Saturday, June 21, 2008

The vicar

What were your thoughts on the vicar? And, particularly, Cassandra's conversations with him about religion in the final part of the book? She had encounters with him and with Miss Marcy as she was trying to figure out what to do with her lovelorn self and trying to determine whether there were worthwhile ways of life wherein "suffering" could be avoided. I don't have the book in front of me, but she comes to the conclusion that if you build a life around not suffering that you miss too much.

Remember this early description of the vicar? He is the nicest man — about fifty, plump, with curly golden hair; rather like an elderly baby — and most unholy.
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3 comments:

rev amy said...

I did love the Vicar. First off because he was wonderfully human and not some stuffy religious type. He was another piece of the eccentric charm of the village life. And perhaps at moments a bit more fatherly to Cassandra than her own father.

At the start of that conversation Cassandra says, "we got started on religion, which surprised me rather, as the Vicar so seldom mentions it--I mean, to our family; naturally it must come up in his daily life."

and later, "I thought what a good man he is, yet never annoyingly holy."

Charming that the one time he does bring religion up to her he is also getting her drunk on maderia. (her discovery process about alcohol yet one more way Smith shows her growing up through the novel, yes?)

Otherwise I thought the entire conversation was brilliant. Getting "a whiff of God" through smell or taste or sight or sound is exactly how I imagine the spiritual life. Or at least my spiritual life, especially when I read, "He sighed and said the whiffs were few and far between. 'But the memory of them everlasting.'"

When the vicar sent her into the church to close the window I was hoping that she would find some solace. It was wonderful how hard she tried, "I remembered what the Vicar said about knowing God with all one's senses so I gave my ears a rest and tried my nose."

But I suppose it was better that she didn't because it would have somehow short circuited her maturing process. In the end religion became one more thing she tried that didn't relieve her heartache (like kissing Stephen or drinking at the village tavern). Despite the Vicar's wisdom Cassandra never really moved past praying as "wishing on the moon."

Though that was the part Christianity played in the story, I still felt Smith had some spiritual insight to write that conversation the way she did.

1:56 PM, June 23, 2008
kc said...

Yes, he was wonderfully human, as you say, and I also thought that Smith had some insight into religious feeling based on the way she presented that conversation — maybe of the type that Cassandra has when she grants that the vicar was on to something when he said religion was an extension of art. She says, "And then I had a glimpse of how religion really can cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, jut as art can make sad things beautiful."

But as you note, it's just a glimpse of religion that she has in the end, although I suspect it returns to her as those "whiffs" throughout life. She has a sense of beauty about the natural world and an appreciation for the good things in life that is almost spiritual.

She also had this notion that it wasn't right to look to religion to solve your problems if you didn't look to it otherwise. She was very sensitive to how people turned to religion in times of trouble but ignored it generally. And she upbraided Rose for making selfish use of religion, telling her she should just mention things briefly because long prayers seemed like "nagging."

5:04 PM, June 23, 2008
Erin said...

I loved the vicar. He seemed like a real no-bullshit type of person.

I loved that "nagging" thing, too. I remember thinking the same thing when I was young and stupid and my prayers consisted mainly of begging God to bring me a boyfriend.

5:14 PM, June 27, 2008

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