Obedience (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

I liked this book, but sadly, not as much as I thought I would. I liked the concept of the elderly nuns in the decaying convent, I liked the looking back to the German occupation of France, I liked the idea of the nun loving a man and paying the price. I just didn't like Sister Bernard at all unfortunately. I just kept waiting for more............ I felt that there was more to be said about the sisters and the hierarchy at the convent, Mother Catherine in particular. I just felt sort of let down, as though there was 'unfinished business' when I'd finished the book. I like the whole 'secrets and lies' thing, but I just felt it needed more........ explanations, reasons, I don't know, it just didn't really work for me.

I loved this book! The central character, Sister Bernard, is fascinating and ultimately very engaging - portrayed as stupid and shut off from the world around her, in all kinds of ways, she is not the usual 'romantic heroine' by any means. Her story is beautifully told; it's very intense and moving and it carries the reader along through the years. It's a dark story, told with a detached, clear prose that I found unsettling, and the religious element is handled very subtly and well. The setting is lovely - you get a real sense of rural France, of war-time living in an occupied village. Generally I found it a sophisticated and thought-provoking book, a wise exploration of love and belief; very ambiguous and actually quite difficult to pin down.

Three elderly nuns are the only ones left in a crumbling convent in rural France and are about to leave everything they know. Sister Maria has dementia and is taken to a nursing home where she soon dies. Sisters Teresa and Bernard are on their way to live out the rest of their lives together in a residential home for retired nuns and priests. But at the last minute, Teresa changes her mind and goes to live with an old friend, Corrine, leaving Bernard to face a bleak future alone.

Sister Bernard, obedient, unquestioning, perhaps a little inadequate, has a dark past. Everyone seems to know about it but it is never talked about having been swept under the carpet although a trip to the local village to commemorate the Armistice stirs up old hatreds for her act of betrayal during the German occupation. How could a woman of God have done such a thing?

The novel develops through chapters set in the past and the future through which slowly, Bernard's character and her actions are revealed or, rather, implied. For this is a novel where readers are required to work things out for themselves. We know nothing of the reasons why she took the veil or her parentage, although I believe her father was a deeply unpleasant man and that his was the basis for the voice Bernard assumes is that of God. Bernard constantly craves affection but never receives any which is why she naively falls in love with a German soldier who only pays attention to her because of a bet. Later on she suddenly stops hearing the Voice of God which, although constantly complaining and criticising, had hitherto given her life meaning and purpose. Despite its harshness, at least she was getting the attention she craved. When it is lost to her she is bereft. Teresa ponders where Bernard is a saint or just a deluded or maybe mentally ill woman. This novel explores all these things.

This is one of the saddest novels I have ever read. Although there were times I grew exasperated with Sister Bernard, I felt truly sorry for her. Having been denied love and compassion throughout her life she renders herself unlovable and those who might have cared for her in her later years cannot bring themselves to do so because of it.

To me, 'Obedience' deserves at least to be short-listed for a major literature prize. This is a subtle deeply-layered novel that keeps you thinking long after it has finished.