June 30, 2008
A Little Later
from Venetia
Georgette HeyerBeyond the stream lay the Priory itself, a rambling house built in Tudor times upon the foundations of the original structure, subsequently enlarged, and said to be replete with a wealth of panelling, and a great many inconveniences.
*****". . . Fair Fatality, you are the most unusual female I have encountered in all my thirty-eight years!"
"You can't think how deeply flattered I am!" she assured him. "I daresay my head would be quite turned if I didn't suspect that amongst so many a dozen or so may have slipped from your memory." . . .
"Spiteful little cat!" he said appreciatively. "How the devil was I to recognize Miss Lanyon of Undershaw in a crumpled gown and a sunbonnet, and without even the chaperonage of her maid?"
"Oh, am I to understand then, that if you had know nmy quality you wouldn't have molested me? How chivalrous!"
Her first encounter with the infamous Lord Damarel goes none-too-well and so provides the reader with delights of the first order.
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Georgette Heyer
It is a shame that Mrs. Heyer's novels have always been marketed as "Romances," indeed, that she is considered the founder of that most infamous of romantic genres "the Regency romance," not because her stories are not romances, but because we no longer truly understand what is meant by the term and many potential readers are alienated both by the genre and its marketing. How many young men are likely to pick up a book with a bright yellow cover showing a young woman as though filmed through cheesecloth accepting a yellow rose from a young man in a rather too frou-frou shirtfront and jacket? There was a time in my life when I deprived myself of the enormous pleasures of reading Mrs. Heyer for reasons no better than these. And it is still a little embarrassing to be "caught" in the act of flipping through one of the Harlequin editions.
Thank goodness a trade paperback publisher has recently reissued much of Mrs. Heyer's work in editions that look much more like what Ms. Heyer has written--comedies of manners á la Jane Austen. Romance is the predominant thread and the binding glue of each of the stories, but they are crackling with with poise and pungent observations about the human animal--in love and otherwise. In the new editions, which features covers that look like portraits of the John Singer Sargent age, no self-respecting man will have any difficulty picking them up and reading them. Well, perhaps there is a lingering aura that is no so easily diffused, but the covers go a long way toward helping with the image problem.
I'd like to share a small portion of Venetia that gives you a sense of the snap and crackle of dialog and the undercurrent of a deep and sensitive intelligence that drives the work. Additionally, Mrs. Heyer does her research--her characters are always "in time, in dress, and on the right stage" as it were.
from Venetia
Georgette Heyer"I can't, of course. What is it?" she returned, glancing at the volume. "Ah, Greek! Some improving tale, I don't doubt."
"The Medea, he said repressively. "Porson's edition, which Mr. Appersett lent to me."
"I know! She was the delightful creature who cut up her brother and cast the pieces in her papa's way, wasn't she? I daresay, perfectly amiable when one came to know her."
He hunched an impatient shoulder, and replied unctuously: "You don't understand, and it's a waste of time to make you."
Her eyes twinkled at him. "But I promise you I do! Yes and sympathize with her, besides wishing I had her resolution! Though I think I should rather have buried your remains tidily in the garden dear."
A castoff, a mere bauble of dialog that sets the story rolling and we know Venetia and the brother to whom she speaks. More than that we see an oxymoron--a gentle spitfire who knows a great deal, knows how to use it, and yet does not pull out all the plugs.
Georgette Heyer is a skilled writer whose works continue in print not because of a small population of readers of romance, or even because of a large population, but because the books are good--well researched, well written, witty, and sharply observant. I wonder how many men have already become acquainted with Mrs. Heyer dispite the nearly insurmountable difficulties of the schlock heaped on them by marketers who inadvertantly narrow the market rather than broaden it. I think Michael Dirda hit the nail on the head when he said in The Classics for Pleasure that the nearest things to Mrs. Heyer's novels were not the chain line of modern factory-produced romances, but the very different romances of Patrick O'Brien with Aubrey and Maturin. There is, I think, a good deal of justice in this comparison. While I have found the Aubrey and Maturin novels unapproachable because of the sheer odiousness of the main characters (or because of my finicky taste, more likely), I find Mrs. Heyer's company perfectly amiable--someone to take aside on a summer's rainy afternoon into the book nook or windowseat and spend a while chatting with. Someone who has much to say and says it both well and beautifully.
Man or woman, do not make the mistake of dismissing Mrs. Heyer as the queen and founder of the modern romance novel. You will be giving up a great deal if you do.
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June 29, 2008
Books Carefully Considered
Before loaded into luggage--see TSO, the wonders of that slender machine:
The inimitable master: The Ambassadors Henry James
The End of the Affair Graham Greene
Venetia Georgette Heyer
Arthurian Romances Chretien de Troyes (includes Erec et Enide, Yvain, Cliges, and Lancelot.
While here in Texas, I am going to try to seek out a half-price books and see if there might not be some Georgette Heyer (mystery and romance) on the shelf. Of particular interest The Grand Sophy, which I just re-read about in Michael Dirda's Classics for Pleasure. However, I'll probably snap up anything I can find.
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June 25, 2008
from The Ambassadors
The Ambassadors is one of three books acknowledged as "great" from Henry James's late period. With the other two Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl, it made the list of the top 100 books of the 20th century. If it is like The Golden Bowl at all, I would say that it deserves its place among the top novels, probably more so than many others on the list. And my reading so far suggests that such praise is not unwarranted. Additionally, this book, at least initially, seems to have a somewhat lighter tone than either of the other two, or indeed, than much of James's work outside of the short story.
Here's an example.
from The Ambassadors
Henry James"Ah, they couldn't have come--either of them. They're very busy people and Mrs. Newsome in particular has a large full life. She's moreover highly nervous--and not at all strong."
"You mean she's an American invalid?"
He carefully distinguished. "There's nothing she likes less than to be called one, but she would consent to be one of those things, I think," he laughed, "If it were the only way to be the other."
"Consent to be an American in order to be an invalid?"
"No," said Strether, "the other way round. . . ."
This conversation takes places between the protagonist, Strether, and the catalyst for the story Miss Gostrey. And it leaves little doubt in the reader's mind regarding Miss Gostrey's opinion of Mrs. Newsome.
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June 23, 2008
Reading List
Jesus of Nazareth Pope Benedict XVI
The Ambassadors Henry James
Say You're One of Them Uwem Akpan (a very talented Nigerian Jesuit writing about life in Africa today. Five stories about African children in appalling situations.
For more on Uwem Akpan (an interview that I haven't yet listened to): NPR Interview
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The Gabriel Hounds
Mary Stewart was one of my mother's favorite authors. I had nver read much of anything other than the Merline/Arthur books, but I had glanced through some of the books and formed a favorable impression of the prose in general.
Because I had spent some time with the Misses Archer and Sloper, I thought I had earned a little vacation from slow-going but enriching literature and spent it with three books--Agatha Christie's Appointment with Death, John Dickson Carr's The Man Who Could Not Shudder and Mary Stewart's The Gabriel Hounds. Perhaps more about these former two later. But for now--The Gabriel Hounds.
