The well of loneliness

by Radclyffe Hall

Paper Book, 1990

LCC

PZ3.H1468

Status

Available

Call number

PZ3.H1468

Publication

New York : Anchor Books, 1990.

Description

Stephen Gordon is an ideal child of aristocratic parents - a fencer, a horse rider and a keen scholar. Stephen grows to be a war hero, a bestselling writer and a loyal, protective lover. But Stephen is a woman, and her lovers are women. As her ambitions drive her, and society confines her, Stephen is forced into desperate actions. A classic that was banned in 1928 in one of the country' s most famous obscenity trials, but went on to become an international bestseller.

User reviews

LibraryThing member lauralkeet
Yes, it was trying to get her under, this world with its mighty self-satisfaction, with its smug rules of conduct, all made to be broken by those who strutted and preened themselves on being what they considered normal. They trod on the necks of those thousands of others who, for God knew what
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reason, were not made as they were ... And the vilest of them could point a finger of scorn at her, and be loudly applauded." (p. 256)

Published in 1928, The Well of Loneliness dealt openly with the subject of homosexuality, at a time when it was far from well-understood, and never discussed, by "polite society." It is a searingly painful account of a young woman's coming of age and her search for love and acceptance. Her parents longed for a son, referred to her in utero as "Stephen," and then in fact baptised her as Stephen. She grew up "not like other girls," and with few friends in her community. Only a couple of people understood the situation: her father, who had read some of the research of the day, and a governess who was herself a lesbian. But they maintained their silence; Stephen's father did not even confide in her mother, and no one explained things to Stephen.

Stephen began discovering her own sexuality as she approached adulthood, through relationships with a male friend and a married woman. Later, she became part of a circle of "like" friends, and was in a committed relationship with another woman. Yet her life was not a happy one. Her mannish appearance attracted a lot of attention and gossip, she could never be "out" in public, and her relationships would never be formally recognized in the church or in the courts. She became estranged from her mother, who could not accept Stephen as she was. This is not a happy story, but Radclyffe Hall so expertly draws the reader into Stephen's life, love, and anguish, that this book is difficult to put down.

What struck me most profoundly in this novel is both how far we've come, and how far we haven't, in societal views toward gays and lesbians. On the one hand, today most people know someone who is gay, and gays themselves can find community. Some are also comfortable being open about their sexuality. None of this was possible in 1928. On the other hand, Radclyffe Hall vociferously argued that homosexuality was innate, not a choice, a subject some people still debate. And, gay and lesbian relationships are still not properly recognized in many states and countries, and in many religious denominations.

Because of its controversial subject matter, The Well of Loneliness was banned in Britain for 20 years after its publication. I read it in honor of Banned Books Week, and I'm glad I did.
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LibraryThing member otterley
There is not much to say about the Well of Loneliness that hasn't been said already - had it not been subject to a notorious court case and banned because of its shocking subject matter, and had it not offered a fascinating window into a marginalised and criminalised lifestyle, it would have been
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forgotten. Hall's prose is overwrought and her story completely without humour or perspective. Her heroine is fabulously wealthy, charismatic and talented; her depictions of the countryside lush to the point of parody (Stella Gibbons perhaps?) - and the air of tragedy around her lesbianism feels excessive even in a less tolerant society than today's (wealth and social status have always protected 'eccentricity' in the upper classes). The scenes when Stephen served in the war and the depictions of the gay demi-monde in Paris were genuinely interesting and described with an economy and vividness absent from the nostalgic glow or breast beating that comprises the vast majority of the novel.
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LibraryThing member afinpassing
A mostly martyred and sadistic treatment of "inversion" circa 1928 Britain, which alternates between passionate cries for equality and recognition as natural on one hand and on the other abased self-denial and reaffirmation of "the perfect thing" that is heteronormative love, raising children, and
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a sense of belonging to society. In tone, too, it varies wildly from prosaic to embarrassingly romantic and pagan to brutally intense (the last chapter is, while sort of ridiculous ...more A mostly martyred and sadistic treatment of "inversion" circa 1928 Britain, which alternates between passionate cries for equality and recognition as natural on one hand and on the other abased self-denial and reaffirmation of "the perfect thing" that is heteronormative love, raising children, and a sense of belonging to society. In tone, too, it varies wildly from prosaic to embarrassingly romantic and pagan to brutally intense (the last chapter is, while sort of ridiculous in substance, unusually successful in this).

