Reviews - The Nun | The StoryGraph

144 reviews for:

The Nun

Denis Diderot

3.64 AVERAGE

yikeslou's review against another edition

3.0

i know this is a rlly serious book but it's also the funniest thing i've ever read. also sister de moni and suzanne were in love.

ivan_hamada's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

A depiction of religious convent life that might happen a lot, but mostly unknow because of the secrecy and isolative nature of it.

9blums's review against another edition

3.0

suzanne or the woman who wants everyone to know how innocent and pure and kind and generous and perfect she is, not knowing we love flaws in people. give it up suzanne the marquis is not gonna save you.

diderot you did it again, raising the bar and doing so flawlessly, with no care for narrative consistency.

leelulah's review against another edition

1.0

The whole novel is of epistolar nature, since Suzanne writes this to a Marquis.

Imagine Jane Eyre. Well, imagine Jane Eyre, but actually worse. Imagine Jane Eyre in a anti-Catholic propaganda setting, where she's forced to be a nun, but she is also a rebellious, innocent little creature. Imagine a little gothic flavor and good prose, but a lame excuse for sending someone to a convent. Imagine something even worse than Jane Eyre's situation, since I loved the book.

Every nun and priest says "Well, we know this is unjust and that you don't have a vocation but, if you resign to your parents' will you will have a little pension live off, until the day you die. Imagine horribly bad parents. Imagine a mother who, having had a girl out of wedlock, condemns all her faults and frustration on her daughter. As if this sounded one bit Catholic in the least.

Of course, there's references to the situation of the moment, such as the conflicts with the Jansenists, Jesuits, and other things from which she tries to stay at the margins. For the record, she was called Suzanne. I think the names Diderot chooses are not innocently given to the nuns. Sr. Ursula, Sr. Therese...

To make her oppression less severe she'd study the rules she'd have accepted, so that her experience in the second convent wouldn't be so painful when the benevolent Mother Superior left. Because of this she's chastised, and more so because of the destiny of some papers where she denounces the things that happen at the convent. A big discussion with the Mother Superior follows, and then the later says she's possessed. A new punishment follows as a result, and it's even worse than the preceeding one, since all the other nuns are cruel to her because she's believed to be an apostate.

She's denied things on purpose, treated inhumanely as a priest aims to verify whether she's really possessed, and the other nuns do things against her. An archdeacon discovers all of this and justice is made once, at least once in this book. It won't last much because most, almost all of the other nuns and her parents are evil, and the legal case of hers to renounce to her vows, even renouncing to the wealth given to her by a testament, will fail. So, more punishments come.

Homoerotic love with the only nun who isn't cruel to her seems to be the answer. Her lawyer will still try to save her by sending her to another convent. The image of the new Mother Superior is even more hopeless than the preceeding ones. Sadic, unpredictable and homosexual. And what's worse is that, like some of the worst best-sellers of today, the protagonist is completely oblivious to the irregular nature of such acts. Seriously? Wasn't she the smartest, the most beautiful, the only one who dared to raise her voice because she knew her books? The one who read the Bible even when they had previously punished her for that? And she passively accepts all of the degeneracy, because that's how life is. Everyone is jealous of her. Always. It seems as if Sr. Suzanne were the only illuminated person in the room.

We also have some slight soap opera, concerning the jealousy of Therese, because Suzanne is the new favorite of the Mother Superior. Apparently this is a common pattern, and the Mother Superior is a manipulative, sadistic want-it-all à la Christian Grey. With a dose of polyamory. Count me bored. Sex scenes I'd rather skip commenting on for my own good. Obviously, even though Sr. Suzanne is half naked she's all oblivious and when asked with natural accents about sins of the flesh, she proves herself innocent. She has commited all sort of sacrileges through the whole book, but oh, that doesn't seem to matter really. And of course she will always blame herself for all sorts of sexual advances she receives.

I believe, anyway, that if I were asked to revise this novel through a postmodern lens, I would be persuaded to ignore the offensive aspects, religiously speaking, and probably complain at the rape culture promoting, the lesbophobia and misogyny that is present in the treatment of women as jealous, narcissistic, competitive hungry women. Nothing else. At least her confessor is the only good character. Most notably, all men are portrayed in a better light than women, except for Suzanne's adoptive and biological father, respectively.