Mary Stewart, like Georgette Heyer, is one of those people capable of writing a "romance" which is engaging to whomever wishes to read it. The modern day "romance" elements of this book are slender indeed, confined to a couple of moments largely in the last twenty pages of the book. While I've seen her typified as a modern day "gothic" writer, nothing could be further from the truth--at least as far as this book gives evidence. She is a writer of suspense novels/mysteries set in exotic locations which she renders with an incredibly deft touch.
It is difficult to imagine a write more able to create atmosphere and setting with a lighter hand than can Mary Stewart. The Gabriel Hounds is set in Lebanon and Syria of the mid 1960s. Apparently, at that time, Lebanon was still a fairly pleasant place to visit. And the story takes place in the Dar Ibrahim, a palace located between the sources of two rivers--one of them being the river at which Adonis was killed by a wild boar.
The story centers around a visit made by a dutiful great neice to the eccentric aunt who inhabits this rambling wreck of a palace and all of the mayhem and havoc that ensues.
Given that this is my first encounter after the Merlin novels (about which I have mixed feelings), I have no doubt that I will be visiting Ms. Stewart more frequently in the future. This book provided an enjoyable respite and a few quiet moments with a very capable writer.
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Washington Square and The Heiress
We leave, for a moment, our discussion of Miss Archer, although, God willing and time enough, I do hope to return to it, and consider the case of Catherine Sloper, cellulose and celluloid. Washington Square is considered the first novel of the so-called "middle period" of Henry James's writing.
I was attracted to Washington Square by a recent trip to New York in which I was able to take in some of the historic sites. While I did not see the Washington Square arch by daylight, I had seen it on a previous trip. I was also attracted by the fact that it was the novel that immediately preceded The Portrait of a Lady and seemed to have some of the same concerns.
Catherine Sloper is the plain, dull, somewhat dimwitted unwed daughter of Dr. Austin Sloper, a complex, demanding, tyrannical figure of a father who dominates Catherine's life in the same way that Gilbert Osmond dominates the life of his daughter Pansy--possibly to similar effect. And that is part of what makes Washington Square such an interesting study.
At the beginning of Washington Square, poor, plain Catherine is approached at a party by dashing and handsome Morris Townsend. Out of the blue he comes to her and starts to be entranced by her charms. She is alarmed, never having recognized any charms within herself to charm anyone, and pleased. The courtship soon begins.
Within days, Austin Sloper is disapproving of the whole thing. The disapproval grows until he decides that he will disinherit Catherine if she continues the relationship. While this does not deter her, it does throw a monkey wrench into her relationship with Morris.
The subtle psychological complexity of the novel is thrown into high relief when one views The Heiress, a William Wyler film adapted from a play, in turn adapted from Washington Square. As the movie sets out, much is similar to the progress of the novel, but it is in the complicated windings of the ending that the rock-solid superiority of the book is brought forward. From this point on, let only those who have no intention of enjoying either continue, for here be spoilers.
In the novel, Catherine Sloper is ultimately jilted by Morris for whom her mere 10,000 a year is insufficient when he could have 30,000. As they plan their elopement, he leaves for a "California business trip" from which he does not return. Catherine stays on in her father's house, becoming a spinster. After a number of years, her father becomes ill. On his deathbed, he asks her to renounce her intention to marry Morris Townsend and she refuses. He alters his will and substantially removes her from it. Morris does return after the death of Dr. Sloper and he takes up where he left off, somewhat older, but not all that much the worse for wear. Catherine receives him once and then tells him to stay away.
In the movie, much of this dynamic is gone. Catherine comes to an awareness that her Father "doesn't love her" (doesn't value her and is constantly deriding her is more to the point). In the book, the realization is more like the latter. Catherine plans an elopement with Morris and embraces the idea that she will be disinherited by the disagreeable old man. In the book, the idea of being disinherited is a horror for Catherine, not so much for the sake of the money, but for the sake of the injury it will do her father and the family. While she celebrates the disinheritance with Morris, she plans their elopement that evening. Of course, he never shows up. In the course of a short time, Dr. Sloper dies, with Catherine refusing even to come to his bedside. He does not disinherit her (the cinematic Dr. Sloper being a good deal more compassionate and kinder than the literary Dr. Sloper). In fact, in the book, one gets the sense that Dr. Sloper is being almost entirely arbitrary in his "testing" of Catherine, relishing the challenge of wills more that being particularly concerned about how Catherine will turn out.
In due time (in the film) Morris returns and offers an excuse for not running away with her. Catherine appears to accept it and arranges to leave with him. When he returns to elope, she refuses to answer the door to him.
The two works have their own strengths and attractions. I doubt any but the most skilled and subtle director could have brought Washington Sqaure as it stands to the screen in the 1940s. Indeed, we needed to make it into the postmodern era before the logic of the ending could appeal and resonate with us. We have an nearly instinctive understanding of Dr. Sloper and Catherine and the dynamics of their relationship now. That James was able to see, understand, and chronicle all of this in the 1880s stands as a remarkable testament to his acuity as author. Catherine Sloper is "a type" who, as I implied, shows up again with Pansy in The Portrait of a Lady. We do not know that Pansy will come to the same end as Catherine; however, when she tries to exert her own will even a little, her father sends her away to a convent for additional "finishing."
But back to Catherine Sloper. The Catherine of the movie becomes hard, brittle, hateful, and harsh. She internalizes what she thinks of her father, not what her father actually was and did. She turns herself into the image she has made of him. In the book Catherine falls into a kind of dazed submissiveness. After Morris turns her down when she has come to terms with her disinheritance and offer to go away with him, she returns to her father and, essentially, shuts down. She becomes his companion in physical person, but her spirit is largely absent. She never deliberately hurts anyone, Morris included, but one gets the impression that she never engages anyone in anything more than casual conversation.
Washington Square is an amazing portrait in minature of profound psychological complexity, and, it seems to me, accuracy. Catherine Sloper is taken from hopeful debutant to reclusive spinster on a vector of her Father's making but only with her nearly complete cooperation and acquiescence. In some sense, Washington Square is even more "feminist" than The Portrait of a Lady, showing at once how subject a woman's life was to the life of the men around her and how that subjection profoundly colors her life, her interactions, and her person.
While I find the book a better exercise and a better piece of fiction, both the book and the movie have their own individual rewards--the rewards of the movie being Olivia de Haviland and Sir Ralph Richardson in some very fine performances.
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June 11, 2008
More About James
Yesterday's post was unsatisfyingly vague because I didn't want to disrupt the enjoyment of anyone who had not yet encountered this truly wondeful book. Let that serve as a warning to all who have not yet read it as they proceed into this post.
The Portrait of a Lady:Genesis of the Anti-Hero?
It seems reasonable that if Hamlet can be listed in the rosters of the anti-hero, so too can Isabel Archer. Like Hamlet, Isabel might otherwise be considered a tragic hero, but here "heroic flaw" pierces so deep and so profoundly divides her character that it is really impossible to sympathize with her dilemma. She has so thoroughly compromised herself with her uncompromisability that she is no longer emotionally accessible to the reader.