An important landmark for lesbian literature and a fascinatingly grotesque exercise in self-perception, but not a very good novel at all. Following nearly forty years of a life from birth to final tragedy, Stephen Gordon is described sometimes in excruciating, pointless detail; at others, major events breeze past with little consideration. The supporting players are mostly stock figures, and perhaps read more so today than when it was published as all the gay and lesbian stereotypes have played out through decades of cultural output, but none have much to contribute besides a definite articulated viewpoint and position counter to our heroine, and are dropped and brought up again with no elegance. That is the major problem with all aspects of the story: everything is definitely articulated and inelegant, and the epic length makes it so tiresome weeks went by without wanting to take it up (then again, there were days of compulsive, delighted reading, too) -- and Hall relies on a number of recurring favored turns of phrase that grow increasingly stilted and oppressive.

Where it isn't bland it is almost relentlessly bleak, but, as far as it goes, for that it makes a useful study in gay life and identity in the early part of the 20th century. One only wishes for more -- or at least more style where it does find its purpose.
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LibraryThing member lilithcat
". . . it is the first English novel which presents, in a completely faithful and uncompromising form, one particular aspect of sexual life as it exists among us to-day. The relation of certain people . . . to the often hostile society in which they move, presents difficult and still unsolved
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problems." Havelock Ellis, commentary published with the 1928 edition.

"I should not today review this long, emotional novel in quite the same terms, but a book, to be treated fairly, has to be reviewed within the climate of its own generation. Though hindsight would not impel me to change a good deal, I am still impressed by its passionate honesty and intolerant public." Vera Brittain, writing in 1968 of her 1928 appearance as a witness for the defense in the obscenity case brought against Ms. Hall's publishers.

Sentimental, overwrought, indulges in stereotypes, and of course Stephen's lover is saved by the love of a good man. Nevertheless, Well of Loneliness is extraordinarily moving in parts (one section never fails to bring me to tears). One must, as Brittain says, keep in mind the time at which it was written, for the very acts of writing and publishing it were tremendously courageous.
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LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
One of those seminal (no pun intended) novels which gets harder to read when the original shock value has long worn off. I'm sure Radclyffe Hall's open and emotional account of 'inverts', or lesbians, in Edwardian England and post-war Paris was controversial enough to warrant the furore raised at
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the time of publication - an obscenity trial which lead to the book being banned in the UK - but now Loneliness is just a weakly written historical account of prejudice and persecution - interesting, important but lacking in inspiration.

Don't get me wrong, for the first half of the book, all I could think was 'Yes! I'm going to change my name to Stephen, this woman is telling my story!' - which I suppose is a good thing, 90 years on - but then the purple prose kicked in. Now, I have read every last one of Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel novels, which was like Enid Blyton writing for Mills and Boon, but at least her characters were interesting. Stephen - yes, of course giving the female protagonist a male name instantly turns her into a pseudo-man - suffers for her 'unnatural' love, but she is so dreadfully upper class, I couldn't bring myself to care. I was more concerned about her horse. And Mary is a drip. I did like the acid-tongued Brockett, though.

I'm sorry, I know I should revere this novel far more than I do, and I'm sure reading this drivel gave a lot of confused and closeted women the strength to be themselves, but the writing is so stodgy. There's a lot going on - gay love affairs, World War One, 'Gay Paree' - but there is also much heavy prose, caricatures and general racism, which I don't normally complain about in nineteenth/early twentieth century texts, but there are a couple of cringe-inducing examples.

'For sooner the world came to realise that fine brains very frequently went with inversion, the sooner it would have to withdraw its ban, and the sooner would cease this persecution.'
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LibraryThing member ocgreg34
Anna and Sir Phillip Gordon looked happily unpon the upcoming birth of their child, hoping against hope to have a boy, even going so far as to only pick out a boy's name. When the child arrives, Anna is dispirited when she gives birth to a girl. Sir Phillip makes the most of it, but still decides
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to give her the name they'd already chosen: Stephen. And so enters into the world one of the most astonishing creatures of literary fiction.

