The Tulip and the Pope: A Nun's Story

by Deborah Larsen

Book Overview

The story of novelist and poet Deborah Larsen's young womanhood, The Tulip and the Pope is both an exquisitely crafted spiritual memoir and a beautifully nuanced view of life in the convent.In... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375712909
• ISBN13: 9780375712906
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Serious, but also dryly droll ...

When 19 yr-old Mary Deborah Maertz entered the convent in Dubuque, Iowa, in the early sixties it was with every intention of staying. But the best-laid plans and all that. Times changed, the Church changed, but most of all, she changed. After five years - in Dubuque and Chicago - Sister Mary Deborah left the convent, emerging into a radically changed world, once again just Deborah Maertz, older and wiser. But this is an intimate and detailed look back at those days of habits, daily prayers and rigid rituals, and what she thought then - and thinks now - about those times. I spent a year in a minor seminary once at the end of the fifties, when I was only fourteen, so maybe I could relate to Larsen's THE TULIP AND THE POPE better than some. The most unexpected aspect of Larsen's memoir was the dry wit and humor which kept cropping up on nearly every page. I chuckled through much of the book. Here's a small sample in which Larsen briefly outlines some of the convent's rules of pesonal conduct and comportment, as listed in a printed handout to the postulants - "Avoid throat clearing, scratching, cleaning out the ears, picking the face or teeth, spitting and similar unpleasant acts in public. All those gross acts named in one patch of prose on a convent handout struck me as funny. The handout may as well have read, 'This is not a zoo, girls.' ..." And there's plenty more of this kind of stuff. Of course there is all the expected serious stuff too, about how Larsen came to gradually question her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as the months and years wore on. Make no mistake, Deborah Larsen is a gifted writer who knows how to keep her story moving. I read this book in just a couple of sittings. If you are a Catholic, an ex-Catholic, an anti-Catholic or a "recovering Catholic," you will relate to Larsen's story. An excellent memoir. - Tim Bazzett, author of Reed City Boy

Interesting, Excellent Memoir. Highly Recommended

Rarely do I read a book as quickly as I tore through this one. It took me four bedtime readings to read this book, which is extremely rare for me. Since, as a child and early teen, I longed to be a nun myself, I found this book to be compelling and intensely interesting. I spent many years amongst the cloistered nuns (what an honor!) at the Benedictine convent near my childhood home, and I yearned to become one of them myself. By the time I was old enough to consent, I had found my commitment to God outside of this arena. Besides, I wasn't even Catholic! But I digress. This book gives a very personal glimpse inside the convent of cloistered nuns in the early `60's - a turbulent time within society and within the Church. I was very glad that there was an epilogue that told of her life forty years later, and how she lives her life now. I found the writing to be lacking at times - she writes as she probably speaks, and sometimes I can't follow her though process. However, this is a book NOT to be missed, regardless of your religious orientation.

The Tulip and the Pope

My wife ordered this book and loves it. The book seems to cover the subject well.

Wonderful memoir of a spiritual journey

Neither Catholic nor recovering Catholic, I wouldn't have picked this up if I hadn't been so impressed with Larsen's beautifully spare THE WHITE. However, this did not disappoint. Written in short, almost stand-alone essays, it takes us through Larsen's youthful decision to enter the convent and her eventual decision to leave, including an interesting epilogue forty years later. It's a balanced, respectful, down-to-earth, wry look at faith and vocation and I'd love to give a copy to all the faithful, thinking women I know. (Larsen supplies a great list for further reading, too.)

Great writing saves the day (and the book)

Several years ago, I worked with an ex-nun. Naturally, I was fascinated by her former life, but she herself dismissed the mystique. Asked why she left, she shrugged. Her friends had left and they said, "How come you're still here?" Not much more traumatic than changing more secular careers. And Deborah Larsen's memoir echoes this view. Near the end, Larsen asks a present-day BVM nun who would have been her contemporary, "Why did you stay?" Prosaically, the nun answers, "It's a good fit for me." She's using the language of career, not vocation, and we shouldn't overlook the significance of that distinction. Larsen entered one of the most progressive, intelligent religious communities in the US. She remarks on the good taste that now surrounded her. And although she agonized over the decision to leave, she received support from friends and most of the religious community. And when she took off her veil for the last time -- no big deal. Just another evening. Larsen writes with a detachment that could be considered cold, or perhaps poetic. We get few glimpses of struggle -- interior or exterior -- from the moment she entered to the day she left. Weren't there any conflicts? (Even my ex-colleague remembered a civil war with her novice mistress.) Any moments of intense homesickness, anger or frustration? Larsen doesn't even seek advice till she turns to her confessor as she considers leaving the religious life. Following the rules of writing, Larsen's book should fail. No conflict. Little suspense. No adventure. But instead the book is selling well and I didn't want to put it down. Why? Well, each chapter reads like an elegant essay, more like a short op-ed piece than a memoir. And Larsen's irony, sometimes approaching self-mockery, keeps the story from becoming maudlin. She inserts actual documents - lists of "what to bring to the convent," rules from previous years - that communicate a sense of early-sixties religious life more than any narrative and add further to the sense of irony and detachment. But the greatest irony comes from the way Larsen keeps contrasting Hulme's Nun's Story with her own. Before entering the convent, Larsen practically memorized the story. Now Sister Luke hovers like a ghost throughout the book and, most likely, through Larsen's life. And Larsen occasionally stretches the irony into humor. My favorite passage can be found on page 210, The Taste of Straw, where Larsen compares her own departure with Sr. Luke's. "How I wish the Belgian underground were waiting for me!" Almost a laugh-aloud moment. But more seriously, she captures the ambiguity and angst of a true life transition -- something I, as a career consultant, find worth exploring. Leaving an identity can be especially problematic when you are moving from something, not to a new goal. Larsen vaguely dreamed of marriage and family. On page 206 she writes, rather matter-of-factly, of moving from procrastination and dawdling to the sheer p