May 2006 Archives

TEAMS MIDDLE ENGLISH TEXTS

An excellent resource with a great many medieval texts and a large number of Arthur and Merlin resources. The texts are nicely glossed to help with the more difficult words and the more impenetrable syntax. Now, if I could just figure out how to carry them around with me.

There are really two points to this post. The second is that radionics still exists and is practiced as medicine in some parts of the world. Most interesting. The first follows:

from A Far Cry From Kensington
Muriel Spark

At the time Abigail showed me her Box I was somewhat relieved to find it futile, because, as I pointed out, if the Box could do good it could also do evil. 'It stands to reason,'I said.

'Oh,' said Abigail de Mordell Staines-Knight, "how right you are. But don't let Ian hear you say so. To him it's impossible to do anything wrong with the Box. And in fact, it does nobody harm, let's face it.'

She was a really nice girl in spite of her name. I, too, didn't think you could do wrong with the Box, nor right with it, nor anything.

What I find interesting and worthy of further consideration here is that the ability to do good comes coupled with the ability to do evil. Moral neutrality is moral invisibility and perfect inviability. The only way something can have no moral content is if it is incapable of being used at all, and hence has no content period.

This is interesting to think about. The only object that is outside of moral questioning is the object that is utterly useless to anyone. That is not to say the objects themselves possess morality, but the morality stems from the use of them. If an object can be used and cause good, it stands to reason that it can be misused and cause evil. If an object has no use whatsoever, then it is truly neutral ground. For our present purposes the planet Venus is most likely a morally neutral object. The idea of Venus, however, may not be.

What is remarkable in the passage above is the way that Muriel Spark finds to put a very coherent, difficult, and perplexing question into an amusing scene. This trait, introducing moral complexity, is a key feature of Spark's novels and is one of the things that makes for such compelling reading. One is instructed or persuaded beyond the power of the events in the book alone. In a sense, it is the better part of art to be didactic. Once art has lost its ability to teach, it has lost its ability to mean and it becomes one more useless object. That isn't to say that art is completely encompassed by its didactic nature, but that the teaching element of art is ever-present in any true work of art. If nothing else, art teaches us to see anew. And in that sense Spark's novels are art.

For one thing, you're probably tired of hearing about her and until I raise a great tide of readership, I shall simply have to continue to regale you with excerpts of her fine works. But for another, there's this:

from A Far Cry from Kensington
Muriel Spark

I had some savings and a small pension, so I had no need to find another job immediately. In the months between my abrupt departure from the Ullswater Press and Martin York's arrest I wasted my time with a sense of justified guilt. I enjoy a puritanical and moralistic nature; it is my happy element to judge between right and wrong, regardless of what I might actually do. At the same time, the wreaking of vengeance and imposing of justice on others and myself are not at all in my line. It is enough for me to discriminate mentally and leave the rest to God.

'Commercial life cannot be carried on unless people are honest.'But no life can be carried on satisfactorily unless people are honest. About the time that the Ullswater Press folded up I recall reading a book about one of the martyred Elizabethan recusant priests. The author wrote, 'He was accused of lying, stealing, and even immorality.' I noted the quaint statement because although by immorality he meant sex as many people do, I had always thought that lying and stealing, no less, constituted immorality.

I think this character would have looked upon TSO's blog (at very least the title) with some great approval.

What is interesting here is that Spark has done something unusual for her works. The book is narrated in first person by a (so far) very likable narrator. This does not allow her the enormous distance she tends to keep from her characters. Nevertheless, this main character is cool, ironic, and sardonic--looking upon things as from a distance. She is among the more engaging characters in the opera so far.

I'll let you know how she gets on as the story continues. At very least expect a review within a week or so.

In an intense desire to practice the discipline of responding only to what is asked and to staying on topic, I excised from a response below a number of comments that I wanted to make public any way. The joy of owning a blog is the ability to do so at will.

In the review of the book 99 Novels I should have added one of Burgess's books to the list he presented. Indeed, the one most people would consider--A Clockwork Orange. Burgess himself, no mean self-promoter, actually suggests this possibility in his foreword, but it is certainly deserving. I think he learned an extremely valuable lesson from Finnegans Wake which he put to good use in the creation of Alex and his droogs.

In addition to his fiction, the literary world owes him a great deal for many works attempting to explain one of the twentieth Century Masters. He undertook A Shorter Finnegans Wake as well as the remarkable Joysprick which is a guide to the language of Finnegans Wake nearly completely encompassed in the title which can be parsed to a German version of Joyce Talk, or Joy talk, or the more priapic connotations that can clearly be discerned in Finnegans Wake.

I haven't read a lot of Burgess's fiction, but his contribution and promotion of Joyce's cryptic, comic, cosmic, nightmare of a novel are useful to anyone interested in trying it on for size. And his creation of the cultural icons of Alex and his droogs with their regressive amorality brought to the screen by Stanley Kubrick has added immeasurably to our vista of sociopathy and its discontents.

On parents, found during research for the last post.

Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go. (Fred Rogers--Mr. Rogers)

Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years. (Anthony Powell)

Parents don’t make mistakes because they don’t care, but because they care so deeply. (T. Berry Brazleton)

Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore. (Ogden Nash)

Analysis might suggest that society has undergone an ontogeny in faith similar to the development of the individual with respect to his or her relationship with a parent. More succinctly stated, the relationship of God the Father to humanity has changed through time, not because God has changed, but because humankind has undergone a maturation which leaves us, at the present time somewhere in the stage of middle adolescence.

The ontogeny of society with respect to faith began in the infancy of the spread of the Gospel through Israel and to parts beyond. As with most infants, growth was rapid, indeed prodigious, and resulted in a few growing pains--commonly known as heresies.

Through the post-apostolic period, up through the reformation, we can see the development of faith in the stages of childhood--a rocky toddler, learning to stand and walk, gradually coming into his or her own and exercising a kind of power. But all through this time, a dead-level certainty in the wisdom, power, and deep love of our Father. Never any doubt as to His love for us, but rather some questions about what form that takes and what exactly obedience to that might entail.

With the Reformation, we begin the outright rebellion correlative to the teen years. There is a questioning and a refutation of all power figures, because indeed the flaws in the figures are exposed for all to see. Simony, the selling of indulgences, and other figures of a Church gone awry in parts, are all too present blemishes on the facade. So rather than rejecting the blemishes, humankind rejects the entire authority figure, and with it, the idea of God that was implicit in the figure.

With the Reformation, doubt about God's abiding love surfaces. First it makes its appearance in the puritan's fear of the world, then with Quietism, Jansenism, and Deism. (That's probably out of chronological sequence, but you get the drift.)

Present day, it seems we're in the height of the teen rebellion years when the Father (God) and Mother (Church) figures are so stupid as to cause astonishment that they have survived at all to this point. Everything they have said or have to say is immediately suspect because they have said it. There is every possible infraction of every possible rule. We've moved from the Divine Chain of Being to the autonomy of the individual. In this stage humanity shows its indestructibility and arrogance as it stumbles from one disaster or near-miss to another.

This gives cause for hope. There is a saying (I can't find the attribution at the moment) regarding the fact that at 15 I couldn't believe how stupid my parents were, by the time I was twenty-one it was amazing to me how intelligent they had become. So one can hope with respect to the maturation of society. Surely there are no signs of it as yet, but then, when do the "signs" of the maturation of a teenager actually "set-in." Is it not the case that the teen gradually moves out of rebellion and into accord with the manner of his or her upbringing (assuming that it was not abusive) almost completely silently? One day you turn around and discover that this child who had spent ten years making life sheer hell has suddenly agreed with you. (I know it was true for me as a teenager and young adult.)

There may be no signs and symptoms that are readily recognizable. But we have the absolute certainty, the perfect assurance that "The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."

What does this mean to the Catholic practicing today? Do not abandon hope! Live as example of one faithful to the Father and to the goodness of the Church. Don't preach, don't rail, don't despair, don't fret. All of these things make for ugly siblings. Rather, live in the joy of the Lord, thank God daily for things as they are and pray that they may become ever more as He would have them be, and then live to make it so. Remember the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila

Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing; God never changes.

Patience obtains all things.
He who possesses God lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.

Anthony Burgess's idiosyncratic selection of the best works in English since 1939 was written in 1984-1985 and its perspective may well represent the thought of that time. However, what can one say of a book that includes the remarkable (though hardly best-in-show) Keith Roberts Pavane alongside Len Deighton's Bomber and Ian Fleming's Goldfinger. Add to that the fact that one suspects given Burgess's bent that he started the countdown in 1939 simply to include James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and you have about all the information you need regarding the book.

Nevertheless, if you're looking for something to read and want the opinion of an expert--an eccentric expert, an eclectic expert to be sure, but an expert nonetheless--this is the book for you. Fans of Catholic fiction would be pleased to hear that Burgess includes several Catholic Novelists--some represented multiples times: Evelyn Waugh with Brideshead Revisited and Sword of Honor trilogy; Graham Green with The Power and the Glory and the theologically flawed, but moving Heart of the Matter; Muriel Spark with The Girls of Slender Means and The Mandelbaum Gate; Brian Moore with The Doctor's Wife; David Lodge with How Far Can You Go?; Flannery O'Connor with Wise Blood and Walker Percy with The Last Gentleman. Once again, this list says much. Why The Mandelbaum Gate rather than The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; why Wise Blood (admittedly wonderful) rather than The Violent Bear it Away (a much more powerful if more extended exercise in the same direction); why The Doctor's Wife rather than The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne or Black Robe; why The Last Gentleman rather than The Moviegoer or Love in the Ruins? Each decision could so be questioned, but Burgess rarely deals with weighing out why he chose which book, rather he boldly chooses and then gives a brief summary and analysis of the particular choice. It makes for a short punchy book and for an audience that wants to know more about why these works rather than some others.

Recommended.