Young Stephen knows that she's different from the other children, but her father, noticing her difference also, allows her to grow up her own way: riding horses like a young man, sometimes dressing like a young boy. From a young age to her lae thirties, we watch as Stephen discovers herself, longing to love and to fit into a society that will not accept her or others like her. She puts her feelings into words, becoming a successful author and does find love, but that love is put to the test when someone who can offer her beloved acceptance steps into the picture.

An astonishing book for its time that was banned upon initial publication, openly discussing what was considered taboo with much candor and respect. The characters of Radclyffe Hall's novel deal with the same societal pressures and beliefs which are still prevalent today: same-sex marriage, societal roles of male and female, wanting to fight for one's country during a time of war even when that country doesn't want you because of who you are. A truly remarkbale novel.
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LibraryThing member Ganeshaka
In short, Judy the Obscure - that is to say, Radclyffe Hall eloquently excruciatingly explicates the sorrows of Stephen Gordon, a gender dysphoric Edwardian woman, with an ultimate spin as inevitable and crushing a downer as what Thomas Hardy did for his sad and unlucky in love stone mason.
LibraryThing member Helenliz
A couple of notes: I understand this book is historically important - that doesn't mean it is very good or has aged very well.
And I have to get this off my chest right away. My edition was 496 pages long and throughout that entire time not one person comments, "Stephen, huh, that's an odd name for
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a girl". NOT ONE! I understand why she's called Stephen (father convinced the cild was going to be a boy, so she gets the boys name they'd picked out) but for not one person to even make passing reference to it throughout the remainder of the book is just entirely unrealistic.
So what to make of the book itself. Well it's all very overblown and flowery. At times it disappears into a religious strain that to the modern reader is redundant and self indulgent. It is of its time.
I also thought that this was going to go down the nature vs nurture debate. The first part of the book sets this up: the girl born instead of the wanted son, such that she is given a boy's name and brought up more like a boy - being allowed to ride astride, for instance. But the text itself, at every oportunity, is insistant that inverts (to use the language of the time) are born. That they can;t be unnatural, as society would have it, because they are born that way. And then God gets dragged in again and you go round the loop again. It's one I have no intention of revisiting, although I am able to admire its bravery while not having enjoyed it very much at all.
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall was first published in 1928. It tells about the life of Englishwoman, Stephen Gordon, born to an upper-class family, but a disappointment to her parents as she wasn't the expected boy. From an early age, it was apparent that she was a lesbian. Her father
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recognized this and tried to help her and guide her but he fell short of actually explaining to her what her sexual identity meant, leaving her confused and uncertain. Her mother knew her daughter was different and that this difference made her unlovable to her, yet she failed to recognize or acknowledge or what that difference was.

I found this an incredibly sad story as she faced manipulation, ridicule and scorn all of her life. It is all too easy to forget how not following the 'norm' in sexual identity was treated not all that long ago. My heart goes out to people who have had to struggle to find their place in the world and be accepted for their true nature.

This book has been banned on and off again over the years, but for quite some time it was one of the main books about being lesbian and as such was the guidebook for many a young girl. I can't say that I particularly enjoyed this story of gender identity but I can understand it's importance. Believed to be auto-biographical, The Well of Loneliness is a slow and thoughtful, non-explicit story about wanting love and acceptance but mostly finding despair and loneliness.
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LibraryThing member Emily.D
A fascinating book. When I started it I thought it was going to read as a fictional autobiography - and it sort of did, though it turned out in the end more like a five hundred page long character study. The last fifty or so pages were heartbreaking, and the tragic conclusion was inevitable, and
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beautiful in a sad sort of way.

I started this book for my school English Literature project - as a book to compare with Tipping The Velvet. More than any other LGBT book I've read (though admittedly I'm only on about number twenty) Stephen's internal conflicts and struggles were perfectly transcribed and inspired an enormous amount of sympathy in me. More than I had thought it would do, it enabled me to get past how outdated this book is in its treatment of 'inversion'. As a product of the early twentieth century, Radclyffe Hall is over-apologetic about her characters' sexualities and reduces Brockett (the only gay male character in the book) to a meaningless stereotype that the book could really do without.

