Virago Modern Classics discussion

Who wants to read The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien? This is our buddy-read in March 2025.

If you have read it already, or you are reading it at another (later) time - write here what you think about the book too.

[Please keep in mind to hide spoilers in spoiler brackets.]

@ Mela,

I'm well into it and have to admit that I'm struggling with some French passages. Can't remember my schoolgirl French from many, many years ago.

Cphe wrote: "@ Mela,

I'm well into it and have to admit that I'm struggling with some French passages. Can't remember my schoolgirl French from many, many years ago."

I don't know French at all. In such cases, I stay ignorant or ask my friend (who knows French) or have to translate by e.g. Google.

Hi - my book arrived yesterday - yipee! I've only read the back cover so far - but it seems very much in the mould of Nanda Grey/Clara Batchelor - in Antonia White's 4 book series beginning Frost in May.

It is St David's Day here in Wales, and am having a weekend reading books from Welsh authors. Will be picking this up next week.

Hi Sonia - are there any Welsh authors on the Virago list?

Mela wrote: "Cphe wrote: "@ Mela,

I'm well into it and have to admit that I'm struggling with some French passages. Can't remember my schoolgirl French from many, many years ago."

I don't know French at all...."

@Mela,

Should have mentioned the Latin as well but that can't be too much of a surprise with the novel being set in a convent.

Laura wrote: "Hi Sonia - are there any Welsh authors on the Virago list?"

Dorothy Edwards Winter Sonata and
Rhapsody. Both her books are now with independent Welsh presses Honno and Parthian.

Sarah Waters

Gosh - Sarah Waters! - I've read Affinity and I think Fingersmith. I'm not a big fan; but still I admired her historical recreations.

And Dorothy Edwards - completely new to me. I'll go check her out.
Thank you.

Kirsty's review of Winter Sonata - she gave it 5 stars.

Chrsytal's review of Winter Sonata - she gave it 3 stars - and her review is funny!

I put these reviews in because I thought it was a nice way to highlight - an author new to me. Edwards was published by Virago -1986.

JimZ's review of Rhapsody and Other Stories - which is even funnier than Chrystal's review - Jim gave this one 1 star but it's also sad because Dorothy Edwards died - from suicide, aged 31.

Just started - The Land of Spices - it's hilarious and I'm enjoying it very much. Who nominated this one?

Laura wrote: "Just started - The Land of Spices - it's hilarious and I'm enjoying it very much. Who nominated this one?"

I did

I'd not heard of the author before and didn't realise she was so prolific.

There are quite a few darker themes running in this.

This book has many layers to it - I'm particularly enjoying the politics within the Order. Mother General's desire to keep the Order as French as possible. How the percentage of Irish is rising - 60% are now Irish nuns - and a mix of other nationalities. The first part of this book is dated 1904.

I know about the strong tradition of Beguinage - Convents in Belgium - I remember Ilse did a review - where the story is set in a Beguinage. So a very strong tradition - and the sense of culture and refinement attached to this old tradition. Mother General quotes - "La pudeur et la politesse... " for the girls in her education establishments - all over the world. The French translates as Modesty and Politeness.

And I have to wonder - what are the advantages for girls in a modern world to have these qualities? My mother was educated in an Irish convent. And I can certainly see these same qualities in the rules of behaviour which we were taught - as children.

That whole scene in chapter 3 - first book. The Murphy family - that is a scene straight from Kate O'Brien's childhood? O'Brien herself must have wondered how - Modesty and Politeness - serve in these family situations. There is a suggestion from Joe that "both are as bad as each other". Modern feminism of course would frown severely on M & P - and yet is Mother General not also right - a wife keeping her own counsel (in modesty) might not that be a better way to calm or win over a wild husband?

It's interesting how we might situate this book in relation to our 21st century values. It was originally published 1941.

I very much like this idea of Mother General wanting to pass her own values down, by choosing Marie-Helene as her successor. We should really call her Mary-Helen because our narrator is English - although educated in Brussels and entered her novitiate in Bruges - is that right?

Again it's very interesting - to me at least that the Order has this idea of no particular nationalist identity - is carries out work across the globe - it does have its traditions in the French and Belgium religious orders - but recruits nuns from every country in the world. Mary-Helen is a person of multiple nationality - which is very much a 21st century phenomenon.

