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i bought Ann Rinaldi's The Staircase because it had a charming theme: New Mexico, 1878 and the building of the miraculous staircase at Loretto. the premise on the back described it as an adventure of a young methodist girl in a convent school of the foreign world of Catholicism and the miracle, etc. blah blah blah. i thought: nice! a young girl outside the faith is exposed to a miracle and maybe reevaluates her prejudices against the Church.
think again! this tired piece of stereotyping drivel was a sore disappointment to be sure.
a catalog of its offenses:
1. even in 1878 girls will be girls apparently. the academy girls in this case have no actual faith whatsoever and seem to spend all their time and energy sneaking out at night to smoke cigarettes and meet boys (um ~ no). i'm not exaggerating either: not a single girl in this school is serious.
2. the most offensive character in the story is one of these girls who is not only a hateful little witch, but goes so far to manipulate her uncle the bishop, claim to have a vocation to be a nun so she can carry on with a boy, and she stabs the eyes out of a kitten with an embroidery needle (i'm not making this up).
3. the only admirable, not hateful characters are the non-Catholics and nuns who break all the rules and the carpenter of the staircase, of course, who spouts such relativist gems as : God doesn't care what faith you are as long as you're a good person. the bishop is shown to be nice, but also removed from the faith.
4. as to the Faith: oy vey! just a pack of superstitious idol-worshipping idiocy. the novena to Saint Joseph in particular is so abused by the plot to make you think Catholics are morons ~ it's really pathetic.
5. the story itself is just idiotic: characters are so broad-brushed they're like cartoons and most of them do completely illogical things just for the sake of moving the plot forward. when the usefulness of a character has run out, the author just kills them off conveniently. at the end we're supposed to believe that the horrid girl who blinded the cat is somehow redeemed because the carpenter heals the cat, but where the author pulls this from is beyond me ~ the girl never shows the slightest remorse or change.
who'd've thunk in this glorious "enlightened" day and age such a nasty, hateful book would get published? and for a young audience as well! here kiddies, something to galvanize your hatred of the Church. if this had been written about a black school or buddhist retreat or pretty much anything else, it would have never gotten by the editor. blargh!
i'm now reading David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest ~ let's see if it's any better in its treatment of the Faith.
: o p
think again! this tired piece of stereotyping drivel was a sore disappointment to be sure.
a catalog of its offenses:
1. even in 1878 girls will be girls apparently. the academy girls in this case have no actual faith whatsoever and seem to spend all their time and energy sneaking out at night to smoke cigarettes and meet boys (um ~ no). i'm not exaggerating either: not a single girl in this school is serious.
2. the most offensive character in the story is one of these girls who is not only a hateful little witch, but goes so far to manipulate her uncle the bishop, claim to have a vocation to be a nun so she can carry on with a boy, and she stabs the eyes out of a kitten with an embroidery needle (i'm not making this up).
3. the only admirable, not hateful characters are the non-Catholics and nuns who break all the rules and the carpenter of the staircase, of course, who spouts such relativist gems as : God doesn't care what faith you are as long as you're a good person. the bishop is shown to be nice, but also removed from the faith.
4. as to the Faith: oy vey! just a pack of superstitious idol-worshipping idiocy. the novena to Saint Joseph in particular is so abused by the plot to make you think Catholics are morons ~ it's really pathetic.
5. the story itself is just idiotic: characters are so broad-brushed they're like cartoons and most of them do completely illogical things just for the sake of moving the plot forward. when the usefulness of a character has run out, the author just kills them off conveniently. at the end we're supposed to believe that the horrid girl who blinded the cat is somehow redeemed because the carpenter heals the cat, but where the author pulls this from is beyond me ~ the girl never shows the slightest remorse or change.
who'd've thunk in this glorious "enlightened" day and age such a nasty, hateful book would get published? and for a young audience as well! here kiddies, something to galvanize your hatred of the Church. if this had been written about a black school or buddhist retreat or pretty much anything else, it would have never gotten by the editor. blargh!
i'm now reading David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest ~ let's see if it's any better in its treatment of the Faith.
: o p
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clearly the writer knows the Church well enough to get a lot of things right and she still abuses the faith ~ and worse yet, she admits that one of the non-Catholic "good" characters is based on a real priest from Santa Fe who was just the soul of goodness to her and everyone he touched.
why then spit on the faith and change the character into some crazy non-Catholic woman for the sake of the plot? how hateful is that???
arghhhhh!
: o p
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Makes me want to write a book that shows the truth of our faith and proves the prejudices and misconceptions wrong...
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and it reminds me i have writing to do myself ~ !
: o p
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PLEASE...
Add this entry as your comment on the book, PLEASE. I have a feeling most of these reviews were done by protestants with no clue of how this book distorts the Church.
With Love,
Marie
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Re: PLEASE...
; )
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Re: PLEASE...
and yes, i couldn't believe the eye poking scene ~ or that it's mentioned later in passing that she got a whipping for it, but nothing really dire results as a consequence and she basically gets off for it when the kitten is miraculously healed and she lies by saying she never poked its eyes (only then to reveal at the end that she DID poke the eyes, thereby revealing the miracle to the narrator) ~ and yes, the book is exactly that convoluted and just plain dumb.
just yuck all around.
: o p
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Re: PLEASE...
With Love,
Marie
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no subject
A comment on your offense #1: How could all the girls do that? It's 1878. I mean, at least some of them had to be sincere and faithful.
And actually, I didn't think it was a children's book....
and worse yet, she admits that one of the non-Catholic "good" characters is based on a real priest from Santa Fe who was just the soul of goodness to her and everyone he touched.
Dispicable. Who is this author?
(Nothing against non-Catholics themselves, but to see some of them distort the Church so... especially when they know quite a bit about it... it's horrid.)
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it's amazingly one-sided.
it's in the "young adult" section and the main character is 13 or 14 years old i believe, so that's the audience it's written for.
meh ~
: o p
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With Love,
Marie
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