And then you come upon passages like this :

from The Victorian Age in Literature

G.K. Chesterton

What the Brontës really brought into fiction was exactly what Carlyle brought into history; the blast of the mysticism of the North. They were of Irish blood settled on the windy heights of Yorkshire; in that country where Catholicism lingered latest, but in a superstitious form; where modern industrialism came earliest and was more superstitious still. The strong winds and sterile places, the old tyranny of barons and the new and blacker tyranny of manufacturers, has made and left that country a land of barbarians.

G.K.Chesterton's Works on the Web

I have to admit having not the least trace of enthusiasm for G.K. Chesterton--that gene was simply left out of my makeup. But what nature doesn't provide, perhaps nurture will, so I press on nevertheless.

First an apology: this theme has probably been beaten into the ground at this blog; however, it is so important and such a help to stability of faithfulness.

When a faith-life enters the doldrums, or even when it is humming along on an even if unenthusiastic keel, one thing which can be very helpful in ratcheting it up a notch is gratitude. Too often I am so self-centered that I forget to give thanks for the myriad of small things that make every day so wonderful and beautiful. Caught up in the tide of what needs to be done next and how do we manage this, that, and the other thing, and where is my next hour of entertainment coming from, and such like petty desires and thoughts, I forget the importance of being thankful and thus lose a certain graciousness, a connectedness that might otherwise blossom and grow more perfect.

Gratitude for small things inclines the heart to God, or at least so it seems. At very last gratitude for small things inclines the heart away from self and directs thoughts to another. Thankfulness for the courtesy of a held-open door or elevator; thankfulness for the smile on a small child's face, brought about by some trifling attention or by nothing at all; thankfulness for one's faithful and loving spouse, who while showing no great act of self-sacrifice or giving, shows constant self-denial and self-giving in the daily acts of living; thankfulness for gainful employment; thankfulness for sun when it's sunny, for rain when it's raining; thankfulness for the birds, the trees, the clear sky full of high white clouds, traffic lights, hibiscus in bloom, sundials, gardens, giant squids, and living fossils.

Thankfulness helps reignite a tepid faith life. Gratitude moves us from the central, fibrous core of self into the realm of God who grants all of these good things.

Gratitude. Thankfulness. Two indispensable words for one essential reality--recognition that everything I have comes to me as a gift from the fullness of the love of God. Even the words I read and write come to me from Another--One whose love completes me by helping to eradicate me and replace me, still myself, and yet now more Him.

Gratitude. Thankfulness. These too are gifts which may be had merely by thinking about them and inclining oneself to feel them. Grace makes this possible.

Ugh. Tedious beyond the ability of words to express. And sad.

Highly NOT recommended.

French Scientists Find 'Living Fossil' - Yahoo! News

Today Neoglyphea tomorrow, who knows? Burgessia bella? Hallucigenia, Tullymonstrum gregarium, Dunkelosteus, Helicoplacus, Anomalocaris, or cornute and mitrate carpoids? Who can tell? The world is such an exciting place with news like this coming in every day.

General Metaphysics

Just one of the new batch at the Maritain Center of Notre Dame.

Enjoy.

Image Display

Cephalopods are the coolest. This critter really could be the Kraken of Legend and that's cooler yet. And the photo is purely creepy. I love it. I also love the sheer mystery of it--that this creature has been known mostly from washed up carcasses and remains and here it is on film. Not clearly, but on film nevertheless. Long live the giant squid!

What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years? - New York Times

The list is above.

And here's the essay.

I'm ambivalent about such lists and honestly don't know what to make of some of the works appearing on it. I've tried hard to read and appreciate anything by Don deLillo, and unfortunately, it seems beyond me. So too with Blood Meridian and both Sabbath's Theater and American Pastoral. I may try them again, but the first venture wasn't fruitful.

I can state without ambivalence that of the books I have read on the list, I have not enjoyed any of them. I may have admired them, liked them, or appreciated them; however, frankly I don't think the Rabbit books are Updike's strongest work. I do hold out hope for Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping which I bought at the same time as Gilead but have not yet read.

What do you all think was the best work of serious fiction in the last twenty-five years? Name a title and give a reason. I'd love to have some suggestions as to what to take up after my Muriel Spark streak fades.

Let me start the ball rolling by suggesting that the Tom More duet Love in the Ruins and The Thanatos Syndrome would certainly hover near the top of my list--and not necessarily for all the reasons that might normally accompany this judgment coming from a Catholic. Rather, Percy managed the apotheosis of the Southern Gothic remaining completely true to the very roots of the tradition, while still making relevant comment to the world at large on any number of issues. I include both in the same way that Updike's four novels are included as one. They are part and parcel, completing and complementing one another. I think I like Love in the Ruins better than The Thanatos Syndrome, but I do know that the book group I read it with hated it with a passion. That was my first indication that what was present was powerful. Anyway, there's one suggestion to get the ball rolling. I'd love to hear from others.

I've thought a bit about what to report, and there really isn't too much. It was a first communion day like all have experienced and like all who have children will experience again.

