skygiants | (no subject)

Like several other people on my reading list, including

troisoiseaux (post here, I was compelled by the premise of I Leap Over the Wall: A Return to the World After 28 Years In A Convent, a once-bestselling (but now long out-of-print) memoir by a British woman who entered a cloister in 1914, lived ten years as a nun, decided it wasn't for her, lived another almost twenty years as a nun out of stubbornness, and exited in 1941, having missed quite a lot of sociological developments in the interim! including talking films! and underwire bras! and not one, but two World Wars!

Obviously Baldwin did not know that WWI was about to happen right as she went into a convent, but she does explain that she came out in the middle of WWII more or less on purpose, out of an idea that it would be easier to slide herself back into things when everything was chaotic and unprecedented anyway than to try to establish a life for herself as The Weird Ex Nun in more normal times. Unclear how well this strategy paid off for her, but you can't say she didn't give it an effort. Baldwin was raised extremely upper-class -- she was related to former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, among others -- but exited the convent pretty much penniless, so while she did have a safety net in terms of various sets of variously judgmental relations who were willing to put her up, she spends a lot of the book valiantly attempting to take her place among the workers of the world. And these are real labor jobs, too -- 'ex-nun' is not a resume booster, and most of the things she felt actually qualified to do for a living based on her convent experience (librarianship, scholarship, etc) required some form of degree, so much of the work she does in this book are things like being a land girl, or working in a canteen. She doesn't enjoy these jobs, and she rarely does them long, but you have to respect her for giving it the old college try, especially when she's constantly in a state of profound and sustained culture shock.

Overall, Baldwin does not enjoy the changes to the world since she left it. She does not enjoy having gone in a beautiful young girl with her life ahead of her, and come out a middle-aged woman who's missed all the milestones that everyone around her takes for granted. She does, however, profoundly enjoy her freedom, and soon begins to cherish an all-consuming dream of purchasing a Small House of her Very Own where she can do whatever the hell she wants whenever the hell she wants. After decades in a convent, you can hardly blame her for this. On the other hand -- fascinatingly, to me -- it's very clear that Baldwin still somewhat idealizes convent life, despite the fact that it obviously made her deeply miserable. She has long conversations with her judgmental relatives, and long conversations with us, the reader, in which she tries to convince them/us of the real virtues of the cloister; of the spiritual value of deep, deliberate, constant self-sacrifice and self-abegnation; of the fact that it's important, vital and necessary that some people close themselves away from work in the world to focus on the exclusive pursuit of God. It is good that people do this, it's spiritual and heroic, it's simply -- unfortunately -- the only case in which she's ever known the church to be wrong in assessing who does or does not have a genuine vocation after the novice period -- not for her.

Baldwin is a fascinating and contradictory person and I enjoyed spending time with her quite a bit. I suspect she wouldn't much enjoy spending time with me; she will keep going to London and observing neutrally that it seems the streets are much more full of Jews than they were before she went into the convent, faint shudder implied. At another point she confesses that although she'd left the convent with 'definite socialist tendencies,' actually working among the working people has changed her mind for the worse: 'the people' now impressed me as full of class prejudice and an almost vindictive envy-hatred-malice fixation towards anyone who was richer, cleverer, or in any way superior to themselves. Still, despite her preoccupations and prejudices, her voice is interesting, and deeply eccentric, and IMO she's worth getting to know. This is a woman, an ex-nun, who takes Le Morte D'Arthur as her beacon of hope and guide to life. Le Morte! You really can't agree with it, but how can you not be compelled?

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From:

asakiyume

I can feel for her in the sense that one can totally think something is valid and good, just not right for everyone and not right for you yourself. But I also recognize that someone who's extricated themself from something is maybe not going to be the best advocate for it in other people's eyes.

an almost vindictive envy-hatred-malice fixation towards anyone who was richer, cleverer, or in any way superior to themselves --OTOH this statement makes me low-key hate her. The shuddering at Jews, too. But if you can read her and enjoy spending time with her in spite of that, I am ready to believe she is very engaging!