Her spiritual director, Father Lemoine is the only good character that aims to save her from mortal sin. Perhaps the only character to whom she should've trusted her story. Certainly, the scene of confession and the means of persuasion he uses to convince her to go to the right path, are clear even though the discourse is mostly paraphrased. After this, there is a discussion between the two women where the starring character emphasizes her innocence and breaks the secret of confession by telling her superior what the priest told her.

Obviously, the Mother Superior just dismisses everything and says she will try to get rid of the priest. In fact, her way of manipulating the discourse is pretty phenomenal and perhaps one of the few redeemable things about this book. One does clearly see that she is outright perverted in her intentions. This contributes so that Suzanne gives some credit to Fr. Lemoine and starts to follow his advice.

Everything in the convent changes and regains, at least formally, some of its religious fervor. The unstability of the Mother Superior makes itself more evident, and from piety she goes straight to delirium. Her spiritual director had been fired, but at least everything has, in the book, a certain sense of normality for a convent, with the exception of the Mother Superior becoming sad to a worrying degree, and then sick. For this, everyone naturally turns their hate to Sr. Suzanne. Her new confessor, Dom Morel, seems to have a lot of common with her as he became a priest against his will. There is a bit of too much emphasis in mortification, to the point that it seems as if Diderot believed Catholics liked to suffer some special kind of guilt, which is as stereotypical as you can get.

The problem with Suzanne is that she's way too inocent and does not understand the sinful nature of homosexuality. One would think that with all the books she had to read about religion to become a nun, that would become pretty evident and basic. But this dialogue between Suzanne and her new confessor about the matter just reveals Diderot's hatred for convents, once again he expresses through the character of the priest, the idea that they should not exist. Now, I don't deny that it is an "understandeable" (never justified) opinion of someone who's entered there against their will, but these aren't prisons.

She overhears a conversation between Dom Morel and the Mother Superior. The principal topics of their exchange are totally avoided but it seems as if Suzanne realized the nature of her superior's true intentions, and things apparently changed for the better at the end of the book. Though of course her Mother Superior just gets worse and dies, it seems as if Suzanne is finally able to escape.

But the benedictine young man with her adopts an indecent behavior and she realizes, life was so much better inside the convent. She's kidnapped and taken to a house with other people, but she always wanted to escape and it seems as if she finally did it. Things get better for her and her raptor is captured by the police. Obviously she's terrified of what might come next and can't sleep.

She has incorporated some manners proper of nuns but not the religiosity, not even one bit. She aims for a simple job where she can finally be left alone and go unnoticed.

In one sense it's similar to Sade, corruption of an innocent person and gruesome background.

Now, I don't know how things worked in the tumultuous pre-revolutionary France enough to judge the accuracy of this, knowing it's satire and the prejudice against the Church held by the author... probably a bit of it might be real, and a lot about letting imagination run wild.

For an ignorant girl, she makes quite the ignorant (but back then considered clever) Enlightment arguments, which are more or less like "all religion is superstition, all religion is bad and just a means for control, especially Christianity" or "Why doesn't God do anything about my particular situation? I should have ended my life when I had the chance", or even protestant arguments like "orders have no reason to be because Christ did not make them", "only abnormal people would take religious vows". None of this faded away with the so called birth of the concepts such as "Religious Right" and "Christian Privilege".

It is a bit too strange how all the blames are on the Church, and not in the legal system which allowed this unfair couple of events to happen. I see a well-written book which I am unable to like due to its content.

Do yourself a favor and spend your time reading Rabelais. It's fair more explicit in the nasty parts, and it sure has a good amount of farts, many repulsive things, easy sense of humor... and critiques to priests, but I found it way more edifying and -gasp!- even Christian if I am allowed to say it so. Of course, it's considerably longer than barely 200 pages, but it will be far more rewarding.

fairywhoreads's review against another edition

5.0

Je n'ai pas officiellement terminé ce roman. Il me reste la préface mais pour la lire j'aurais besoin d'un ordinateur et d'une montagne de post-it pour prendre des notes sur l'explication de ce chez-d'oeuvre qu'a réalisé Diderot. Surement, je ne ferais pas de chronique sur ce roman, je serais bien mal de me mettre à la place de ces grands philosophes capable de critiquer Diderot, mais je ferais peut-être bien un article sur mes notes au sujet de ce fabuleux roman.