However there are a few moments worth sharing. For example, Samuel did the second reading. "A reading from the First Letter of St. John" he intones solemnly after turning the page in the book and adjusting the microphone. Hardly necessary because the night before he had recited the entire reading to me.

He starts the reading, and then comes the portentous, "for GOD. . . IS. . . LOVE." Except for the fact that God was only one syllable rather than the requisite three, Sam could have been a Baptist preacher in full flower. At this point the DRE turned around with the broadest grin imaginable. She'd heard this in the rehearsals; however, she thought that when the actual event occurred he'd be too nervous to pull it off. A little later in the reading we got another slowing down and portentous, "For THIS IS LOVE." Earlier, at one of the practices, when asked to provide a summary of his reading, Samuel responded--"God is love." This summary he came up with himself--I was frankly astounded.

Later Father was asking children about manna in the desert. He said, "What do you think that white stuff was?" And Samuel raised his hand. Father asked, "What is your name?"

Sam gave him the full four name mouthful. When the Priest messed up the third name Samuel said quietly but firmly, "No, it's _______" The priest repeated it and same assured him that he was correct. "Yes."

"What was that white stuff in the desert?"

"The Body and Blood of Jesus."

The Priest laughed and said, "Not yet, you hold onto that thought."

A few minutes later he came back to same who provided the correct answer at the proper point in the homily.

Commenting on this later everyone remarked on his lack of fear in addressing and correcting the priest. One person said, "Yep. Seems the only think he's afraid of is not being noticed."

I had somewhat more difficult a time with this that with the other Muriel Spark I have read and enjoyed. Ultimately, I did enjoy this one, but I was thankful for its brevity. Both Satire and Allegory become tiresome at great length--they are best sustained over a short duration, and this was both forms, which requires even greater condensation.

The Abbey of Crewe is in trouble, someone has stolen Sister Felicity's silver thimble in the course of pilfering a stash of love letters in the false bottom of her sewing box. The Newly-elected Abbess of Crewe has her Nuns read from the Bible at the refectory. And after the usual scripture passages, she supplements their meditations with a reading from The Book of Electronics. Cameras, microphones, and bugs are to be found in every nook and cranny of the Abbey, including the poplar-lined lane down which the Nuns stroll in their recreational time. The traditional money-maker for the Abbey, sewing, has been abandoned for the new money maker--the devising and building of electronic devices, principally surveillance devices. One of the nuns is sneaking out at night and spending her time in a dalliance with a Jesuit novice and she comes back to the Abbey to spread the gospel of the love of freedom and the freedom of love. And Sister Gertrude spans the globe ecumenically crushing any practice she doesn't care for--at one point admitting a Cannibal tribe, with dietary dispensations, while crushing a vegetarian heretic sect--one suspects with the aid of said Cannibal cult. All of this right before en election. Sound familiar? Possibly because it is written from the political events of the time (another aspect that can just bore me silly, although it did not do so this time.)

Witty, sharp, satirical, even biting at times--Muriel did not look lovingly upon the characters of her Abbey and she shares them in all of their "splendor"--backbiting, petty, scandalous, scandal-mongering, lustful, disobedient, self-righteous. All of these flower bloom in the garden of the Abbey of Crewe.

Once again the prose is a delight, and I've shared one or two brief excerpts with you. Sister Winifrede comes in for the most biting of the jabs Ms. Spark makes at the characters.The dawn sun shone briefly in the troubled weather of her intellect. (It's a paraphrase, but it gets at the essence of the author's approach.)

The Abbess-to-be of Crewe gives a marvelous speech before the election which encourages the Nuns to be ladies and not the petite bourgeoisie that threaten the very foundations of the monastic order by their insistence on doing things by the book and their indulgence in petty crime and gross immorality.

In short, a magnificent short biting satire, still relevant today, although the figures and meanings need to be transposed a bit--nevertheless, as with any good work, the satire can remain effective even after the inspiring event is in the distant past.

Recommended particularly to people with an interest in politics and satire.

Next up A Far Cry from Kensington.

Yesterday, in his effort to equate symbol and reality, our Priest contributed to a misunderstanding of the Eucharist that I used to have in the before times. He asked the children what the bread became, and he received the answer, "The Body of Christ" He then asked the children what the wine became. He received no answer because the Catechist who gave them these lessons never separated the two. She said that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Jesus. She said that when you took the bread you took the body and blood of Jesus and that when you took the wine, you were reminded of the tremendous cost of this body and blood. Thus, she tried to make sense of the two species, but not to separate them in kind. The Priest, seeking to simplify, infinitely complicated matters for those of us who homeschool our children in religious education.

It is also one of the reasons that I am not very keen on reception under both species. In some cases the Catechises of adults is so poor that the misconception has remained that one MUST partake of both in order to receive both. This is not a reason for discontinuing the usage of both species, but it is a very strong reason for additional Catechesis in any parish where this will be the ongoing habit. Adults and children alike need to understand what the meaning of the species is and that reception of either one is still reception of the totality of the what the Lord offers us in the banquet of the Eucharist.