From:

skygiants

Yes, she describes it in terms of a vocation -- she confused wanting to have a vocation with actually having one. She clearly wanted to be the kind of person who could heroically and self-sacrificingly commit herself to God very badly. And yet the way she writes about, say, the brutal convent politics of Can We Please Open A Window [No] ... even as she's trying to convince you/her family that she still does ardently believe it all you get perhaps a sense that she's trying to convince herself as well.

From:

genarti

For what it's worth, that statement is one of her most unlikeable moments, and took me by surprise, because there are some other parts where she shows much LESS classism than I expected. (There's an early part where a family member's maid and chauffeur have much better job-finding advice for her than her family members, and her reaction is a grateful recognition that they have a much better idea of how the world actually works, and she is going to be operating much more in their world than her rich relatives'.) In general I think classism is one of the subjects where she's sort of swinging from one opinion to another depending on how she's feeling at the time, between the culture shock and the joy at being in the world and the depression at being in the world and the defensiveness about various subjects and so on, and I don't think she's settled yet by the end of the book.

I'm kind of curious to read her second memoir, which is much harder to find than this one, in part because I'm curious about whether she came down on one side or another on some of these issues, or if she kept swinging uncertainly between options. But it is harder to get hold of, so we'll see.

From:

asakiyume

Ooh, if you do find and read it, I'll be interested too.

And fair, re: swinging between things. And I mean, I do understand that we all reveal ugliness from time to time. She sounds very honest, and that's a plus.

From:

sovay

This is a woman, an ex-nun, who takes Le Morte D'Arthur as her beacon of hope and guide to life.

What about it was so important to her? (There seem several options, including that she sounds like someone who did not so much fail as nope out of a Grail quest.)

From:

skygiants

She describes it in sort of vague terms of heroism and myth and magic, and also the fact that reading it immediately brought upon her the immediate conviction that she has to buy a house in Cornwall and live there, because of the myth and magic ... I definitely got a certain 'do your best to portal fantasy yourself back out of the miserable modern world in a less unpleasant way than joining a convent' sense to her efforts, which I tried earnestly to understand although to me the world of the Morte in which people are getting beheaded left and right does not seem that much less miserable.

From:

sovay

I definitely got a certain 'do your best to portal fantasy yourself back out of the miserable modern world in a less unpleasant way than joining a convent' sense to her efforts, which I tried earnestly to understand although to me the world of the Morte in which people are getting beheaded left and right does not seem that much less miserable.

"Which version of the Matter of Britain would you isekai yourself into if you had to pick one?" is definitely a question that should produce interesting results.

I wonder if the medievalism was some of the attraction of the convent for her in the first place. In which case I am afraid my totally uncharitable reaction is that she could have just gone to university.

[edit] I've realized that she also seems to remind me of Lovecraft. I do not mean only in the "AAAH! JEWS!" sense. He fell in love with the film Berkeley Square (1933) and despite nitpicking the mechanisms of its time travel, saw it repeatedly in theaters for the escapism of thinking oneself back into the eighteenth century, appparently missing the Miniver Cheevy-ish moral that the dislocating realities of the past are no more of a refuge than the terrors of modernity, which is ironically an incredibly Lovecraftian place for the film to leave its protagonist, but off the page he really seems to have cherished the daydream that it would work.

Edited Date: 2026-01-30 12:12 am (UTC)

From:

genarti

I wonder if the medievalism was some of the attraction of the convent for her in the first place. In which case I am afraid my totally uncharitable reaction is that she could have just gone to university.

Very possibly; in the convent among her specializations were illuminating manuscripts and doing intense, detailed, long-term research into the lives of saints. She talks wistfully about how much she enjoyed both, and how her lack of any kind of degrees or certifications meant that she was not at all hireable for anything similar (even if anybody outside cloistered convents were interested in hiring people to produce illuminated manuscripts at the time). One can easily envision an AU in which she was a devoted academic instead, and I rather think she'd've been happier as such, but I don't remember her talking about it as a mental image of her own, so I don't know what forces internal or external (seem to have) stopped her from considering it as an option.

