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A review by lanternheart
Cloistered: My Years as a Nun by Catherine Coldstream
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
On the one hand, this book was deeply fascinating: I will admit to having a hard time putting it down at times, more often than not, simply because the subject matter was so alien to me, the cloistered world of monastic orders in our world entirely unknown in my life and experience. Coldstream, when she writes about her devotion to God in the wake of her father's death, of looking for love and meaning in all corners, waiting until she felt "claimed, repurposed" by the Carmelite order, can be deeply moving. This is a memoir, but it's hard not to feel for Coldstream as narrator of the story-as-presented, looking for grounding and "the beatific vision, the delightful union of the soul with God, and the happy basking in his presence for all eternity that awaited those who were faithful" (13).
On the other hand, it's hard not to find elements of this book frustrating: specifically, the way in which, despite Coldstream's seeming desire for truth above all else in the monastery, she seems to skirt around explicitly saying much of it in some areas. Travailing the catalogue of Jen's mental health, she never explicitly uses the words of bipolar disorder, as though still under the same taboo as the nuns she's since departed, and I struggled to understand why. There's a fascinating implication of queerness of the nun-figure, as Coldstream speaks about how the habit and monastic contemplation encourages one not to be "biologically confined," that "what lay beyond the physical was where the action was at," yet it's never fully addressed again, set aside but for a brief mention of two other departed nuns having also come out in the book's final chapter (19).
The book seems to, unfortunately, devolve from an introspective look at Coldstream's faith and its travails into an outward look at the crumbing abbey around her, specifically its other denizens. I was intrigued at first, and worried for Coldstream as the sister (then Mother) Elizabeth came to cattiness and a sort of tribal mentality, encouraging the nuns away from critical thinking and contemplation, but after awhile of these catalogues, I felt bereft without Coldstream's own. She references the Rules and trials of St. John with ease in the text, yet we as readers are bereft of much of her understanding of it, which would've helped ground the opposing perspective that she clearly believes she had (and has). I ask this not as a hand-hold, for looking up the Rule is easy enough, but for Coldstream's specific perspective in more critical, in-depth detail, which I found lacking.
I found elements of this book deeply thought-provoking and curious, like viewing another world, and also like it could've been organized and perhaps allowed to move differently, giving us more of the author's reasons for joining such an order and less (sometimes it felt solely) a catalogue of its failures.
On the other hand, it's hard not to find elements of this book frustrating: specifically, the way in which, despite Coldstream's seeming desire for truth above all else in the monastery, she seems to skirt around explicitly saying much of it in some areas. Travailing the catalogue of Jen's mental health, she never explicitly uses the words of bipolar disorder, as though still under the same taboo as the nuns she's since departed, and I struggled to understand why. There's a fascinating implication of queerness of the nun-figure, as Coldstream speaks about how the habit and monastic contemplation encourages one not to be "biologically confined," that "what lay beyond the physical was where the action was at," yet it's never fully addressed again, set aside but for a brief mention of two other departed nuns having also come out in the book's final chapter (19).
The book seems to, unfortunately, devolve from an introspective look at Coldstream's faith and its travails into an outward look at the crumbing abbey around her, specifically its other denizens. I was intrigued at first, and worried for Coldstream as the sister (then Mother) Elizabeth came to cattiness and a sort of tribal mentality, encouraging the nuns away from critical thinking and contemplation, but after awhile of these catalogues, I felt bereft without Coldstream's own. She references the Rules and trials of St. John with ease in the text, yet we as readers are bereft of much of her understanding of it, which would've helped ground the opposing perspective that she clearly believes she had (and has). I ask this not as a hand-hold, for looking up the Rule is easy enough, but for Coldstream's specific perspective in more critical, in-depth detail, which I found lacking.
I found elements of this book deeply thought-provoking and curious, like viewing another world, and also like it could've been organized and perhaps allowed to move differently, giving us more of the author's reasons for joining such an order and less (sometimes it felt solely) a catalogue of its failures.