I'm not faulting the Priest who gave a very fine homily--merely pointing out the dangers of simplification. There reaches a point at which simplification is the delivery of incorrect information.

(In another realm--I have tried countless times to make clear that it is improper to convert from pounds to kilograms: one is a measure of force, the other a measure of mass. While it can be done at Earth's surface because the mass will be subject to the constant acceleration of gravity, that same 2 kg mass will have little or no-weight in free fall where forces act to cancel one another out.)

from Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl

"Listen, Otto, if I don't get back home to my wife and if you should see her again, then tell her that I talked of her daily, hourly. You remember. Secondly, I have loved her more than anyone. Thirdly, the short time I have been married to her outweighs everything, even all we have gone through here."

Magnificent--that the love of a man for his wife can outweigh the terrors of years in a concentration camp. (This was said toward the end of his time in Auschwitz.) That is the sacrament of matrimony--that everything takes on meaning and all that we face diminishes in the face of the love one person has for another in the presence of the Holy Spirit and of Christ.

Magnificent.

Today is Samuel's First Communion day, please join family and friends in celebrations and prayers for Samuel's continued growth in the life of faith, and in his parents' ability to foster that growth.

About my own faith-life I have reached a conclusion that emphatically will not apply to all, but which may apply to others.

The more I worry about such important things as justification and the mechanics and details of atonement and salvation, the less capable I am of living anything like a life of faith and belief.

While there is no certainty as to the origins of the problem, it would seem to stem from an inability to atomize, to dissect, as it were, and to regard the object under the microscope as the living fabric of faith that it is. More simply stated, I cannot at once concern myself with these things that strike me as the mechanics and mechanisms of salvation and with the Person through whom redemption and salvation have come. The analytic intellect clicks in and all that looms large is the meticulous reality of the great machine that whirs and clicks away.

It's a shame, but the personal, in this small case in my life, means far more than the theoretical. And it's strange because in most other aspects, the exact opposite holds true. Calculus and higher mathematics were always a breeze so long as they were theory along, once they became "practical," they were a sheer muddle.

Not so in the encounter with the Savior. The Person of Christ looms large, and in that Person all that appertains; they are part and parcel and I need not try to fathom how one works within the Other. I need merely accept that the Person of my salvation cares about me with a love that transcends time and death.

Dante Online | Indice delle Opere

An elegant site present a range of Dante's works in the original Italian or Latin and with English translations for many. Much to explore here.

from Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl

The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent. To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative.

It also follows that a very trifling thing can cause the greatest of joys. Take as an example something that happened on our journey from Auschwitz to the camp affiliated with Dachau. We had all been afraid that our transport was heading for the Mauthausen camp. We became more and more tense as we approached a certain bridge over the Danube which the train would have to cross to reach Mauthausen, according to the statement of experience traveling companions. Those who have never seen anything similar cannot possibly imagine the dance of joy performed in the carriage by the prisoners when they saw that our transport was not crossing the bridge and was instead heading "only" for Dachau.

Suffering fills the available space. Nearly everyone has had that experience. Whatever cold we have now is the worst cold we have ever had. Whatever sorrow we are experiencing now is the worst sorrow we have ever or can ever endure.

What had never occurred to be is that joy is similar. The joy I feel at this moment is the greatest joy possible and so it is with all possible joy.

God lavishes His gifts in the extreme, not in the middle ground. God does not care for the lukewarm (witness His statement to Laodicea). So rejoice or suffer, but do it all in the fullness of what it is to God, for each is His will and gift for the moment.

from The Abbess of Crewe
Muriel Spark

"In these days," the Abbess had said to her closest nuns, "we must form new monastic combines. The ages of the Father and of the Son are past. We have entered the age of the Holy Ghost. The wind bloweth where it listeth and it listeth most certainly on the Abbey of Crewe. I am a Benedictine with the Benedictines, a Jesuit with the Jesuits. I was elected Abbess and I stay the Abbess and I move as the Spirit moves me."

One wonders about what she might be talking. Surely we haven't ever encountered anyone who might declare to know more than revealed truth, one who insists that one's own way has been marked out specially by the Spirit so that what one wishes to do is exactly what the Spirit would have one do?

This is Muriel Spark at her most oblique and most perfect. And I will have to absorb the rest of the context to remark upon it with any acumen. But given this early off-the-blocks passage, I have high hopes for a most interesting novel.

Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl (Yes, still)
The Abbess of Crewe Muriel Spark
Descent into Hell Charles Williams

On the horizon

Symposium, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Hothouse by the East River, and about six others by Murial Spark. Really a favorite among the non-mystery non-SF set.

I am no big fan of Nietzsche, but I stumbled across this as I was checking out the FLICKR site (believe it or not for work purposes--aggregated hierarchal schema). And I thought it insightful.

The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness.

Possibly why moderation and temperance are Christian virtues. Or are they values? Either way, moderation and temperance tend to be important in Christian circles.

I did something stupid to my settings this morning or yesterday evening and made everything vanish from my site. Sorry. Hopefully by the time I publish this it will all be restored.