This last point is interesting. In a discussion with a friend the other day, he suggested that James never intended Isabel Archer to be emotionally approachable or even likeable. If indeed, this is an accurate reflection of James's intention, he succeeds admirably. If, on the other hand, the reader is supposed to be engaged by Miss Archer, James has failed miserably to make her engaging.
Looking through the Jamesian Canon, one finds a plethora of female characters in similar situation. Neither of the leads of The Golden Bowl is particularly attractive. Catherine of Washington Square is anything but likeable, approachable, or even in any real sense knowable. The principles of The Spoils of Poynton are so thoroughly offputting one is put in mind of Anne River Siddons Fox's Earth. The nursemaid of The Turn of the Screw is even more a ghost that the ghost she may not see. And Daisy Miller is made to be unlikeable start to finish--once she meets her end from one or another disease, the reader breathes a sigh of relief and moves on. The catalog is not exhaustive, nor is my acquaintance with James's work, but call this a working hypothesis. What is fascinating about James's work is how he manages to engage the reader without giving the reader a central figure who is particularly sympathetic or engaging.
In The Portrait of a Lady, the engagement comes largely from the characters that fill Isabel's world--Mr. Touchett, Mrs. Touchett, Ralph Touchett, Lord Warburton, Caspar Goodwood, Harriet Stackpole, Mr. Bantling (on the good side), the Countess Gemini (in the ambiguous mode), and Gilbert Osmond and Madame Merle (on the bad side.) Pansy, Isabel's stepdaughter, seems to take after her stepmother in the realm of unsympathetic heroines. In a way akin to Catherine of Washington Square, the demur submissiveness of Pansy is an appalling spectacle to behold, and Isabel's inadvertent assist of this least attractive of Pansy's qualities is another point that deflects the reader's sympathies from Isabel.
In this swirl of interesting and mostly likable characters, Isabel stands out as something of a vacuum, a black hole of sympathy. Watch her interactions with others and read her interior monologue and the reader becomes become progressively chilled, as the realization dawns that one is in the presence of a committed egomaniac--a person without any outside anchor in reality to ground her theories and notions, and thus a ship untethered in fair weather or foul and likely to run aground at the first shoal.
And the reader sees this again and again as first she rejects the advances of Lord Warburton, and then of Caspar Goodwood, and even the gentle non-advance of Ralph Touchett, who is wise enough to understand that he is not even in the running. And it is through the kindness and thoughtfulness of Ralph that Isabel achieves the wealth to allow for her destruction. Ralph entreats his dying father to alter his will to leave a living to him and to his mother, but to settle the bulk of the estate on his cousin Isabel Archer. It is this wealth that precipitates the decline that occupies the second half of the novel.
Because she is now a woman of means, she becomes attractive to a pair of schemers (somewhat similar in mode to The Wings of the Dove, who proceed to plan her "demise." Madame Merle, whose name indicates "blackbird" in French, and whose name, the book notes informed me, is supposed to remind me of Madame Mertuil of Les Laiasons Dangereuses, is the primary instigator. It is her chance meeting with Isabel and her acquaintance with Gilbert Osmond that defines the action of the remainder of the book.
I must leave off at this point, and if I can, I will return to the declining action of the book. But, I have a quick trip to NYC and Boston in the interim, so I don't know where I'll be by the time my head settles.
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June 10, 2008
Henry James, Redux
More properly titled
Some Notes toward Coming to Terms with The Portrait of a Lady
The Portrait of a Lady is a difficult book to characterize; there is little in the way of plot or setting, and much about the interior lives of the characters, even if much of that is viewed from the exterior. Isabel Archer clearly occupies center stage and she presents her own difficulties to the reader. Frankly, it is difficult to like her and even more difficult to sympathize with her plight. The whole arc of the book can be described by the adage, "She has made her bed, now she must lie upon."
Why is Isabel Archer so difficult to like? The answer to this question probably boils down to the definition for a "tragic hero(ine)." A noble, otherwise likeable person, with one major fault. If fault there be in Ms. Archer it is an overweening pride. The bible instructs that "Pride goeth before a fall," (and after, as well, as anyone who has taken a tumble in public can testify). And fall she does, from a great and dizzying height.
And yet one is left with the impression than much of the angst and anguish of that fall is unnecessary--dictated only by the odd and hard pride that drives Ms. Archer. In fact, contemplating what has happened to her in the course of her marriage, she considers for a moment ending the pain by walking away, only to conclude that she cannot do so because then her error will be brought to public notice.
So where are we left with Ms. Archer? It's odd, her pride leads in two directions. In the beginning of the book, she is unwilling to be "tied down," to consider marriage because it would be a compromise of all the possibilities that seem to open up before her. She flouts conventionality and the "normal" way through life. Once she has abandoned her better judgment and entered into marriage, her pride leads her to cling to the conventional way of things so that her error and her shame will not be broadcast into the world. It is interesting the way in which this most primal of sins pulls Ms. Archer in two ways, never offering a moment of piece or tranquility. In her ascendant phase, she rejects the approaches of two men who really love her, breaking down in tears after she sends one of them away--tears of anger and even rage that she should have to tell him to go away. In her decline, she once again breaks down into tears when she realizes that her pride leaves her no way out of her dilemma.
Pride is the central issue of the book. It is the cross on which our heroine is hoisted, and it is such an ugly sin that many will look upon it and say that perhaps she deserves what she has made for herself. As in many of James's works, the heroine is not particularly attractive. We're told that she's beautiful and has a way about her that seems to fascinate men. But the reality is that to the reader she presents a rather formidable, stern, and completely self-interested facade that does nothing to provoke any sympathy. Hence, the book cannot really be viewed as a tragedy. No more can one view it as "realism" or "life as it is," because this life is so warped out of any possibility of viewing it as normal. All around her, she has examples of women who have stepped out of conventionality to live a life that is more compatible with their spirits, but she disdains these role models in favor to the model she has built in her head. And so, she condemns herself to a life of misery or at least a long pause on a possible life of happiness. More wicked and horrible than that, she has it within her power to free another trapped in the same web as she is, and yet she refuses to do it--possibly creating another life in the image of her own. Oh, how our sins come home to roost and how that roosting increases them and their effects.
I'll end this jumble of part I for now, because if I do not do so, nothing will ever see the light of day. But there is much to think about in the case of Ms. Archer, and perhaps these notes have provoked some of you all to look into for the first time or refresh your acquaintance with Ms. Archer if you had perhaps the pleasure of make such a friend earlier on.
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May 27, 2008
Unaccustomed Earth--Jhumpa Lahiri
It's unfortunate how being published in a certain place tends to shape what you write. Jhumpa Lahiri has had the mixed blessing of publication in The New Yorker, and the downside of that blessing shows in her latest collection of short stories.
The title is taken from Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom Ms Lahiri, in an interview published elsewhere lists as one of her influences. Her prose is still strong and lovely, her ability to sketch in people and place, remarkable. All that fails here is the relentless similarity of all of the pieces. Disaffected, alienated, spoiled, wealthy upper-class Bengali children spend much or all of their time in Ann Beattie territory--angsting over identity, wealth, lack of wealth, girlfriends, boyfriends, lack of communication, sex, you name it.