Despite this, no one could read about Stephen watching Mary leave, or the deaths of Jamie and Barbara, and say that the book presents lesbianism as anything other than a natural and valid way of living a life. Having read it now, rather than just read about it, the obscenity trial and controversy that originally surrounded it seem barbaric. Even when people read it, it was actually condemned for its portrayal of homosexuality when it should have been able to open up people's minds to be more accepting.
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LibraryThing member SharonBT
This novel moved me very much when I first read it, around the time this edition was published - 1968. I had heard of it for years, but finally was able to buy a copy. The plot has been summarised by many other reviewers and I find myself agreeing with a lot of the criticisms of it now - its
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negativity, Stephen Gordon as martyr, class snobbery and racism, etc - but I believe it should be appreciated as a work of its time. No, Radclyffe Hall was not a great writer, but she was a successful "middlebrow" novelist who had won a couple of literary awards and earned a respectable place among novelists of the twenties. I don't believe she realised quite what the publication of The Well would cost her - she may have hoped to cause a stir, but I doubt she'd have wanted the book banned.

What gives the book its power - power to still affect us today? I find it hard to account for this, or the effect it had on me. The sympathetic portrait of Stephen - who would make an honourable, law-abiding, God-fearing and attractive English gentleman, except that she was born a woman - goes part of the way, so that her awful fate can tug at the heartstrings. The total rejection by her mother, the cowardly refusal to "explain" her to herself by her father and the disgraceful treatment of her by the bored, unhappily married Angela Crossby seem more unfair when contrasted with Stephen's good character. And the surrendering of Mary Llewellyn to Martin Hallam means that Stephen effectively loses a good friend, as well as her lover. In fact, you wonder what on earth will happen to Stephen in the future - will she ever love again? And will she ever write another novel?

One of the most interesting characters in The Well is Valerie Seymour, supposedly modelled on American expat, Nathalie Clifford Barney, who held regular literary "salons" in Paris. Valerie is a sane and rational breath of fresh air in the novel, who cannot understand Stephen's decision to sacrifice her own happiness. "You were made for a martyr", she scolds her. But she does allow Stephen to "use" her - pretending they were having an affair - to drive Mary into Martin's arms. I guess if Radclyffe Hall had a major strength, it lay in her portrayal of characters. She seems to invent a character and really go to bat for them. This characterises other works, too - notably The Sixth Beatitude and the short story, "Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself". I haven't read Adam's Breed, but I've no doubt I'd find myself sympathising with its protagonist, too.

In all, I can actually see myself re-reading The Well of Loneliness again some day.
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LibraryThing member misskittystryker
"Well of Loneliness" was just one of those books I had to have, because it's iconic. Sad, certainly, in points, but also really takes one back to a time where being a lesbian was really an option only for the privileged.
LibraryThing member MsNikki
Starts slow, but the foundation needed to be set. Once it gets going the story hooks you. Stephen's turmoil is heartbreaking, but I'm not convinced it rings true. The ending is odd, but I still recommend it highly. The description of the Paris social scene is gripping, especially when juxtapsed
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with periods of religious and romantic passion.
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LibraryThing member sheherazahde
A classic about being a lesbian in the bad old days.
LibraryThing member mirrordrum
the best thing i can say about 'well' is that it inspired Mary Renault, who read it while on vacation in France with her partner, to write "Middle Mist" (published in the US as "the friendly young ladies") as a retort.
LibraryThing member doc_illusion
The book that wouldn't end. It's one redeeming virtue is that the last page is beautifully written.
LibraryThing member blackrabbit89
Boy, was this book a product of its time. The title is spot-on in describing the mood of this novel. The Well of Loneliness is a thinly veiled account of the author’s own life as a lesbian in the 1920s and earlier, and it was very depressing.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve wanted to read this book
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for a long time, and I’m very glad to have read it and experienced it. But I struggled through it. It was draining.

The main character, a lesbian named Stephen, grows up feeling very different from everyone around her, although she doesn’t have a name for this difference. She begins an affair with a married woman who abandons her, and eventually she falls in love with a woman she met during WWI. The entire book paints lesbians and gay men as social outcasts, sexual deviants, freaks of nature–which is how society viewed them at that time. Stephen is hyperaware of just how extremely heavy the burden of her “deviant sexuality” is. She is rejected by her mother and by others in her life, she struggles to find friends and to create a social life, and eventually she tricks her lover into ending their relationship with the hope that her lover will marry a man and thus be saved from the difficult life of a lesbian.

This book was immediately banned in many places when it was published, and it almost ended Radclyffe Hall’s career. I think she is remarkably brave for having written it, and I think it does inspire sympathy and increase understanding of the burden that society placed on gay people back then. (One minor lesbian character committed suicide; another struggled with immense guilt because of religious oppression.)