Because of the enormous flood of spam comments of recent date, I am chaning my commenting policy. There will now be a short (or perhaps lengthy) delay (all depends on when I can get to it) before any comment will be published. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I am spending more time editing out spam than I would do approving the few comments I get.

If you make a comment and it doesn't show up here, simply fire off an e-mail and I'll get to it.

Kensington between VE and VJ day. Days of rationing and loose living, days of saints and sinners. Meet Nicholas, who when one first encounters him is dead in a foreign land, to all eyes apparently a martyr. Meet Jane who works for a publisher and makes much of her money through forging hard-luck letters to get the signatures of famous people which she sells to a local book-dealer. Her great disappointment in life, a typed note card from GBS who says that because she asks for no money, he will not sign the note, his signature being sometimes worth a few shillings. Meet Selina, a woman of not terribly proper conduct who chants the great chant of self esteem even when everything around her is going up in flames. Meet Joanna who gives elocution lessons, much of her initial work centered around The Wreck of the Deutschland. This is only a small circle of the cast of characters that populates this wonderful, insightful, and incisive novel. If Miss Jean Brodie represents perfection and if perfection must be granted only to one novel, then this one so closely approaches it as it makes for a hard time to distinguish the two in quality. Here is the same large cast and the same message of faith and salvation couched in a new way.

The reader cannot fail to be amazed at the many, many different faces of Ms. Spark as she marches relentlessly toward one goal--a life of meaning, meaning found only in the proper worship of God and the proper service of God--meaning that is without substance outside of the eternal verities.

Highly recommended. If you must read only two Muriel Spark novels, this must be one of them. (Of course Miss Jean Brodie is the other.

Coupled with the thoughts that provoked the piece below, this really spoke to me this evening:

from a hymn by Fred Pratt Green

In the just reward of labor
God's will is done;
In the help we give our neighbor,
God's will is done;
In our world-wide task of caring
For the hungry and despairing,
In the harvests men are sharing,
God's will is done.

I don't know the proper attribution. If anyone does and will leave it for me, I'll correct this post. Thanks.

I have little useful to say, and am reluctant for fear of the controversy it will engender to say it. Nevertheless: consider the people as people, individuals, first. What best demonstrates love and charity in our present situation and what will best demonstrate it as we move forward. Let charity be our standard for anything that might be written into law, in material fact or in our hearts.

There. Perhaps I've avoided controversy. It's the most I can say and the least. Let God's will be done in how I demonstrate love to my neighbor.

or is it?

from The Girls of Slender Means
Muriel Spark

Jane was suddenly overcome by a deep envy of Joanna, the source of which she could not locate exactly at that hour of her youth. The feeling was connected with an inner knowledge of Joanna's disinterestedness, her ability, a gift, to forget herself and her personality. Jane felt suddenly miserable, as one who has been cast out of Eden before realising that it had in fact been Eden. She recalled two ideas about Joanna that she had gathered from various observations made by Nicholas: that Joanna's enthusiasm for poetry was limited to one kind, and that Joanna was the slightest bit melancholy on the religious side; these thoughts failed to comfort Jane.

The Girls of Slender Means really does play to an ensemble class. While Jane and Nicholas do occupy a large portion of our attention, there are interludes of Joanna, Selina, Greggie, and others, so that no one voice seems to dominate the novel. And what Ms. Spark has to say about the life of faith comes through crystal clear in the persons of Joanna and Collie and in the excerpts of poetry included.

An Edwardian poet quoted in The Girls of Slender Means. This appealed to me.

Moonlit Apples
John Drinkwater

At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,
And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those
Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes
A cloud on the moon in the autumn light.

A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then
There is no souund at the top of the house of men
Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again
Dapples the apples with deep-sea light.

They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams;
On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams
Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams,
And quiet is the steep stair under.

In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep.
And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep
Tryst with the moon,and deep is the silence, deep
On moon-washed apples of wonder.

from The Girls of Slender Means
Muriel Spark

This became certain as Selina began to repeat, slowly and solemnly, the Two Sentences.

The Two Sentences were a simple morning and evening exercise prescribed by the Chief Instructress of the Poise Course which Selina had recently taken by correspondence, in twelve lessons for five guineas. The Poise Course believed strongly in auto-suggestion and had advised, for the maintenance of poise in the working woman, a repetition of the following two sentences twice a day:

Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity of body and mind, complete composure whatever the social scene. Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self-confidence.

Even Dorothy Markham stopped her chatter for a few seconds every morning at eight-thirty and evening at six-thirty, in respect for Selina's Sentences. All the top floor was respectful. It had cost five guineas.

Where faith and prayer are absent, something will rush in to fill the gap. Here, it is the seemingly innocent chant of self-confidence/self-esteem, that replaces, say, morning and evening prayer. But it isn't innocent because it is a prayer said to oneself, a chant designed to praise and adore the person within.