The charm of some of the earlier stories in Interpreter of Maladies is gone almost completely, replaced by a relentless parade of disaffected, unhappy, bratty Bengali offspring who are worried about their status in the world, their education, or any number of other things. The New Yorker patina of these stories (even if published elsewhere) is more a stain than a coating and I'm afraid it runs deep, so deep that I will be hard-pressed to bother myself with any more of Ms. Lahiri's brand of angst.
Perhaps this was present as well in the first collection--if so, I did not notice. But here the pressure was relentless and there was no escape from it. Ultimately, despite the beautiful writing, nothing is said that hasn't been said before and better, or that cannot be said in a way that provokes more insight or sympathy than Ms. Lahiri's characters can command.
Are there no Bengali's who have never shopped in Harrod's? Who have come to America and not had the money to get home? Are there no second generation Bengali's that have retained some sense of who they are? Who have some alliance with the past? Is everything wiped out in a single generation? If not, Ms. Lahiri has chronicled a true tragedy, but a tragedy of choice not of requirement.
Needless to say, I was profoundly disappointed by this book. While the prose still sparkles and jolts and the authorial command is impressive, the beat of the stories is a dead one--that poor old horse should be buried.
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April 30, 2008
The Last Secret of Fatima
This book is credited to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone who did contribute the majority of the content; however the person responsible for the questions, the layout, and the structure of the whole is a journalist by the name of Giuseppe de Carli who seems to have an unfortunate flair for the sensational. The book takes the form of a full-length interview with some supporting documentation at the end and a foreward by Pope Benedict XVI.
As an interview, the book has its ups and downs. There are unfortunate and sometimes meaningless digressions; the final 15% of the interview section has nothing whatsoever to do with the title of the book, and appears to be meaningless padding designed to form a "book-length" study; for those not intimately familiar with everyday events in Italy, there are meangingless, enigmatic and odd references to events that may or may not be related to the main theme--I somehow doubt that the death of Oriana Fallaci has a whole lot to do with the Fatima secrets.
There are times when de Carli, either legitimately, or out of a perverse sense of journalistic sensationalism forces the points of the so-called Fatimists, insisting at points the Sister Lucia's true revelations had been suppressed, or that there was a fourth secret, or that the final secret did not concern Pope John Paul II. Perhaps these are just meant to clear away the will 'o the wisps that seem to flicker around the edges of this phenomenon.
What the book highlighted for me is the source of my distaste for the entire Fatima phenomenon. As is so often the case, it isn't the veracity or likelihood of the events in Fatima in 1917, but the claims and exaggerations and distortions made by those most partisan to the Fatima visions.
What does come across in the book very nicely is a sense of Sister Lucia as a person. One feels that she was a lively, tart, impish character who took guff from no one and who shot straight from the hip. At one point in the interview we see this:
from The Last Secret of Fatima
Cardinal Tarcisio BertoneAfter the Secret had been revealed, some people began to doubt the genuineness of the text. Lucia's Carmelite superior in Coimbra told her about this doubt: "They're saying that there's another secret." With a sigh, Lucia replied, "Well if they know what it is, then let them tell us. For my part, I don't know about any other secrets. Some people are never satisfied. Let's not pay them any mind."
A beautiful example of saintly saying-it-like-it-is.
The book does explore the last secret of Fatima. In addition, for those of us (like me) who knew virtually nothing about the Fatima event and aftermath, it sketches in the history and timeline of events. The revelation of the "secrets" of Fatima is a little odd, occurring as it does in 1941 and 1946; however, God works in His own ways and sometimes it takes time and courage to come forward with His truth.
One of the quiet gems of the book is a short theological commentary on the Fatima secrets and in particular the last secret by then Cardinal Ratzinger. In the course of this short (12 page) essay, Cardinal Ratzinger outlines the status of public and private revelations and provides an interpretive outline for the Fatima visions and their meaning for the world today.
from "Theological Commentary"
Cardinal Joseph RatzingerThe teaching of the Church distinguishes between "public Revelation" and "private revelations." The two realities differ not only in degree but also in essence. The term "pubic Revelation" refers to the revealing action of God directed to humanity as a whole and which finds its literary expression in the two parts of the Bible: the Old and New Testaments. It is called "Revelation" because in it God gradually made himself known to men, to the point of becoming man himself, in order to draw to himself the whole world and unite it with himself through his Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. It is not a matter therefore of intellectual communication, but of a life-giving process in which God comes to meet man. At the same time this process naturally produces data pertaining to the mind and to the understanding of the mystery of God. It is a process that involves man in his entirety and therefore reason as well, but not reason alone. Because God is one, history, which he shares with humanity is also one. It is valid for all time, and it has reached its fulfillment in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Here, the man who was to become the Holy Father set out clearly the lines of demarcation. The essay continues with the same remarkable, succinct clarity and provides one of the deeply insightful high points of the book.
Overall The Last Secret of Fatima is a muddled, digressive, journalistic mess that nevertheless does cast a great deal of light on the phenomenon of Fatima and on the practices of the faithful who remain in line with church teaching. The book isn't for everyone, but it is certainly accessible to anyone sincerely interested in trying to separate the wheat from the chaff as far as Fatima is concerned. I'm glad I've read it because it has at once helped me to become both more informed about this small piece of Church History and more receptive and responsive to the Blessed Mother. In addition, it was a poignant reminder of how much I loved Pope John Paul the Great and how I look forward to the Church's revelation of God's will concerning his heavenly status. I won't say the same thing will happen for all who read it, but if you come looking for the truth, I think you may find a good deal of it between the covers of this book.
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April 25, 2008
By Way of Comment on My Present Read
I have, of late, had the sometime pleasure of the company of a young American woman of my acquaintance at luncheon. While the venues, cuisines, and surroundings of our après-midi repast were variable and dependent upon the circumstances and opportunities available to us, they have always been of the greatest pleasure and entertainment to me.
Miss Archer is at once a very determined young lady, but one also tinged with the streak of independence set firmly in the ground of a graceful and enhancing naiveté, which conduces to my enjoyment of our conversational aperitifs.
I've grown somewhat concerned because whereas her talk was mostly of the many men who saw her and implored her favors while she remained on the Touchett family estate, more and more I am hearing of a person of interest who seems to have netted our pretty little bird without her own knowledge. And the more I hear of Osmond, the more concerned I become, because it occurs to me that there is some information circulating about him that does not redound to his credit. While one can never take seriously what circulates on the street or even in the salon, it has been my distinct displeasure to make the acquaintance of another member of the pretty scene that Miss Archer has laid before me.
Miss Archer never fails of speak of Madame Merle in anything but the most glowing terms, expressing only admiration for this widow, who, as Mr. Touchett has observed on occasion lacks any blot whatsoever on her record. One must wonder about such a record--how recent it must be and what must have been, with some great aplomb, expunged from that on-going document. My own sense of Madame Merle is not nearly so flattering to that personage. There is something about her that is, perhaps subtle is the word, but I think wily is closer to the sense. She seems to fashion les tableaux to fit the needs of the moment, and one cannot help but wonder what those needs might be. Mr. Touchett himself has confided to me that she is a woman of great and unrealized ambitions—and perhaps that view has colored my own of her character. For all I know she may be as spotless as she appears to the casual observer.
