustration boldly but not scandalously, and Suzanne isn't unhappy because she lost her loved one, so The Nun isn't comparable to earlier semi-pornographic nun fantasies written by men. I admit thinking about Matthew Gregory Lewis's
The Monk (published in the same year) and
The Devils (1971) when I first read the synopsis. The Nun, however, is vastly different, because suicidal nuns who tear their hair and go mad mostly just make you sad. There are many similarities with Delamarre's story, but you can find out yourselves what kind of an ending Suzanne has.
So far probably the most accessible 18th century novel I've read, but still very thought-provoking and intelligent. Russell Goulbourne's translation is clear and fluent, and the Oxford World's Classics edition has a great introduction with the original letters printed in the appendix. Diderot's criticism of religion is sharp, but he avoids preaching, and instead focuses on Suzanne's thoughts and experiences. There were times when the story lagged quite a bit, because the plot is pretty nonexistent, but that's minor."But where's the danger in one woman's intimacy with and caresses for another woman?"
Dom Morel said nothing.
"Am I not just the same as I was when I came here?"
Dom Morel said nothing.
"Wouldn't I have carried on being the same? So where's the harm in loving one another, in saying so and in showing it? It's so pleasant!" -
French polymath screws around while creating the modern encyclopedia and inadvertently writes one of the great books in lit’s canon. As one does.
Only in America, kids. Love it or leave it.
(How much sexier? Nun. There is nun more sexy) -
Apparently the best practical joke in literary history. And who would have thought that an eighteenth century French novel would still pack such a punch!?
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musiałam to przeczytać na studia and im like???? opętane sapphic zakonnice?????? what the hell is that
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(La Religieuse) ممكن اختصار رواية الراهبة
تحفة فنية على شكل كلمات وحروف
ربما قد كتبت الرواية قبل اربعة قرون من الآن، ألا انها لازالت تحتفظ بنضارتها وشبابها كأنها حفيدة هذه اللحظات. كتاب ساحر، غني وصادق، يتحدث عن طفلة بريئة ادخلت قسراً للدير واضحت سجينة قوانين وقواعد وعذابات، واضحت الطفلة سجينة التعذيب الجسدي والفروض القسرية والاغراءات غير المرغوب بها
كتاب مثالي لحقة القرن السابع عشر... ديني واخلاقي وعميق
... شكراً للسيدة روز مخلوف على هذه الترجمة البديعة -
Ces aveux attendrissants dépeignent le monastère tout en jetant des éclairages sur la détresse de ses religieuses et les empiétements de ses supérieures despotiques. Ils focalisent notre intérêt sur le combat de Suzanne Simonin pour fuir la vie conventuelle qu'elle mène à contre gré. Cette dernière n'a aucun goût pour l'état religieux qu'on lui a imposé. Il lui est contre nature car il lui contraint à refouler ses désirs, acquiescer aveuglement aux ordres des supérieures et s'enfermer à jamais dans un couvent.
Ce roman-mémoire, nous éclaire sur un monde qui sombre dans le vice et la bestialité mais, se cache derrière le masque de la vertu et la chasteté: le monde des couvents français au XVIII e siècle.
Sadisme, Saphisme, fanatisme religieux etc... La jeune Suzanne a tant enduré pour expier un péché commis par sa mère; celle de sa naissance. Car être un enfant adultérin, c'est être indésiré, c'est être le stigmate d'une passion interdite, c'est vivre pour le reste de sa vie en marge de la société.
Une faute licencieuse peut-elle vous définir? Peut-elle tracer votre destin? Dans une société si malade comme celle de Suzanne, la réponse est toujours "oui"
Brièvement, Le Livre est un témoignage larmoyant d'une religieuse malgré elle. Il est un aveu de l'injustice d'une société qui macère dans l'ignorance et la superstition.
Une société qui ressemble à la nôtre. -
The story of
Denis Diderot's
The Nun started life as a practical joke on the Marquis whose name is mentioned in the first paragraph. But the more that Diderot looked at it, the more he thought there was a good work of fiction there.
It was rather shameful how young women were locked up in cloistered nunneries because (1) their families were poor and (2) the young women in question were not legitimate. Diderot's Sister Sainte-Suzanne is a case which could conceivably happen. Her second convent was run by a sadist; and her third, by a lesbian. Eventually Suzanne manages to escape, but the author deliberately leaves the ending open.