I like the way - the religious orders - are so advanced - intellectually, in terms of education, in political thinking and strategy - a sort of multi-national company. It's quite a new way to look at a holy order of nuns.

The big torment scene with Anna - is not working for me.
I'd say the two main characters here - Mary-Helen and Anna are part of the same person - the author. Helen's trauma as a young women is being represented in Anna - with the observation of whether such harm can be overcome or undone. What we nowadays call generational trauma.

I understand Mary-Helen's sensibility in relation to the Irish character - that unpleasant quality of proud martyrdom.

It's a favourite theme of Elizabeth Taylor's - the higher sensibility having to deal with the presence and more, the incursions of the other upon another's more refined sense of moral choice. Taylor does a better job...

O'Brien has failed here to engage our compassion for Anna. But her other main character Mary-Helen - yes we are understanding how she is irked in her inability to get through to the staunch nationalism in the likes of Father Conroy - and the Bishop - who is unable to wield any power over the Independent Order. All of that - nicely done.

I am sorry, but I give up. I can see that Kate O'Brien had something interesting to say, and I loved The Ante-Room, yet I just couldn't keep my interest in this one, or rather the interesting parts were put between the "boring" ones. The long passages in French didn't help either.

Yes - I'm reading it very slowly myself - and English is my first language. I understand you are Polish Mela?

It's also quite Victorian - it has that melodrama of the Victorian age - which I suppose is appropriate - Helen is born 1866? The Irish years run 1904 - to 1912 - where I am.

There is quite a bit of humour - and I understand the girls - their subversion of discipline - specifically in relation to "La pudeur et la politesse". And yet they are being taught Schiller - in German. And Shakespeare - as well as Irish - led by Mother Mary Andrew. In many ways their education is remarkable considering that few women were educated in the Edwardian era.

I used Translate to help me with the French - the Latin, and the German. !!

Mela wrote: "I am sorry, but I give up. I can see that Kate O'Brien had something interesting to say, and I loved The Ante-Room, yet I just couldn't keep my interest in this one, or rather the interesting parts..."

No problem. I probably won't start to next week, but at least I have a heads up on what to expect.

Mela wrote: "I am sorry, but I give up. I can see that Kate O'Brien had something interesting to say, and I loved The Ante-Room, yet I just couldn't keep my interest in this one, or rather the interesting parts..."

@Mela,

Didn't realise until I got to the end that there are translations there (at least on my kindle version)

@Laura - yes, I am Polish; English isn't my mother tongue. And I would have used Translate if I had an ebook. But I was reading this time on archive.org - in such cases, I use dictionaries sometimes, but I am not going to transcribe whole paragraphs or pages.

@Cphe - On archive.org is available the Virago edition without translations, sadly.

Most of the French I can guess at - and I'm happy to spend the time learning new words. Even the Latin is recognisable; I think because it's religious and comes up.
German - I know about 3 words.

What about the humour? There's a sad incident in relation to class snobbery when the girls discuss whether Molly Redmond will be expelled? Her father is a "turf commissioner". They don't know what this means and rack their brains considering what possible behaviours could result in an expulsion, but as no-one has been expelled in the school's history, they are at a loss. One of the wits suggests: "...if you kicked Mother Superior?"
I thought this was pretty funny because, we the reader already know this is impossible. And so we share the joke - that's good writing.

Redmond's father is a bookie at The Curragh Racecourse (the famous racing ground). I have Irish background, so I know something of the horse worship and long history of horse breeding in Ireland. It's one of several background strands to the narrative and highlights the really snobbery - as no-one is likely to see a Curragh bookie as someone of low class. It's not even the betting element that puts Molly's family at risk of a put down, but more the pretentions to class - with the mother's fur coats etc as interpreted by Una de la Pole's mother, Lady de la Pole (who comes from "new" money; certainly more new that money made with Curragh racing!)

I liked this whole story because it's telling in the subtlety; of how fine the class distinctions are or were in this pre-war era. Mother Mary-Helen of course, responds to none of it - but is fully aware of all the interactions between the different families at the school vying for social distinction. O'Brien's novel is an analysis of a society in flux - very much the emergence of the middle-classes after The Land Acts introduced by the UK government in Ireland between 1870 and 1909. Which meant that ordinary people could claim land, and register it as theirs. Land had previously been exclusively owned by the "Aristocracy" - very often the Anglo-Irish class. Elizabeth Bowen and in particular her novel The Last September published 1929 - gives an excellent insight into this unique social class - and its history within Ireland.

