Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Travesty of Love

I have a small apricot tree against a wall in the back of my garden. Two of its branches cross in front of a decorative mirror. Yesterday a great tit ( parus major to be more precise) arrived on one of these branches. His reflection in the mirror clearly appeared to him as a rival and he became increasingly enraged at its presence, obsessively tearing leaves off the two branches. My wife and I shooed him away several times without permanent result. This morning both branches were bare and the bird had targeted his wrath on yet other parts of the dwindling tree. Senseless destruction, of course, and a complete waste of energy.

In the midst of this garden drama, I was engrossed in Mariette in Ecstasy, the story of a girl (I suspect loosely based on that of Therese of Lisieux, who had died with some notoriety 7 or 8 years before the book was published) whose only desire was to die - effectively at her own hand - for the love of her life, Jesus Christ. Hers is a story of narcissistic rage against... well, herself. Or, more precisely, the reflection of herself in the mirror of her religion. She has been taught throughout her short life that this reflection is reality and to attack it vigorously by continuously gazing at it and despising it for its inherent evil. Pain, deprivation, opportunities self-denial are all sought after in order to destroy the image of sin which she has of herself.

The community of cloistered nuns in which Mariette has chosen to live normalises her ambition for self-extinction. As the mate of the great tit in my garden watched and undoubtedly encouraged the bird in his insanity, so the other nuns find Mariette’s desires for union with her beloved Jesus to be not just praiseworthy but also saintly. Many envy her steadfastness in pursuit of her religious fantasies. Some even envy her advanced state of delusion as they watch her transport during routine household tasks. She becomes the centre of the community despite her young age.

But to call this group of women a community is to stretch the term. They do work together, have distinct roles, and pray together. But their purpose is entirely individualistic. Each is only interested in exactly what Mariette is interested in: personal transcendence. They have no shared communal goal at all. Their regard for each other is purely formal except for the frequent flirtations about their love for the Master. They are Pharisaic in the extreme, believing that ritual behaviour is the key to their bliss. When they pray, it is not for the world or for their families but for their own death. Mariette succeeds in this self-absorption in what can only be called a travesty of love.

I covered the mirror behind the apricot tree with a fleece. The tit returned to the branches with marked confusion, pecking at the fleece occasionally as if daring the supposed intruder on the other side to show himself. Eventually the ‘therapy’ of the fleece took effect. He and his mate went on to more constructive endeavours. If only there were such a simple therapy for human beings to rid them of their reflective delusions!

Postscript 3May21: For the last two days I have repeatedly tried removing the fleece from the mirror. The bird returns immediately, even more insane and violent each time. So much for my avian therapy.

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