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April 17, 2008
I Have a Theory
Like Miss Archer herself, I am filled with useless theories and baseless speculations. But it occurred to me, while reading The Portrait of a Lady that Henry James himself resides within the novel in the skin of Henrietta Stackpole.
Ms. Stackpole tells Isabel that she has no affinity for inanimate objects and she doesn't care to write home about places and mere scenery. Her interest is in people and how they interact and what they are. She sees, of course, with her own blinders in place. However, she does see.
Henry James, for all of his skill with character, lacks any sense of place or time. You read through the book not knowing what people are dressed in, where they are standing, what the scenery is like. Isabel Archer's entire trip trough London is summed up in a short paragraph of about three sentences. We have no opportunity to visit with her the British Museum, much less to sit a moment under those grand trees of Kensington Gardens.
Yes indeed, James makes short shrift of scenery and, indeed, almost any form of set decoration. And we have characters who wander about in a largely and mysteriously featureless world. It amazes me how bereft of this sort of detail the book is.
On the other hand, it simply isn't required for what Mr. James wishes to divulge to us. And so, in that sense, it is handled perfectly.
However, I have theory. . .
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April 15, 2008
The Wacky World of Henry James
As typified by two passages from the current read:
from The Portrait of a Lady
Henry JamesIsabel was sure moreover that her mild forehead and silver cross referred to some weird Anglican mystery, some delightful reinstitution perhaps of the quaint office of the canoness.
*****
[Harriet Stackpole speaking with Lord Warburton]". . . . I don't approve of you, you know; I feel as if I ought to tell you that."
"Don't approve of me?"
"Yes; I don't suppose any one ever said such a thing to you before, did they? I don't approve of lords as an institution. I think the world has got beyond them--far beyond."
"Oh, so do I. I don't approve of myself in the least. Sometimes it comes over me--how I should object to myself if I were not myself, don't you know? But that's rather good, by the wayl--not to be vainglorious."
"Why don't you give it up then?" Miss Stackpole enquired.
"Give up--a--?" asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh inflexion with a very mellow one.
"Give up being a lord."
"Oh, I'm so little of one! One would really forget all about it if you wretched Americans were not constantly remind one. However, I do think of giving it up, the litter there is left of it, one of these days."
"I should like to see you do it!" Henrietta exclaimed rather grimly.
"I'll invite you to the ceremony; we'll have supper and a dance."
Critics note that much of James's work is about this conflict between the Old World and the New World, with the New representing innocence and rugged individualism and self-determination (as noted in the character of Miss Archer herself.) Having not read sufficiently in his oeuvre to make such sweeping judgments, I'll accept the advise of the critics. If so, in these interchanges we see some of the downside of innocence and self-determination--a kind of naive arrogance that can pronounce with impunity on things it does not understand and look down upon all things foreign as "quaint" and "charming" or unlikeable institutions.
There is a price to pay for this sort of arrogance and previous reading has led me to believe that Miss Archer, much to her woe is to be brought up sharp against it.
Whatever the case, I'll keep you informed. And hopefully you can be as amused as I am.
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March 31, 2008
Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana--Anne Rice
Ms. Rice has produced yet another magnificent meditation on the Life of Christ. This book deals with the period just prior to the beginning of the public Ministry. As such, many of the incidents of the book are fictional recreations--meditations as it were on the Life of Christ in novel form.
While I really enjoyed, in fact, loved the first book, I greatly admire the skill and beauty of this second in the series. What Ms. Rice does with such aplomb is to give us a vision of the "second" side of Christ's sacrifice for us. In fact, she kind of opens our eyes to it. Christ not only did things for us, there were things He DID NOT do, all for us as well. And Ms. Rice deftly demonstrates the cost. For example, we have all read the word, "The foxes have their holes and the birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." What could this mean? Do we think He couldn't go to His mother's house and have a place to stay? Surely not. Then what are we to make of it? Anne Rice tells us--Jesus, though fully human and subject to all human desires, needs, and temptations, never takes a wife. This is NOT because He is not interested, but rather because it cannot be for reasons The DaVinci Code makes perfectly clear.
The book starts with a particularly ugly crowd incident in which two young boys are stoned to death because other boys accused them of homosexual involvement. Anne uses this to help us reflect on the fact that Jesus is a 30 year old man in a society that expects no bachelor uncles or unmarried men. This is a society that takes very seriously the Lord's injunction to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth." And here is a man who will have nothing of it. What are we to make of Him? James, his step-brother makes it quite clear when he compares Jesus to these young boys.
Throughout the story, we see Jesus, now older and subject to the expectations and anticipations of the society in which He lives, defying that society in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. He isn't married. He doesn't join the young men in their march on Caesarea. He has an awful lot of female friends, etc.
As the story progresses, we approach events we all know and understand from the Gospels. Here Ms. Rice makes some choices the some may take exception to in the ordering of the miracles He performs, for example. She choses the Gospel of Matthew as the "spine" of her story and presents the chronology there with additions from John, etc. And for those who didn't care for "speculation" in the first book, they may still find something to object to here--but that goes with the realm of fiction.
But we should be very careful. While Anne Rice is not writing a biography of Jesus, she has written something more than a piece of fiction. This work is like an extended lectio, a writerly meditation on the Life of Christ which she shares with the whole world As such, it seeks an understanding of Jesus and of His interior life that is only possible through deep reading and reflection on what we already know and through prayer. In a sense, the book is a kind of prayer, and extended and extensive meditation on Jesus and coming to and understanding of who He is and just what His life means. As such, Ms. Rice has done more than a thousand scholarly dissertations can do for some of us. I have read countless faithful and faith-filled biographies of Jesus and have not encountered some of the insights that I derived from this book. For that, I owe deepest thanks and appreciation to Ms. Rice. She opened my eyes to a dimension I never really gave much thought to--the Life of Christ as ongoing and willing sacrifice to bring the world to God. In giving up the woman He has come to love because it does not fit into the scheme of what He must do, He shows the ideal man bringing His passions into alignment with God's will. Jesus lives not so much for Himself, but for every person He encounters (all of us).
Add to all of these features supple and controlled prose that occasionally approaches the poetic, and you have a superb novel. I marked out three passages as examples of simplicity and power:
(I don't think there are any spoilers/surprises here, but read at your own risk.)
from Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
Anne RiceI held up my hands.
"We're made in His image, you and I," I said. "This is flesh, is it not? Am I not a man? Baptize me as you've done everyone else; do this, in the name of righteousness."
I went down into the water. I felt his hand on my left shoulder. I belt his fingers close on my neck. I saw nothing and felt nothing and heard nothing but the cool flooding water, and then slowly I came up out of it, and stood, shocked by the flood of sunlight.
The clouds above had shifted. The sound of beating wings filled my ears. I stared forward and saw across John's face the shadow of a dove moving upwards--and then I saw the bird itself rising into a great opening of deep blue sky and I heard a whisper against my ears, a whisper that penetrated the sound of the wings, as though a pair of lips had touched both ears at the same time, and as faint as it was, soft and secretive as it was, it seemed the edge of an immense echo.
