Flos Carmeli: January 6, 2008 - January 12, 2008 Archives

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January 8, 2008

There and Back Again

I'm back from a long hiatus stemming from a double journey at Christmastime, about which, perhaps, more later. I'll be starting up slow, but I hope to get back to speed over the next couple of days. There is much to tell and a great willingness to tell it.

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Pillars of the Earth--Ken Follett

I am not gaga over Oprah either way. I don't see her as the new messiah, nor do I see her as the apotheosis of evil. However, I do respect the fact that she leads many of her viewers to new and interesting books. While the majority of her bookclub were probably already readers, I can't help but wonder if her work hasn't encouraged some of the sluggish. The reason I mention her is that Pillars of the Earth was one of her book-club selections and that indirectly influenced my bookgroup's decision to read it.

I've tried to read it several times, in fact, I thought I had read it through once, but upon finishing the book I concluded that I never got much past the introduction. Most likely this was because the length of the book itself was daunting and I found other more pressing things to occupy my time with. I'm very pleased that at last I've found cause to read it.

The book is the story of the building of a Cathedral and the scheming, politics, and sheer human cussedness that surrounds it. Initially it appears to be the story of Thomas Builder and an assorted cast of characters, but it rapidly becomes a real pageant of people, places, and events during the turmoil of the reigns of Stephen and Maud. It ends during the reign of Henry II.

I have only a couple of minor quibbles with the book. One is with the author's tendency to sprinkle in sex scenes and a certain amount of vulgarity which, while probably representative of the time, had the effect of pulling me out of the story and into an analysis of why the author did what he did. The second is with an occasional bout of linguistic anancrhonism. For example, at one point a character hesitates from doing something because he thinks that the woman he is with will "make a scence." For whatever reason, when reading a book set in Medieval times, it is extremely jarring to have an introduction of this kind of thing.

Despite some infrequent questionable choices by the author, the book moves quickly and one comes to sympathize deeply with many of the characters. The story is logical, logically developed, and suitably reflective of life during chaotic times. It is a story of passionate intensity and devotion to a cause and it is the story of the growth of a town. It is, in some small way, also the story of redemption of several seemingly irredeemable characters.

Well worth while, but (for home-schooling moms) not for the kids.

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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Full disclosure in case the review sounds unduly. . . something: my first experience with Sweeney Todd occurred on 31 October, probably 1983, when I went with the person who was to become my wife to the Kennedy Center and saw the inimitable Angela Lansbury and (I think) Len Cariou perform. Angela Lansbury played Mrs. Lovett and you can catch bits of this performance on You Tube if you care to take a look. It is unmatchable in its sheer brilliance. Helena Bonham Carter had a hard act to follow, literally.

Tim Burton made some interesting choices in the film. The original Sondheim play was a dark comedy/satire/social commentary wrapped up in a rollicking, non-stop nearly grand guignol spectacle. Burton's choices are directed toward making a darker, more somber experience. Perhaps he was aiming for tragedy--unfortunately, the character of Sweeney hasn't the substance of a hero and so what we get is bathos--elegant and beautiful bathos, but bathos nevertheless. One doesn't come away with a sense of how tragic it all was or how, with a few minor choices things could have come out all right. One comes away with a sense of having visited some of the more secure precincts of bedlam where not a person seems to have any grasp of the real and rational.

I won't go into the story--suffice to say that it came out of the time of the penny dreadfuls, taking its place alongside such delights as Varney the Vampire and other such. Burton films it beautifully. Johnny Depp actually does a creditable job of singing his role. The same cannot be said of Helena Bonham Carter, unfortunately; however, her performance is not so terrible as to damage the structure or intent of the overall film.

One major problem I had with the film is that while the instrumental music suggesting "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is played frequently, the audience that has not seen the play will have no notion of where it comes from. This choice is one that comes from adapting a stage play to the screen, but it is also one that deprives the viewer of the frame of reference and the clear sense of where the play was meant to go. It is the primary blow that changes the film from dark comedy to bathos.

In all, while I liked the film greatly, I don't think the changes in tone served Burton or Sondheim well. We get a solid film with interesting if oddly disconnected performances, reminiscent of professional night in the psychiatric ward; however, iltle of the brilliance of the play shines through.

Despite that, I enjoyed, indeed liked the film a great deal. One must try to respect the intent and vision of the artist when viewing a work of art, and while I don't think this film is as strong as its Broadway source material, it still serves well.

