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Chronicles From The Hall
CHRONICLES FROM THE HALL is a coming of age story set in a Catholic boarding school run by the Sisters of Mercy called McAuley Hall. The Hall is set in the heart of the Roman Catholic Precinct of st.John's, Newfoundland and takes place during the fast changing late 1960's.
The author was sent there by a cruel and unfeeling stepfather and a weak, unloving mother after the death of her father.
The story will take you through the most important years of a young girl's life. The writer makes you a voyeur, titillated, if you will, by a glimpse inside this often forbidden world.
The author leaves behind her better judgement and writes brutally and honestly about her experiences during that time. She speaks of her own raw emotions, failures, and lack of judgement as she tries to navigate life through this hostile environment. The story is laced with both humour and pathos.
It conveys both the power and scope of the Roman Catholic Church during those years. The nuns had a mandate to ptotect and educate the children in their care, but often failed miserably. The story also conveys the emotions of a young teenager, cast adrift, in this strange new world and the circumstances that brought her there.
The author was sent there by a cruel and unfeeling stepfather and a weak, unloving mother after the death of her father.
The story will take you through the most important years of a young girl's life. The writer makes you a voyeur, titillated, if you will, by a glimpse inside this often forbidden world.
The author leaves behind her better judgement and writes brutally and honestly about her experiences during that time. She speaks of her own raw emotions, failures, and lack of judgement as she tries to navigate life through this hostile environment. The story is laced with both humour and pathos.
It conveys both the power and scope of the Roman Catholic Church during those years. The nuns had a mandate to ptotect and educate the children in their care, but often failed miserably. The story also conveys the emotions of a young teenager, cast adrift, in this strange new world and the circumstances that brought her there.
167 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 16, 2018
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August 23, 2018
The shift of a young girl’s perception of herself and the world
This book doesn’t read like a book with highly structured chapters that sequentially build on one other with an underlying story line that has a beginning, a piece-by-piece building up to a crescendo, then a tidy ending. Chronicles is really better in that it is more like reading a personal journal of a young girl’s experiences of what she’s taught is the correct way to behave and to whom she should show respect. The book includes all the twists and turns, ups and downs, the exhilaration of rising expectations and how suddenly those expectations can vanish in the life of a young girl.
As I was reading this chronicle of events I was reminded of a quote attributed to Albert Einstein
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth”
Exemplars of this notion are found in Chronicles from the Hall. The author describes her first-hand observations of goings on not meant to be observed by her as well as her sharing of events with classmates as the pedagoguery begins to unravel. This ultimately leads her to the realization that the pontificating about right and wrong and to whom respect should be given was at best shallow.
The events described, if examined individually, are not physically brutal or profanely ridiculing (some may take exception to the latter), but taken together over an extended period of a young life, the events have an emotionally scarring effect. The book also chronicles the many ways a youngster will grasp for just about any alternative to the relentless belittlement by those in authority.
It is an easy book to read and would be appropriate to a broad age of readers. Those of us who were in high school in the 1960s will undoubtedly either draw parallels or recall a completely different culture of her/his teen years with the culture of the author’s education. Those readers born in the 1960s and raised in the age of ascending permissiveness of child rearing will be aghast at the day-to-day goings on in the Catholic girls’ boarding school described in this book.
The book could be appealing to readers as young as 14 or 15. Upon reading the book, a youngster today may find it difficult to grasp the rigidity of the education depicted in the book. Such readers might even be prompted to ask mom or dad or grandma or grandpa, especially if a relative went to a boarding school, if school was like this when they were in high school. The young reader might even pause and compare the rules they feel they’re “burdened” with today with the rules and regulations of behavior described in Chronicles. It would be nice to think by reading this book the young reader might have a conversation with mom or dad, or grandma or grandpa that she/he would not otherwise have.
For non-Canadian readers (like me), before going too far in the book, consult a map of Canada and get an understanding of just how geographically (and perhaps in the 1960s, also culturally) remote St. John's Newfoundland is. Also, read page 16 a couple of times to let the notion of the “Precinct” sink in.
This book doesn’t read like a book with highly structured chapters that sequentially build on one other with an underlying story line that has a beginning, a piece-by-piece building up to a crescendo, then a tidy ending. Chronicles is really better in that it is more like reading a personal journal of a young girl’s experiences of what she’s taught is the correct way to behave and to whom she should show respect. The book includes all the twists and turns, ups and downs, the exhilaration of rising expectations and how suddenly those expectations can vanish in the life of a young girl.
As I was reading this chronicle of events I was reminded of a quote attributed to Albert Einstein
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth”
Exemplars of this notion are found in Chronicles from the Hall. The author describes her first-hand observations of goings on not meant to be observed by her as well as her sharing of events with classmates as the pedagoguery begins to unravel. This ultimately leads her to the realization that the pontificating about right and wrong and to whom respect should be given was at best shallow.
The events described, if examined individually, are not physically brutal or profanely ridiculing (some may take exception to the latter), but taken together over an extended period of a young life, the events have an emotionally scarring effect. The book also chronicles the many ways a youngster will grasp for just about any alternative to the relentless belittlement by those in authority.
It is an easy book to read and would be appropriate to a broad age of readers. Those of us who were in high school in the 1960s will undoubtedly either draw parallels or recall a completely different culture of her/his teen years with the culture of the author’s education. Those readers born in the 1960s and raised in the age of ascending permissiveness of child rearing will be aghast at the day-to-day goings on in the Catholic girls’ boarding school described in this book.
The book could be appealing to readers as young as 14 or 15. Upon reading the book, a youngster today may find it difficult to grasp the rigidity of the education depicted in the book. Such readers might even be prompted to ask mom or dad or grandma or grandpa, especially if a relative went to a boarding school, if school was like this when they were in high school. The young reader might even pause and compare the rules they feel they’re “burdened” with today with the rules and regulations of behavior described in Chronicles. It would be nice to think by reading this book the young reader might have a conversation with mom or dad, or grandma or grandpa that she/he would not otherwise have.
For non-Canadian readers (like me), before going too far in the book, consult a map of Canada and get an understanding of just how geographically (and perhaps in the 1960s, also culturally) remote St. John's Newfoundland is. Also, read page 16 a couple of times to let the notion of the “Precinct” sink in.
Displaying 1 of 1 review