This is my Son, this is my beloved.
All the riverbank had gone quiet.
Then noise. The old familiar noise. (pp. 176-177)
[Satan Speaking]
"Since you seem at best to be a sometime prophet," he went on in the same calm voice, my voice, "let me give you the picture. It was in a toll collector's tent that he breathed his last, and in a toll collector's arms, can you imagine, though his son sat nearby and your mother wept. And do you know how he spent his last few hours? Recounting to the toll collector and anyone else who happened to hear all he could remember of your birth--oh, you know the old song about the angel coming to your poor terrified mother, and the long trek to Bethlehem so that you might come howling into the world in the midst of the worst weather, and then the visit of the angels on high to shepherds, of all people, and those men. The Magi. He told the toll colleftor about their coming as well. And then he died, raving, you might say, only softly so. (p. 187)
I heard the flapping, the fluttering, the muffled beating of wings. All over me came the soft touch as if of hands, countless gentle hands, the even softer brush of lips--lips against my cheeks, my forehead, my parched eyelids. It seemed I was lost in a lovely weightless drift of song that had replaced the wind without true sound. And it carried me gently downwards; it embraced me; it ministered to me.
"No," I said. "No."
It became weeping now, this singing. It was pure and sad, yet irresistibly sweet. It had the immensity of joy. And there came more urgently these tender fingers, brushing my face and my burnt arms.
"No," I said, "I will do this. Leave me now. I will do it, as I've said."
I slipped away from them, or they spread out as soundlessly as they'd come, and rose and moved away in all directions, releasing me.
Alone again. [p. 200]
I've chosen three passages from near the end of the novel, and yet, I could have chosen any number of others. Ms. Rice has such fine-tuned control and such masterly rhythm and pattern that this could almost be poetry.
I've said before that we owe it to ourselves, to our Church, and to the world to support writers who support the faith. But more than that, we owe it to ourselves to support such works of fiction if we desire to see publishers print more such in the future. We owe it to ourselves to lavish the gift of such writing on the world (and incidentally ourselves) over and over again. Get this book from the library and read it. Better, go out and buy it and share it with others.
The two books of this saga will be for a long time on my list of favored gifts for those who know and love the Lord and for those who are beginning an acquaintance and do not yet really know who He is. Ms. Rice serves as a fine guide for those who dare not attempt the Gospels themselves. If these books could cause one-tenth the excitement, one-tenth the uproar of DVC, then they serve well the purposes of those about Whom they are written.
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March 25, 2008
The Sound and the Fury--William Faulkner
When I finished this book I thought, "What can I say about it that hasn't already been said a million times?" And I realized at once my frustration with writing about great works of literature. I have been given faulty examples. All too often people tend to explicate "texts," and mine meaning from them--sometimes, perhaps the meaning the author had in place. At other times, without doubt, a meaning placed there by the reader. The interpretation of The Sound and the Fury is not something you need from me. That's a fool's errand and I leave it to those who claim to know what the muse whispered into Faulkner's ear.
Reading for meaning is something like eating a sandwich for carbon. Properly done, we do not read merely for meaning, we read to live for a while in the world created by the words, to enjoy the company of the author's creations, and to make from the experience what meaning it may have for us, regardless of the author's inscrutable intent.
While I was in Boston I looked into a "Critical Edition" of Faulkner's masterpiece, seeking from it some key that would magically open up the world of the book. What I discovered is that Faulkner had as little notion of what he had made as most of the critics. When asked about the specifics--why so much shadow in Quentin's monologue, why this detail, why that--he was occasionally able to provide some insight. More often than note his explanation was mundane--something akin to "a blot of mustard. . . or a fragment of underdone potato."
But my service to you in this and in all future reviews, is not to tell you what the book means. That is constructed through the interaction of the person with the text. The contours of the story are set, but the meanings are interactive and multiple and my take on it merely one of many--one that I would enjoy sharing with others who truly enjoyed the book. My service to you is to tell you why and how you can enjoy this or any other book.
Faulkner creates a world far distant from our own with powerful thematic resonances into our own. Does the fate of Caddy, Benjy, Jason, Quentin, Quentin, Jason, Caroline, Dilsey, Frony, Roskus, T.P. and Luster really matter as a question of interacting symbols or enigmas on a page. Does a "text" really matter?
Here I would agree with the postmodernists--no, it doesn't. A "text" cannot matter. But a story, a novel, a poem--all of them can matter. They matter not in the necessary details of the events that form them, but in the dialog that occurs between author and reader.
Faulkner's story certainly tells us something about the decline and fall of one Southern Family. It is every bit as gothic and ornate and detailed as Poe's "Fall of the House to Usher," to which it may own some of its trappings. But it is distinctively Faulkner, giving prominence for perhaps the first time, to themes that he will revisit time and again--purity, incest, honor, time. . . the litany goes on an on. The parallels between this and other works becomes a set of profound harmonics. For example, Caroline ( a thoroughly deplorable and annoying character whose actions or inactions bring about much of the calamity of the novel) bears a sharp resemblance to Cora of As I Lay Dying in her inability to see just how wrong she is in the judgment of her own children. She comes to love the central engine of wrath and destruction--Jason Compson--best of all of her children. Or perhaps so she professes in her constant auto-invalided state to keep a kind of tenuous hold over her shadowy realm.
And that is the realm of Faulkner, the realm of dreams and shadows of promises and denials. Faulkner is the essence of the Southern Gothic. There is violence here without redemption. Some read into Benjy an innocence and a purity that suggest a Christlikeness. And yet, in my reading, that is the furthest thing from Faulkner's mind. Yes Benjy lives in eternity and every moment he has experienced is now and they all flow together in his mind. But Benjy isn't even the idiot of the title, although he is mentally retarded. Indeed, The Sound and the Fury isn't the tale told by the idiot Benjy, but the tale told by the entire doddering, etiolated, effete, impotent Compson clan as they come to embrace the destruction of everything they once held dear. Each person sings his or her own part in the chorus of this tale told by an idiot. If I were to pick a single character to be the idiot of the story I would probably choose Caroline Compson. (Even though, one could drawn some lines of similarity between Benjy Compson and Dostoevsky's Idiot Prince.) Indeed it is chiefly through her telling that the final destruction of the Compson clan is brought about.
So, why read this? Because of its sheer lucious prose, its sinuosity, its strength of theme and of vision, because it creates the vivid and continuous dream, it invites us into the world of the characters, it tells us a story about ourselves at times and our tendencies, and it shows us in the person of Dilsey the way out. The Sound and the Fury does not pretend to be about redemption, and yet redemption is offered in the person of Dilsey who tells her daughter Fronny at the end, "I have seen the beginning and the end." Dilsey is the one stalwart support throughout the book--if more attention had been paid her the precipitate destruction of the family need not have happened.