From:

sovay

One can easily envision an AU in which she was a devoted academic instead, and I rather think she'd've been happier as such, but I don't remember her talking about it as a mental image of her own, so I don't know what forces internal or external (seem to have) stopped her from considering it as an option.

Bah. I am sorry that worldline never branched.

(I am also sorry she couldn't get hooked into some kind of arts movement where illuminating manuscripts was a valuable skill, because it is a heck of a thing to be able to do.)

From:

chestnut_pod

Ahhhh! A nun book that admits it about the antisemitism! Weirdly, I think perhaps at heart this is all I've ever wanted from a nun book, which is (but one reason) why I loathed Matrix so intensely and rolled my eyes at In This House of Brede, but was content with just-read The Corner That Held Them. Maybe I'll give this Internet Archive the old college try!

From:

ethelmay

Hathitrust has it with no need to sign in.

From:

skygiants

FASCINATED to hear your thoughts if/when you get around!

From:

troisoiseaux

I'm glad you enjoyed it!! Fascinating and contradictory person is right; she feels so very modern-/forward-(?)thinking in some ways (for, again, an ex-nun cloistered since 1914) that it was always jarring to run up against the ways in which she was not.

Edited Date: 2026-01-27 12:36 pm (UTC)

From:

skygiants

Yes, and sometimes she's so funny and willing to be self-deprecatory about the changes and challenges and then she digs her heels in and is like actually, I think literally everything that's happened is for the worse, probably. I would love to put her in conversation with Naomi Mitchison. I bet there'd be FIREWORKS.

From:

osprey_archer

Isn't it a fascinating book? Worth the price of admission for the culture shock alone, with the added bonus of pitch-perfect breezy 1940s voice, which is extra-impressive given the aforesaid culture shock.

But I was also so fascinated by her defense of the cloistered nun life, both the arguments that she uses (I can see how the argument hangs together if you start from the basic propositions she/the Catholic Church is starting with, but wow are those NOT the propositions I would start with) but also, as you say, the fact that she does retain this almost romantic attachment to the ideal of convent life.

Clearly many of the people she speaks to in real life also find this puzzling. They thought that coming out of the convent meant that she had Seen the Light, but no, she still believes the convent is the light, for many people, just not for her. (I felt a kind of secondhand embarrassment for these people when they said bad things about the convent, Baldwin patiently explained that this particular bad thing they were saying is based on a misconception, and as soon as she was done talking they repeated the exact same bad thing again. Come on, people, at least PRETEND you were listening.)

IIRC she tried to explain what she found so appealing about Le Morte D'Arthur, but I guess some things are simply impossible to fully communicate. I can however understand the appeal of a cottage in Cornwall where she can open the windows WHENEVER SHE WANTS TO, so that's something at least!

From:

skygiants

For real! Though on the other hand I did have to wonder if all those conversations went quite the rude way that Baldwin reported they did or if it simply felt that way to her, clearly stewing in frustration about the fact that nobody seems to quite agree with her ... like, after the passionate defense of Forcing Yourself To Choke Down Inedible Gristle (For Holiness!) I feel like I personally would maybe not have said anything more but would have had a hard time keeping a neutral face and that Baldwin might perhaps have taken my lack of neutral face personally and reported it down angrily in the book, you know?

I have to wonder if some of the appeal of the Morte is how much of it is just being carried off on an adventure where God Or Someone tells you what to do, without much rhyme or reason to it -- much like in the convent! absolute obedience! -- BUT you also get to do fun things like open windows and have fresh air ....

From:

osprey_archer

It's true, there's a non-zero chance that what actually greeted Baldwin's explanation of the Theory of Nuns was simply an Embarrassed Pause, showing that none of her interlocutors were convinced, which is almost the same thing as saying out loud that they haven't changed their mind about any of their incorrect (according to Baldwin) nun opinions.

