The Nun
In 1758 Diderot's friend the Marquis de Croismare became interested in the cause celebre of a nun who was appealing to be allowed to leave a Paris convent. Less than a year later, in an affectionate attempt to trick his friend, Diderot created this masterpiece a fictitious set of desperate and...
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In 1758 Diderot's friend the Marquis de Croismare became interested in the cause celebre of a nun who was appealing to be allowed to leave a Paris convent. Less than a year later, in an affectionate attempt to trick his friend, Diderot created this masterpiece a fictitious set of desperate and pleading letters to the Marquis from a teenage girl forced into the nunnery because she is illegitimate. In these letters, the impressionable and innocent Suzanne Simonin describes the cruelty and abuse she has suffered in an institution poisoned by vicious gossip, intrigues, persecutions and deviance. Considered too subversive during Diderot's lifetime, The Nun first appeared in print in 1796 following the Revolution. Part gripping novel, part licentious portrayal of sexual fervour and part damning attack on oppressive religious institutions, it remains one of the most utterly original works of the many eighteenth-century.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780140443004 (0140443002)
Publish date: May 30th 1974
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Pages no: 190
Edition language: English
The Nun is a deeply pleasing attack on the institution of nunneries. Diderot was a strong anti-clericalism, but here while he does not attack Christianity at all his target is not so much Catholicism as the actual practice of sentencing young women for life to being nuns in a nunery. The first hal...
Mais le passé m'apprend ce que l'avenir me prépare.
This is an interesting novella, written in the form of a letter, by a nun to someone she hopes will help her break the vows which she took by force.The young French girl, Suzanne, is a victim of circumstances, hated by her family through no fault of her own, and forced to enter a convent. She takes ...
Ah...it's pretty good? It doesn't get into the hot girl-on-girl action 'til like halfway through the book, and then it's super not hot. If you're looking for hot 18th-century girl on girl action, you gotta go with Fanny Hill. It's pleasant and enjoyable to read. I think one problem with The Nun ...
The wicked librarian refused to lend it to me, so I had to ask my mother to borrow. Actually I wanted to read it because she mentioned some funny story about a nun who was caught with her priest lover and hurriedly put his underwear on her head instead of her veil. Of course there was no such story ...