Gaining a Religion

For those wondering, I haven't cracked the memory treatment yet. But I will. Until then I'm going to explore the religious elements of my novel. I myself am not religious; spiritual yes but I've never belonged to any kind of organised group. Dasha, however, does. Her mother is an extremely orthodox (over-exaggeration in term?) Catholic – confirmation, Sabbath, aversion to taking the lord's name in vain, the lot. I think it would be uncharitable of me to say that I chose this path because I wanted her to be a harsh and unloving role model. After all, Catholics aren't all this way. What I really wanted to utilise from the Catholic faith is the idea of confession. Throughout the novel are scattered scenes of Dasha confessing her often trite secrets to Father Boughers (though they become decidedly more impressive as she ages) and the memory of this confined space wherein she describes her precious trespasses affects her personal interactions with every other person she meets. After all they are innately terrifying in a kind of bottomless maw way.

Her desire to be honest and her fear of moral judgement are lingering backlashes of the strict upbringing she received but I don't feel like religion alone will wholly capture Lilia's severity. What past does this woman have that makes her so unloving? She needs a heritage. A race. And then I had it. Lilia Eddelson began life as Lilia Dubrovsky; girl-child in Russia; product of poverty and faith; lonely for home but rejecting its memory. She refuses to speak or teach Dasha Russian, won't tell of her early days in Moscow, frets over money and recycling teabags, scorns her husband's gentleness with his daughter and expects Dasha to settle for motherly love from the Virgin Mary. All this on top of being a Russian orthodox Catholic. Come to think of it, I may have overdone it.

Lara S.