It's also true that Morte has tons of fresh air. All those knights and ladies sleeping in pavilions, breathing that delicious clear air all night long, at least until a stranger knight shows up and there's a duel to the death.

From:

asakiyume

This is making me laugh because I've definitely been Baldwin in this regard sometimes (read searing criticism in someone's neutrality) and I've also definitely witnessed my friends doing it, e.g. "and they all hated the picture!!!" --"What, no they didn't: look at the comments. They're all positive." "Yeah, but see here where she says 'It has nice elements'? That means that overall she HATED it!!"

From:

plinythemammaler

I read this a long time ago! I knew two ex nuns at the time (I now only know one) so it made it extra interesting; at 12 I completely missed the antisemitism and class prejudice but do remember being baffled by the author's valorisation of convent life as she fled it....this is such an interesting analysis of such a weird book. Comfort reading of Le Morte d'Arthur indeed.

From:

skygiants

Knowing some ex nuns personally would definitely give one a different perspective on the book I think!! It's SUCH a weird book. I found out it had been a bestseller about midway through, and on the one hand it's not surprising really because the situation is so inherently interesting that you can imagine how a lot of people would be compelled to pick it up, and on the other hand I have to imagine equally a lot of those people squinting at the pages like well. Hmm. Don't know that this is quite what I signed up for.

From:

ethelmay

I have only gotten a little further than "This is a brassière," but wow, did that crack me up. (Also, I want to know more about her sister's friend who didn't want an ex-nun in the house. Was it a Friendly Young Ladies situation, where it would have become obvious they were sharing a bed? Or am I wildly jumping to conclusions?)

From:

skygiants

I HAD THE EXACT SAME THOUGHT. The sister says outright she cares more about the friend than anybody else!

From:

ethelmay

The other thing that occurred to me is that MB must have been about the same age, or a bit younger, than Sister Monica Joan in Call the Midwife.

From:

qian

I found the Catholic theology in this very interesting, as I hadn't heard of most of the concepts. I overall felt there was something kind of self-serving about the narrative, though -- like it was missing key bits of story that, if told in full, perhaps would have cast the author in a light she didn't want to be seen in. I googled her afterwards and was somehow not surprised to discover that a guy she took painting lessons from in Cornwall found her "quite irritating".

From:

ethelmay

I thought this was interesting (content warning: suicide).

From:

troisoiseaux

Woah. I had no idea; Wikipedia just says that she died in 1975...

From:

qian

Very interesting, thanks for the link! I knew about the suicide but not the circumstances. (It also struck me that after going on and on in her memoir about wanting this Cornish cottage, she left Cornwall ... )

From:

skygiants

sjdk;lfdj no it really isn't surprising, is it!! tbh I think part of what I found so interesting about the book is how obviously unreliable a narrator she is -- I often have difficulty with memoir and mostly enjoy the ones where I can finish and go 'I wish I could write a character this messy as a novelist.'

From:

qian

Yeah, I always really enjoy it when you're able to get a really strong sense of the memoirist's personality, to a degree perhaps the memoirist didn't intend. Another example of this, though very different, is Sybil Kathigasu's No Dram of Mercy -- I don't know how easy this is to get ahold of in the States, but it's a very slim memoir by a Eurasian midwife in WW2 Malaya who was captured and tortured by the Japanese for treating Communist guerrillas/the local anti-Japanese force. She was obviously incredibly brave but you also get such a strong sense of her as somebody who was In Charge, and could probably be quite overbearing!

From:

conuly

Did she get her house?

From:

skygiants

She did! The last chapter is her very triumphantly purchasing an infinitesimally tiny cottage on the cliffs of Cornwall, and it's probably kinder to leave her there than the clearly continuously complicated life that came after.

From:

cleodoxa

She read to me like someone who went into the convent because she had issues and the more she went on the more depressingly it seemed to me that she took just the same issues out with her again. That pluckiness kind of fades away, to be replaced with the same desperate need for escape from the world, to escape from having to deal with other people and their judgments.