Although I would have loved to see Stephen take joy in her sexual orientation, that is perhaps not realistic for its time. Stephen did the best she could in an extremely oppressive society, even maintaining faith in God despite the way the world treated her.
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LibraryThing member bhowell
I read this book when I was 25 and again when I turned fifty. It remains a classic and is achingly sad, a story of heartbreak and loneliness.
LibraryThing member mahallett
i didn't expect to like this as much as i did. stephen is an odd character but interesting. i felt for her. she doesn't understand the world very well. we are all lonely really. i don't think modern lesbians should be offended. perhaps they were offended because there wasn't enough sex to be "true".
LibraryThing member anderlawlor
I read this and Rubyfruit Jungle the same weekend. I was 14 and I'd bought them sleathily from the "feminist" bookstore on Chapel Street in New Haven. (I wish I could remember the name of that bookstore. The Golden Something.) And Rubyfruit Jungle seemed like the world that was possible but The
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Well of Loneliness was a world I could only dream about. I guess I'm due to re-read it. I re-read it as an undergraduate and thought clever queer-studies thoughts about it, but I've forgotten all that now and I just remember being a teenager dreaming about changing my name to Stephen and being British.
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LibraryThing member amerynth
Radclyffe Hall's "The Well of Loneliness" is one of those books that I can appreciate for its history, rather than its literary quality. One of the first books about lesbianism, it was banned and suppressed in both England and America for its frank portrayal of a woman who struggled with her
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sexuality all of her life.

The novel follows the life of a woman named Stephen -- who was given her name by parents who expected a boy. Instead they had a girl who appreciated abilities that were considered masculine in that time-- athleticism, fencing and hunting. She grows into a young woman who struggles with accepting herself when those around her, including an unsympathetic mother, do not. That struggle continues even to the end of the book, which draws to a rather dissatisfying conclusion.

As a literary work, this book isn't particularly appealing. Hall has a tendency to go on and on about events that don't really shed light on any of her characters. Many of them are very two-dimensional, particularly Anna, Stephen's mother. While I didn't really enjoy the book (and in fact struggled in finding the will to finish it,) I'm glad I read it because it illustrates so well the pain and heartache that come in a world without acceptance.
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LibraryThing member atreic
There are lots of reasons not to like 'the first lesbian novel'. The take home message of 'she knew her girlfriend would be better with a Real Man, who could marry her and give her babies, so she lied to make her leave her' is never going to win over all the audience. And it is of its time, with
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all the implicit racism and classism you'd expect.

That out of the way, I adore this book. There is something about it that just sings true to me - what it says about love, and the beauty of the world, and how people cope with being different. A book that manages to capture how terribly cruel and awful the world can be to people, and yet also captures moments of pure joy, and about how the honourable person continues in the world we are in.
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LibraryThing member Chris.Wolak
I read this book for a graduate reading list that I put together on lesbian novels. It was a fascinating read, historically, but on an emotional level it s devastating. I've often thought about re-reading it, but need to wait for a few sunny days on the beach when I'm in a splendid mood.
LibraryThing member Eavans
*4.5? 4.8?*

Do the best you can, no man can do more — but never stop fighting. For us there is no sin so great as despair, and perhaps no virtue so vital as courage.

Um. Wow.

I came across this book in my many forays of pre-Stonewall queer history when I was writing a novelization of queer 1920s New
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York. Lucky for my research, my main characters were male, but I still came across the few and far between primary source fictions of queer women and bookmarked them. I received this book as a gift this Christmas, and seeing a lull in school work, dedicated myself to the 166k word, 400-page clunker. (After reading War and Peace, it was a reassuring number, believe me.)

And man am I glad I read it.

A word of caution: If you don't like old-style prose, you probably won't like it. If you don't like a lot of detail that comes inherent to that style, you probably won't like it. And if you can't appreciate Christianity/Religiosity for a queer person and the many sufferings of it, you probably won't like it.

