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Chargement... Frost In May (Virago Modern Classics) (original 1933; édition 1933)par Antonia White (Auteur)
Information sur l'oeuvreLes saints de glace par Antonia White (1933)
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Would never have picked this, but ran out of books on hol and borrowed one of A's, and it's really really good. Not all that much happens, but it's very funny and quite moving in places. Set in the early 1900s, Nanda is nine years old when her father enrolls her in the convent school outside of London called Convent of the Five Wounds. She quickly learns, in this closed society, that she has to please only God. And, of course, the stodgy, cruel nuns that run the place. (I can say that, as a lapsed Catholic who has had my fill of nuns.) There was a little too much of the holy affairs in the early part of the book but then as Nanda grew up to be a teenager there was a sense of dread that somehow her attention to the rules was slipping and the nuns were going to catch her doing something they didn't allow which was just about anything really. The author was great at character development and creating this sense of doom. I followed it up by listening to the Backlisted podcast about the book and it was absolutely wonderful and revealed that the book was very autobiographical and played parts of an interview with the author from the 60s. The Virago group is doing themed monthly reads and the first was "Nuns, Teachers, and Governesses". I have about 6 unread viragos on my shelf, so I'm trying to read them when they fit a category. I had never read [Frost in May], which is Virago #1, so I took the opportunity and I'm so glad I did! [Frost in May] is about a young girl whose father has recently converted to Catholicism. He sends her to a conservative Catholic boarding school. There, 9 year old Nanda whole-heartedly discovers the Catholic faith, makes friends, and begins to know herself. She is immersed in the closed world of the convent, where self-control, discipline, and humility are demanded of these young children. The glimmers of non-conformity come from a few of her friends at the convent who have more worldly families and from Nanda's mother, who during brief visits, obviously shows that she does not buy in to the system. Though internally Nanda embraces the lifestyle, some of her actions don't fit with the convent rules and the book does not end happily from Nanda's point of view. I unexpectedly found this book delightful. There is a subtle and slightly subversive humor throughout from the author, but at the same time she perfectly captures the rigidity of a child's mind as it opens up through the teen years. I would love to know more about the politics/cultural ramifications of converting to Catholicism in England in the early 1900s. I'm curious if there was a deeper cultural statement being made in the book that I didn't have the background to comprehend. Original publication date: 1933, Virago publication date 1978 (#1) Author’s nationality: British Original language: English Length: 221 pages Rating: 4 stars Format/where I acquired the book: given to me by Barbara/romain from the Virago group Why I read this: virago monthly challenge A beautifully observed book, Frost in May is set in a Catholic girls' boarding school in England in the 1910s. Young Nanda Gray, the daughter of a recent convert to Catholicism, at once finds herself entranced by the romanticised religiosity of the nuns and her fellow students, and uneasy with the petty cruelties inflicted by the nuns that are designed to break down those girls who take pleasure in, show an aptitude for, or independently think about, well, pretty much anything. As someone who was educated in a similar environment to Nanda, but who never had any faith to speak of, even as a child, the experience of reading Frost in May was at once alienating and queasily familiar. No contemporary YA dystopia comes close to the kind of hothouse, authoritarian, ritualised power games that play out here—and often for such small stakes.
Few other novels of our time, whatever the materials they have dealt in, have exhibited the clarity of purpose, the niceness of emphasis, the neatness of detail displayed by Miss White in "Frost in May."
Nanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient and eager to please, she accepts this closed world where, with all the enthusiasm of the outsider, her desires and passions become only those the school permits. Her only deviation from total obedience is the passionate friendships she makes. Convent life is perfectly captured - the smell of beeswax and incense; the petty cruelties of the nuns; the eccentricities of Nanda's school friends. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)823.912Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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