In Faulkner violence is violence, it is not revelation or epiphany or grace--in that Flannery O'Connor turned Faulkner on his head--rather it is the playing out of the Calvinistic vision of the gothic South. Violence in Faulkner is a sign that the person committing it is not among the elect. And The Sound and the Fury has its share of violence. As in most Faulkner works, much of it implied and off stage. Quentin's demise, Benjy's castration, Caddy's sorrowful marriage and life, Jason Compson the elder's death by dipsomania after he sees his one hope dashed to death in the Charles river.
Read The Sound and the Fury not because it is a masterpiece of modernism, of tone, of the Southern Gothic, not because it is the touchstone of much modern literature, not because it will reveal to you things you've never known and never seen--read it rather because it is a powerful story with interesting characters and much to tell you about them and perhaps about you. The meanings you make from your reading will tell you more about yourself than they will about what Faulkner has written. Faulkner provides us with a mirror (some might say a fun-house mirror). What we see in it is more about who we are than about what Faulkner was trying to get across. Authorial intent is largely unknowable, but authorial effect is directly experienced.
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March 24, 2008
Plus ça change. . .
plus c'est la même chose.
Oh my, but isn't it a day for the French?
Lunching with Mr. Faulkner and one of the most deplorable characters in the canon--by which I refer to Mr. Jason Compson the younger. But he has an observation that will probably sound a little familiar.
from The Sound and the Fury
William FaulknerI went back to the store. Thirteen points. Dam if I believe anybody who knows anything about the dam thing except the ones that sit back in those New York offices and watch the country suckers come up and beg them to take their money. Well, a man that just calls shows he has no faith in himself, and like I say if you aren't going to take the advice, what's the use in paying money for it. Besides, these people are right up there on the ground; they know everything that's going on. I could feel the telegram in my pocket. I'd just have to prove that they were using the telegraph company to defraud. That would constitute a bucket shop. And I wouldn't hesitate that long, either. Only be damned if it doesn't look like a company as big and rich as the Western Union could get a market report out on time. Half as quick as they'll get a wire to you saying Your account closed out. But what the hell do they care about the people. They're hand in glove with that New York Crowd. Anybody could see that.
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On Reading John Updike
I know, it's Easter and I should be doing Easter things, but after the greeting, there seemed to be very little to say on the matter that isn't better said elsewhere. And so I'm back to report on my latest reading and after some rumination may have thoughts about this season to share.
I've been reading John Updike again. This time the most recent collection of his nonfiction. I find him much less an icon of the degeneration of literature in his nonfictional avatar; however, one does get the idea that he values his opinion far beyond its actual worth. Reading through this collection it seems to collect every scrap of written material beyond his grocery lists and put them out there for all to read. Everything from a note to a magazine about a scene with a kiss to a short list of books to read about lust.
As usual, I'm interested by the sensibility behind the words. Updike is, without doubt, a cultivated and intensely interested man. He reviews a wide swath of what would be considered by most literature. He has neither the expansiveness nor the generosity of spirit of a Michael Dirda. But then a novelist as reviewer or critic enters the arena with an axe to grind and much of what he does in the way of review will represent that.
However, one great thing about Updike is that almost all of his reviews are at least mostly favorable. I think I read somewhere that he doesn't like to review a book if he didn't care for it. As a result, you get some luminous glimpses into the reading life of John Updike and into his very peculiar readings of some great books. Additionally, you get a sense of Updike's aesthetic--what might be better termed the aesthetic of the priapic. I note this because of one comment he makes in a review of Colm Toibin's The Master. He is gently chiding Toibin's implicit (and explicit) criticism of Henry James's "refusal" to come out of the closet. Updike points out that James lived during a time of bachelor uncles and unmarried men and that then, unlike now, not everything was centered around sex--there was a life beyond. This is almost hilarious, as Updike is one of two or three writers who have spent their entire careers convincing the rest of the world that everything does revolve around sex. While I find his brand generally less objectionable than Philip Roth's, I find it perhaps more destructive because it is powered by a sensibility infinitely more refined and more genteel than that of Mr. Roth. His prose can be fluid and enormously powerful, particularly in its description of the natural world. But. . . ultimately most of his stories center around his obsession and his obsession with getting everyone else to buy into his obsession.
All that said, reading through this massive tome is an exposure to a great many books and authors I might otherwise not encounter. There are introductions to great works of literature--most interesting here on some comments on Portrait of a Lady, which, to my way of thinking, presents things almost exactly the wrong way around. But then, that's one of the great things about a work of literature--it has as many readings as it has careful and sensible readers. And reading here some of Updikes comments, I discovered about the book something I was unaware of reading it myself--a view of it from another country.
The rewards of reading Updike are many. He does read good books. He reads good books well and tells you things about them that make you want to read them. The reader of Updike may not always agree with his conclusions or his reasoning, but will almost always enjoy hearing from a person whose own work is remarkable and whose comments on the works of others are generous, insightful, and informed by a sensibility that is congenial and warm.
While I'll never hear about Agatha Christie while reading Updike, I will hear about Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, and other writers of this ilk. And I will hear about them from a point of view that is both alien and intensely interesting.
While I contend that John Updike is one of the few who have done more than his fair share in leading us to where we are in the arts and in society (I don't see him so much a chronicler as a pusher), and while I am often mystified with his typfication as a "christian" author, I find that I almost always enjoy myself in his company--most particularly in his company as he is talking about things that interest us both--books and the world of literature.
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March 17, 2008
No Coincidence-More Faulknerian Ruminations
Synchronicty, not coincidence.
Reading The Sound and the Fury and what should transpire other than a trip to Boston. Why is this remarkable? Well, I can't really tell you straight out without giving away much of the book; however, suffice to say that one of the main characters has something critical and large happen to him in Boston.
So, reading The Sound and the Fury during Holy Week when it occurs during Holy Week, and visiting Boston, the site of one of the main events of the book. Wow! What a tremendous experience.
I have more to share on this. But now a delightful little tidbit. Arrived in Boston, walked down to the commons, stopped in a small used book shop near Emerson College and happened to pick up a first edition of The Collected Short Stories of William Faulkner for less than it would cost me to pick up a paperback edition. Oh, how wonderful to be back in a city where literacy is valued, perhaps even treasured.
One last point--the soaps and lotions and shampoos in this hotel are all verbena-scented. I have to come to the chilly late-winter north to smell "The Odor of Verbena." If the significance of that is not clear, google the phrase in quotation marks.
May God bless all who read this during this Holy Week. Indeed, may He bless anyone who reads this every--so few are my readers, I can afford to cast my blessings far abroad.
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March 13, 2008
An Evocative Passage--Anne Rice
Anne Rice has published the second book in her extended novelistic meditation on the Life of Christ. The first, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt was an unalloyed success at conveying some of the complexities of the childhood of a man who "was like us in all things but sin." The second promises to be more of the same. I haven't read much of it, wishing to savor it in between passages of Gothic Americana (The Sound and the Fury). But I wanted to share a short excerpt from very early on that exemplifies the style that Ms. Rice has chosen for these works.
from Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
Anne RiceI looked at them, the two, lying there as if they were children asleep, amid the heap of stones, and not enough blood between them, really, not enough blood for the Angel of Death even to stop and turn and take notice of them.