Anna Murphy's family - are given as a particular example of the emerging middle-class; the sort of family who benefitted from The Land Acts. O'Brien gives us a potted history of the family's recent ownership of their house - Castle Tory and the surrounding lands, which of course makes it all the more poignant when Anna herself understands that her father's drink is endangering their relatively new-found prosperity. Later in the book we understand the family's wealth comes through Anna's grandmother - Maud. (Anna's great grandfather registered the land in the family name- Murphy.) But it is the grandmother, Maud Conlon who provides the children with the annual holiday to Kerry (Doon Point) as the family's wealth declines.

I hope some of my explanations above helps to explain the scope of O'Brien's book. It is not just a tale of a nun and a young girl. All the history of both their backgrounds is condensed into this novel - as well as the respective traditions between English and Irish history plus - the continental neutral background of French/Flemish culture and the religious traditions there. This places Mother Mary Helen in an advantageous position of being both neutral but knowledgeable in term of both countries. She is the ideal (neutral) observer and recorder of history-in-the-making.

You can see how O'Brien uses the constructed figure of her central character, Mother Mary Helen to given authority to her own personal stance on Irish and English history - the date of publication is 1941 - but looks back to an earlier period in Irish history before the civil war and fight for independence in 1922-23, I suspect, looking at the evolvement of Ireland, giving rights and benefits to the "lower" classes, under the influence of British rule. Not - a favoured perspective in the 1940s and perhaps helps us to expose more than the purported reason for O'Brien's book being banned. We are given to understand that the scene observed by Mary Helen between her father and the young student Etienne is The reason. Maybe the suppression of O'Brien's book by the Irish Government was more to do with her "incorrect" appraisal of Irish-English history?

The breaking of the control of the upper-classes was very much a European wide, world phenomenon (connecting to de-colonisation and Colonialism) - and this I think is O'Brien's point - not simply a directive of British rule - but a much more wide-spread social and economic development - driven of course by the disastrous death toll during the first WW. I'm not familiar with Irish Nationalism at the time of the 2nd WW - but it would have been a "young" country in relation to its own-rule - still hashing out its National Identity - I don't know exactly what the stance was on recruitment and the Republic's involvement in the 2nd WW - but plenty of Irish lives were lost during this war. That is outside the scope of the book's story but not its publication history.

QUESTION - How does the upbringing of young Irish Girls specifically in relation to "La pudeur et la politesse" relate to these concepts of Irish Nationalism - and especially in relation to the book being banned on its publication in 1941?

Do you think Mother Mary Helen's ideas on education are helpful in forming the identities of these young women?






Back to Humour - I was reminded of the incident in Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls - where Kate and Babba decide they need to be expelled from their convent - they hide all the toilet rolls from the loos in the Sisters' special toilet. It works.

I wonder if Edna O'Brien read her countryman Kate O'Brien - I would guess she did?

And of course I'm reminded of the convent background in Antonia White's - Frost in May and the sequel The Lost Traveller. Reading various novels set in Catholic communities certainly helps me to understand the details and especially the symbolism connected with this religion.

Also there is Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede- which allows us access to the enclosed world of a convent/nunnery.

Hi - I phoned my mother - to get some inside information - she said, " . . . a Curragh bookie is high-class . . ." and laughed.
And de Valera - prime minister or Taoiseach declared Ireland neutral during the second WW. I checked for more info with Google: Ireland opened naval yards to the allies and returned airdrops to UK bases etc.

"There was no politics or political history or discussion - too touchy." In reference to her convent education, 1950s

"The Government was controlled by the Church, the bishops - they had a lot of power."

Sorry I know that this was my buddy read, but with all that is going on in the world I am not in the right mood to give this book the attention it deserves. It is still my aim to read it this year and I will add my comments to the thread when I have read it. I have enjoyed reading those already posted and they will enhance my reading.

Sonia wrote: "Sorry I know that this was my buddy read, but with all that is going on in the world I am not in the right mood to give this book the attention it deserves. It is still my aim to read it this year ..."

Of course, Sonia, it is always better to read a book in the mood for it.

Hi Sonia - for me it was a really great read - so thank you for introducing me to Kate O'Brien.
I had to read it slowly - there was a lot to digest in every section. The scene at the end, however, with Mother Superior was outstanding! I hope you get to it at some point.