As I began reading, the idea that Stephen is a transgender man, instead of a "butch" lesbian, seemed to take over me. The linguistic and psychological concepts to differentiate same-sex attraction and gender identity were not known at the time, and it made Stephen's character at times both frustration and immensely fascinating. Coming into the book I was expecting a lesbian narrative, and the more I heard Stephen's feeling of being a boy, the more I grew convinced they were probably transgender, and thus a key part of understanding would be lost to me. As the book progressed, however, my theory seemed to waver, and I'm still not sure how Stephen would identify in the modern world. To me I realized, it didn't necessarily matter to my understanding of the novel's themes of a world not accepting something natural. No matter how Stephen would align themselves, the sentiments still stand: All queer people deserve to be treated equally.

From one character to the next we see how unjust the life is for an "invert". From Angela's twisted sense of selfishness to save her own unhappy honor, to Anna's disgusting denunciation of her child, to Puddle's true inclination never uttered to Stephen, to Martin's awkward growth of love and embarrassed leaving, to the deeply tragic story of Jamie and Barbara, and especially down to Stephen's last sacrifice—not only is the message abundantly clear but seems to also strengthen the connection Stephen had with her father, Sir Phillip.

Sir Phillip is the original God in this story, the Father who understands and accepts his child—but is too afraid to tell her or others for fear of hurting them. This then is the God the Father Stephen prays to at the end, the Father who loves and understands her, but for one reason or another is silent. Stephen finds his scrawled book of Psychopathia Sexualis like the commandments, and through it learns her Father accepts her. He just didn't tell her explicitly. The story is ultimately one of Stephen returning to her Father; enjoying his unabashed love as a child before being banished from her Eden of Morton, she must seek to find peace in her silent, God the Father once more.

And so I found attention to religion beautiful. Being religiously-inclined and grappling with my faith as I try to return to my own halcyon days of God (as Hall themselves would so eloquently put it), the struggle of religion was poignant to me. Stephen's life is underlined by a feeling of God: at times she believes in none of it, at others she seems to understand the power that He really is there—the symbolism of Stephen as Jesus comes to mind, sacrificing herself for her love so she may have a better life. If Hall could be a devout Catholic in the face of her sexuality, her trials—and hell—even WWI, then anyone could. I've been praying for my own spirituality recently, trying to understand my encounters with spirits against a world that tells me I must be insane, the outmoded creation stories, and twisted single-mindedness of the Christian we've all come to revile. It seems like a blessing then that I read this book at the time that I did, and I hope one day I'm at peace with my encounters with the unexplained and otherworldly, and the universality of a God for all people on earth no matter what creed. For now, I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the book, something I'll hold on to for life:

Then an unexpected, and to her very moving thing happened; his eyes filled with pitiful tears: ‘Lord,’ he muttered, ‘why need this have come upon you — this incomprehensible dispensation? It’s enough to make one deny God’s existence!’

She felt a great need to reassure him. At that moment he seemed so much younger than she was as he stood there with his eyes full of pitiful tears, doubting God, because of his human compassion: ‘There are still the trees. Don’t forget the trees, Martin — because of them you used to believe.’

‘Have you come to believe in a God then?’ he muttered.

‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘it’s strange, but I know now I must — lots of us feel that way in the end. I’m not really religious like some of the others, but I’ve got to acknowledge God’s existence, though at times I still think: “Can He really exist?” One can’t help it, when one’s seen what I have here in Paris. But unless there’s a God, where do some of us find even the little courage we possess?’



(For anyone more interested in Hall's relationship with her spirituality, I recommend this article written by a queer Christian site
The book is not 5 stars only because of the length. Sometimes I felt myself slogging through (sometimes being the keyword), though I genuinely liked the writing style in all its stately obsequiousness to detail I know many do not appreciate. Sometimes the attention to detail, especially of natural elements, went on for paragraphs and I wanted to bang my head against something to wake it up. I felt at times the themes were not completely cohesive either, as the details seemed to muddy the message Hall was going for.

I could write 3 papers on this book and the literary merit it still holds—why it is not in schools hounds me. I feel the value of the book escapes the masses, not by any deficiency of themselves but rather of the time and the subject manner. We have equal protection under the law now and classical religion is dwindling. The pertinent issues were already niche 90 years ago, I understand the canon's ignorance of it, though it makes my heart ache. If only Hall could see the happy, queer marriages able to take place in churches now—though a part of me knows she sees it all already.

***
‘God,’ she gasped, we believe; we have told You we believe . . . We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!’
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Language

Original publication date

1928-07-27

Physical description

437 p.; 21 inches

ISBN

0385416091 / 9780385416092
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