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annatheavid's review
This was a strange book. This is a biography of the life of Therese of Lisieux, someone I really enjoyed reading and was greatly interested in years ago. I found this biography and automatically picked it up. Therese only lived to be 24 years old but despite being a little known nun became a saint and her book a Story of a Soul as I last read it was a beautiful piece of work (I haven’t reread it recently but hopefully will in future for a new take on it). This being said it is natural the biographer here didn’t have perhaps alot of material to make an 150-200 page book. Also a “Story of a Soul” is also Therese’s autiobiography so this might make the biographer’s task also a bit more difficult as what new material do you cover? All this said this was not a good biography. This book was more opinion and speculation which actually interrupted and segmented the narrative of Therese’s life. Another thing I did not appreciate about this author is that she didn’t make her stance known and so tried to offer other perspectives but ambiguity just made it that much more trying to read. Would not recommend as a biography.
nwhyte's review
1.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1449215.html
I really didn't know much about St Thérèse of Lisieux, other than that her relics have been the centre of much religious enthusiasm in the various countries to which they have been brought. After reading this book, I don't feel that I know much more than I did. She was one of eight children, the youngest of four surviving sisters, who all became nuns in the same convent (Thérèse having personally petitioned the Pope to be allowed to join at the age of fifteen); she basically dedicated herself to a consuming, borderline erotic vision of union with Christ, and expired of tuberculosis at the age of 24 in 1897. Despite having grown up in the Irish Catholic tradition myself, I found a lot of the story pretty repellent, and if I'd been Thérèse's spiritual director I fear I would have instructed her rather firmly to get a grip. Having said that, I think her intense devotion to her personal conception of Christ is an extrapolation of the extreme loyalties I sometimes see expressed in media fandom communities. Perhaps I should get hold of her Story of a Soul but I am not really inclined to after reading this.
I really didn't know much about St Thérèse of Lisieux, other than that her relics have been the centre of much religious enthusiasm in the various countries to which they have been brought. After reading this book, I don't feel that I know much more than I did. She was one of eight children, the youngest of four surviving sisters, who all became nuns in the same convent (Thérèse having personally petitioned the Pope to be allowed to join at the age of fifteen); she basically dedicated herself to a consuming, borderline erotic vision of union with Christ, and expired of tuberculosis at the age of 24 in 1897. Despite having grown up in the Irish Catholic tradition myself, I found a lot of the story pretty repellent, and if I'd been Thérèse's spiritual director I fear I would have instructed her rather firmly to get a grip. Having said that, I think her intense devotion to her personal conception of Christ is an extrapolation of the extreme loyalties I sometimes see expressed in media fandom communities. Perhaps I should get hold of her Story of a Soul but I am not really inclined to after reading this.
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