This is the form that all worship not outwardly directed takes. In fact, it seems to be the form that much outwardly directed worship takes as well. When one allows oneself to be carried away by distractions of one's own making: constant monitoring of the flow of Mass to be certain that no technical errors are made in the performance of the rubric, analysis of the lyrics of hymns to determine whether or not they are worthy of singing or truly give God praise, concern about the gestures or lack thereof made by one's neighbor, analysis of the homily to be certain that nothing heterodox has crept in, critiquing the voices of the readers as they perform their functions, and so forth, one is concerned primarily with oneself. This concern is expressed in the way of outward things, but the real message from all of this is, "I don't like the way things are going--they are not being done to my taste."

Self-worship creeps in in so many ways--the likes and dislikes that drive one this way or that, the little, seemingly meaningless "preferences" that fill up the worship service, flipping through the prayer book to find a new or different invitatory because one has prayed the old one to death, looking for a new song, a new psalm, a new translation, a new commentary. . . all things that relate to sensation and appetite transform the proper outward focus into a deliberate inner focus. One may as well be praying or chanting the Two Sentences.

Self-worship enters every time the attention is deflected from God to anything not God. And as with temptation, the mere deflection of thought is insufficient, it is the embrace of the distraction that marks self-worship.

I heard tell once of a priest in a parish who upon hearing an infant cry in the back of the Church stopped his homily and said, "Will you take that squalling infant out of here!" The person who told me the story had not been back to Church in twenty years. Nursing that offense is one form of self-worship. The offense itself was a form of self-worship. The error made being always to allow anything to come between oneself and God, and more particularly to allow anything not of charity to do so.

The possibilities of self-worship are endless and endlessly misleading. The reality of true worship, a single fine thread. Truly, "strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, wide is that path that leads to destruction." And each person chooses the way he or she will go.

You may be sick to death of hearing about her, so let it suffice to say that I have at least two more that I expect to read and report on (although, depending upon my endurance, I may pursue the rest of the available opus.) Those two shall be a "pair" even if not invested with the same characters (about this latter I do not know)--they are: The Girls of Slender Means and A Far Cry from Kensington I regret I have not looked into Ms. Spark's writing extensively before now.

What is intriguing about Ms. Spark is, like many great writers of the recent past, she takes questions of faith quite seriously. They may not be spelled out word for word on the written page, but every book deals with the themes of morality and religion to a greater or lesser extent. In some, i.e. Memento Mori, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and (so far at least) The Girls of Slender Means it is to some extent the driving force of the narrative. In others, Aiding and Abetting, Not to Disturb, and The Finishing School religion isn't overtly the theme, but it certainly is a powerful element in the overall structure.

We'll see how it plays out in the next couple of books. Regardless of how morality and religion saturated they might be, the crystal-clear clarity and concise, powerful prose of her novels makes her a compelling and serious novelists, even though most of her novels are not dead-pan serious.

Muriel Spark's novel is a perfect compliment to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie because it represents a near-perfect antithesis of everything in that book. Indeed, the title is the antithesis of the entire aim of the novel, from the very first sentence to the last line.

Almost a play, told almost entirely in dialogue, a story is gradually pieced together as one progresses through the books. A distinctly unsavory and unscrupulous "downstairs" staff waits as the masters of the house descend into a destructive spiral. As the action progresses elements are moved one by one into place for the finale and for the future success of the downstairs staff.

Disconcerting, occasionally humorous, bold, and striking. This is a book to blitz through once and savor on the repeat trip. Recommended for fans of Muriel Spark and fans of dark (very dark indeed) comedy.

Disputations

A short and lovely discussion of Christian charity. Now, how to move from cistern to fountain. . . ah, Grace. . .

One of the blurbs on the back of the book raves that Muriel Spark's novel, "Is the perfect novel." And it isn't far from the truth. In that statement it shares praise with Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, which has also been called the perfect novel. It also shares a great deal of the atmosphere of the former novel, though not of the content.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is ostensibly about a very "liberal" and "progressive" school teacher of the 1930s who takes under her wing a group of girls called "The Brodie Set." This group is marked by their inability to blend in with the other girls in the upper form.

While the story is largely linear and appears to be the work of an anonymous Omniscient narrator, it is in fact a "limited" omniscient narrator, as the story careens along mostly from one point of view, with bits and pieces out of sequence and time from the other characters. It sounds as though this might create a confusing patchwork, but it does not. Instead we have a robust, multi-layered, amusing, sad, and powerful story of friendship, betrayal, conversion, and transformation.

The book, like most of Muriel Spark's works, is very short, and it is peppered through with delightful absurdities and contradictions of character. For example, while Miss Brodie teaches her girls that "team spirit blurs individuality," she starts the year by posting a picture of Mussolini and his "fascisti" and extols their impeccable timing marching together and working together, almost machine-like.

While the story is named for Miss Jean Brodie, and certainly pervaded by her influence, Miss Brodie is a strangely distant character. We get much closer to one of the girls and learn a great deal about Miss Brodie through her eyes. Interestingly, the author's descriptions of this character lead us to be somewhat ambivalent about her.