One other point--we have a mini-Harry Potter reunion in the forms of Snape and Pettigrew who play two of the key conspirators in the downfall of Mr. Todd and family.

Recommended for adults--especially if you've seen the play. It provides an interesting contrast to the original.

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Books, Books, Books

As you can well imagine, my Christmas was filled with books. I set aside Absalom, Absalom! to pick up Pillars of the Earth but will soon return again to the comfortable and bizarre world of William Faulkner. I have Michael Dirda's The Classics for Pleasure which I will get to soon.

In addition, I used Christmas gifts to go out and buy books I would never consider getting for myself. So I ended up with The Landmark Herodotus which will sit alongside my Landmark Thucydides. I much prefer Herodotus to Thucydides as "fun reading"; however these editions make for fun and informative reading of either resource.

Also picked up The Undercover Economist who has a great deal to tell us about markets, economics, and how to buy coffee or groceries. Right now I'm reading a fascinating chapter about the auctioning of the electromagnetic spectrum as it relates to game theory.

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January 11, 2008

Hope

" . . . the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey."

Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi 1.

Do I believe this?

Do I really believe this?

How do I show it by how I live? (aka: Do I live as though this were true?)

"How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing." ibid 2

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Implied Comparative

"The one who has hope lives differently." Benedict XVI ,Spe Salvi, 2

Differently than what? Differently than the one who does not have hope? Than the one who now has hope who formerly did not? Differently than the rest of the world--and why would that be notable because we all live differently than the rest of the world.

And in what does this difference consist? It seems I may find out as I read the encyclical. But it is a pressing question, urgently requiring an answer. How does hope make one live differently?

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Quoted in Spe Salvi

"I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me--I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good."

St. Josephine Bakhita

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Deliberate Misreading

" It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love--a Person. " Benedict XVI Spe Salvi, 5

Remove the punctuation at the end and we have one of the premier teachings of the Catholic Church, "Reason will love a Person." Indeed, properly formed and rightly guided, reason will love a Person, or perhaps three Persons, but most certainly reason will engage with the Human Face of God.

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A Reasonable Pacifism

Led here by a post from the Western Confucian, I found this helpful and inspiring quotation from Dorothy Day.

from "The Traditional Catholic Worker Movement"
Thomas Storck

Dorothy Day certainly was a pacifist, and here I admit that she departed from the central tradition of Catholic thought, which includes the teaching that a war of defense may be just. As someone who accepts this doctrine of the Church that a just war is theoretically possible, I was impressed when reading this book that Dorothy Day's pacifism was not so much an ideological position as a radical and personal embrace of the Gospel. That is, the words of Jesus Christ about love of enemy and accepting the injustices that others may impose on one made such an impression on Dorothy Day's heart that she was moved to a total rejection of war. When a young Catholic Worker asked her for a "clear, theological, logical pacifist manifesto," she could only reply: "I can write no other than this: unless we use the weapons of the Spirit, denying ourselves and taking up the Cross and following Jesus, dying with Him and rising with Him, men will go on fighting, and often from the highest motives, believing that they are fighting defensive wars for justice and in self-defense against present or future aggression." Dorothy Day's response was akin to that of a monk who might run out between the battle lines, calling upon each side to stop killing those created in God's image. Her pacifism was part of her response to following Jesus Christ, indeed part of her own love for the person of our Blessed Lord.

(Emphasis mine.)

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Hope II

"All serious and upright human conduct is hope in action."

Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 35

One would do well to pause over this statement because it has profound implications for daily activity. Of course, much depends on the definition of "serious" in this context, just as it does when one quotes C.S. Lewis--"Joy is the serious business of Heaven."

But if we take serious to mean the opposite of frivolous--that is action carefully and duly considered and then taken, such things as attending a concert or hiking the Grand Canyon become living embodiments of hope. If true, this is an astounding revelation. For a child blowing bubbles is hope in action. For an adult, making jewelry, keeping house, washing the car, in fact, many of the ordinary activities of everyday life are hope in action.

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One for the Anti-Environmentalists

Naturally the following quotation means more than its literal sense, but if we start from the literal sense, we get a keen impression of Catholic Social Teaching that would argue against many of the arguments advanced against those who act out of concern for the environment. In other words, there is a component of environmentalism that is concordant with Catholic understanding of the world and our place in it.

"We can free our life and the world from the poisons and contaminations that would destroy the present and the future. We can uncover the sources of creation and keep them unsullied, and in this way we can make a right use of creation, which comes to us as a gift, according to its intrinsic requirements and ultimate purpose."