It isn't possible to recommend this book highly enough. Spark's observations of Brodie's opinions about religion and about Catholicism in particular, are brilliant and thought-provoking. Her observations of Jean Brodie, who, despite her intentions is actually quite an unpleasant sort of person--unpleasant to the point even of evil, give us pause as we consider the small, unadorned packages in which evil is contained. Those packages, the human heart, are the true territory of the novel, and it is for that reason, among others, that this is "the perfect novel." I plan to read it several more times in the near future because I feel my cursory second acquaintance with the work hardly does it justice.

Looking through books that we had multiple copies of, I chanced upon this delightful passage. If I've read the complete book, I have forgotten at this point, but it certainly seems worth reading. I propose a little game. Can anyone name the book from which the passage is taken? While it wasn't a bestseller, it certainly isn't completely obscure, and it is by a writer who has produced a number of quite notable books. This author also wrote some of my favorite books.

In the first place, I suppose, it was my parents' fault for giving me a silly name like Gianetta. It is a pretty enough name in itself, but it conjures up pictures of delectable and slightly overblown ladies in Titian's less respectable canvases, and, though I admit I have the sort of coloring that might have interested that Venetian master, I happen to be the rather inhibited product of an English country rectory. And if there is anything further removed than that from the bagnio Venuses of Titian's middle period, I don't know what it is.

If you're inclined to, answer in the comment box.

Here were no gaunt mistresses like Miss Gaunt, those many who had stalked past Miss Brodie in the corridors saying "good morning" with predestination in their smiles

--from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark.

There is really no point in trying to excerpt anything from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; as truly wonderful as the film was, the book, as is often the case, excels it in every way. There is a tautness to the prose of the book, a tension that does not permit mere excerpting. As I was sharing a passage with my wife, I found what I wanted to share going on and on and on to the point where it would probably make for an excellent read-aloud for the two of us.

What is wonderful is both the sharp satire and the incisive view of the characters--the penetrating depth of observation that allows the writer to make a conclusion and carry the reader along without ever stating the conclusion. What is even more wonderful is that it is about the small-scale battles on the moral front that are fought every day--it is about the small choices and the little things that make a difference in a person and in destiny.

What is remarkable are the simple castoffs:

from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark

Rose Stanley believed her, but this was because she was indifferent. She was the least of all the Brodies set to be excited by Miss Brodie's love affairs, or by anyone else's sex. And it was always to be the same. Later, when she was famous for sex, her magnificently appealing qualities lay in the fact that she had no curiosity about sex at all. She never reflected upon it. As Miss Brodie was to say, she had instinct.

And yet these quick castoffs build into a picture of a character and of Miss Brodie herself.

The novel is narrated in and out of time and while the view seems to be omniscient, we gradually devolve upon one viewpoint character whose transformation from the Brodie days is quite significant in the impact of the story.

I'll write a bit more when I've finished the book, but I can see clearly why this book was a substantial advance in the reputation of Muriel Spark as a novelist. I had forgotten how well-formed it really is, how compelling, and how hilarious and serious.

from Descent into Hell

He went softly up, as the Jesuit priest had gone up those centuries earlier paying for a loftier cause by a longer catastrophe.

in a paragraph. . .

from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark

Then suddenly Sandy wanted to be kind to Mary Macgregor, and thought of the possibilities of feeling nice from being nice to Mary instead of blaming her. Miss Brodie's voice from behind was saying to Rose Stanley, "You are all heroines in the making. Britain must be a fit country for heroines to live in. The league of Nations. . . " The sound of Miss Brodie's presence, just when it was on the tip of Sandy's tongue to be nice to Mary Macgregor, arrested the urge. Sandy looked back at her companions, and understood them as a body with Miss Brodie for the head. She perceived herself, the absent Jenny, the ever-blamed Mary, Rose, Eunice and Monica, all in a frightening little moment, in unified compliance to the destiny of Miss Brodie, as if God had willed them to birth for that purpose.

She was even more frightened then, by her temptation to be nice to Mary Macgregor, since by this action she would separate herself, and be lonely, and blamable in a more dreadful way than Mary who, although officially the faulty one, was a least inside Miss Brodie's' category of heroines in the making. So, for good fellowship's sake, Sand said to Mary, "I would be walking with you if Jenny was here." And Mary said, "I know."

The novelist says nearly nothing at all about Miss Jean Brodie and yet reveals everything in the course of this. In a very real sense, Miss Jean Brodie is an antichrist because she usurps the place at the head of the body, and this usurpation is accompanied by all the features of any coup--cold-bloodedness, cruelty, and a sense of superiority.

With short deft strokes we are given a clear image of the lay of the land and of the reign of Miss Jean Brodie. And it isn't a comfortable picture because it is very easy to place ourselves in the picture are Miss Brodie, Sandy, or Mary. Like Sandy, we aspire to good but never make it there because one voice or another draws us back to the ultimately self-centered reality we've fabricated, and so the cycle of cruelty continues.

Amazing the way in which the truths of Christ are explored and spelled out in fiction, is it not?

Muriel Spark's second to last opus is a bit of a disappointment compared with the sparkling and incisive The Finishing School. I wonder if part of the