Rolling, spare, simple, evocative, lush, and lovely. Trimmed down, to the point and carefully crafted. The story rolls on in sentence after sentence that exhibit this same quality.
I think one of the things that astounds me is this Anderson-like simplicity after the baroque excesses of the Witches novels, the Lestat sequence, and the Ramses book. Ms. Rice has taken care here to produce prose that seeks to evoke its inspiration--straightforward and still poetic, like many of the parables Jesus told.
While it isn't the Passion narrative (one is to hope that that is at least two books away) this will make for fine end-of-Lent reading.
I have said before, and will say again, undoubtedly, in a world full of Sam Harrises , Richard Dawkinses, and Philip Pullmans, it is a pleasure and a relief to come across a novelist who is trying to write something worthwhile and powerful for the reader seeking substance. This series is a departure from all of her previous material and as such, it represents a risk to her. Not much of one, as her other books remain in print and sell well and will support her for some time to come, but she risks her huge fan base and her continued profitability and ability to hand on to a publisher. Like Mel Gibson, she is fashioning a work that is demanded by heart and soul, and it is up to readers like us to support this work. I ardently pray that Ms. Rice's work affects the hearts and minds of some of the fans of the previous books and moves them to explore the beauty of Jesus Christ, Lord, Savior, Friend and Companion. If it is possible for you to do so, you might think of buying this book and sharing it with the next person you see reading Kim Harrison, Anne's previous novels, or other books which, while occasionally fun and entertaining, have as an end escape into unreality. What Ms. Rice is trying to create is an escape into ultimate reality.
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March 12, 2008
Odd Synchronicity
My reading of Faulkner brings me to The Sound and the Fury as Holy Week approaches. I don't see as mere coincidence the fact that the events of the novel (present day) occur during Holy Week of 1928. (Not that the present means all that much to Faulkner.)
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Reading List
As noted before, I went out to get and reread for the umpteenth time The Sound and the Fury. For some reason, perhaps the difficulty of following some of the narrtive threads, this does not stick in my head as well as some other Faulkner books (for example, As I Lay Dying).
I'm also going to start Anne Rice's newest addition to the chronicles of the life of Christ: Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. Tom at Disputations gave it what I would call a glowing review. As one of the few parishioners of St. Blogs who really enjoyed the first, I am looking forward to this continuation.
Having just finished a book recommended by the Big Boss of my company--The Science of Success by Charles Koch, I determined that I needed to finish Geoffrey Moore's Dealing with Darwin--largely about managing innovation in companies. To be honest with you, I get very little out of such books except for reinforcement of what seem to me to be obvious truths regarding the state of business and how to run it. But then, if they were so obvious, it would seem unnecessary for anyone to write about them.
And finally, I will continue to trudge my way through the most difficult of the three parts of The Divine Comedy. I remain resolutely opposed to most of the Medieval notion of God, mostly because each era dreams up their own misconceptions of God and refashions Him in their own image. I don't know that anyone has come close to getting it right--but if we cleave to the vision of those closest to Him, we find a continuous and luminous thread of the truth that can serve to guide us onward.
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Light in August--William Faulkner
I'm sure you all must be sick-to-death of reporting on William Faulkner, and yet, I am not sick-to-death of reading and enjoying him. Indeed, as a result of finishing Light in August yesterday, I went out to the library and got Sound and the Fury. (I think I have at least one copy in the house, but it wasn't in the LOA series that I've collected and the shelves are a mess right now.)
What to say about Light in August? Well, let's say that it is one of the most accessible of all of Faulkner's works with some of the most powerful portraits of some of the most unpleasant people you're ever likely to encounter. It plays with time in the way that almost all Faulkner books do, taking place over the period of perhaps 1 week to 1 month, from the arrival of Lena Grove who observes a house burning when she arrives in the small town of Jefferson Mississippi to the end when Lena, escorted by her husband wannabe goes in search of the father of her child. The time encopassed in the book is something like 60-100 years--stretching back to the time of Colonel Sartoris, and perhaps before and moving into the present (late 1920s Mississippi.)
The story centers on Joe Christmas a person who may or may not be of mixed race descent. If so, his skin tone does not betray it and he needs to tell those around him that he is "half-black." He is the ultimately conflicted character, laying his conflict on everyone he meets and it is his actions that precipitate all the main events of the novel.
In fact, that's part of what makes the book so facinating. When it starts, you get the impression that you're going to spend a good deal of time with Lena Burden who is out looking for the man who is the father of her child, who left Alabama (probably when he realized that she was pregnant) with the promise of sending for her. After following her path a little way, we find it convergent with the story of Joe Christmas and the rest of the novel follows him.
There is no point in going into too many plot details. Suffice to say that the events of the book result in an indictment of racism that is as harrowing and as biting as that in Absalom, Absalom!. All of Joe's conflict comes from his own self-indictment for what in today's terms is utterly without stigma (Praise God!) and (1) may not even be true, and (2) even if true was nothing he had any control over. Being part black was nothing he could control and yet the virulanet internalized racism and misogyny that he develops turns what should be not-even-worthy of note (in today's world) into a crisis for Joe and the community.
What is fascinating in Faulkner is his obsession with and dexterity with weaving the past into the present. One example that struck me in this book is that one of the main characters--Joanna is a direct descendant of two people that Colonel Sartoris rides to town to shoot in The Unvanquished. These two were responsible for holding the polls open and encouraging or trying to encourage the blacks in the area to vote. They were buried far away from prying eyes because the son/father of the two though that they might otherwise be disinterred.
The intrusion of the past into the present is one of the themes that makes such rick reading in Faulkner because one gets the sense that he has his fingers clearly on the pulse of something that we have lost any real sense of--even though the truth of it holds today in the same way that it held in Faulkner's day. The present is the living extension of the past: shaped by it, informed by it, and ultimately pervaded by it, if looked at properly.
Faulkner's gothic obsessions get full play in this magnificent work. And it is, for Faulkner, relatively undemanding on the reader--requiring merely the attention of an ordinary novel to keep most of the threads straight. However, it is, as Frost would have it, "lovely, dark, and deep." And it is, as a result, most worthy of nearly any reader's time.
Later: I realize that I've put together a lot of words about Faulkner but have ended by saying very little of import. The problem is that anything I might say would deprive the prospective reader of some of the joy of discovery. Another problem is that I am not a particularly deep reader, pulling out symbols, signs, and meanings at every turn. Indeed, I prefer to enjoy what I'm reading and allow it to mean as it will at the time. Most authors simply don't spend that much time planning and putting these things into motion. And those that do (Rowling and her ilk) often don't produce work that stands up to any kind of scrutiny. It seems that more than 90% of great art is unconscious art--you feel your way around it and end up with a miracle. Authors who pontificate on their purpose either (a) miss the point that their purpose is often subjugated to a greater one if the work is good or (b) haven't written a work that supports the kind of scrutiny it would take to divine the author's purpose.
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March 10, 2008
Duma Key
Stephen King's latest book shows to good effect many of his strengths and some of his weaknesses. Let's start with the weaknesses. After putting the book down, I reflected on the fact that I don't know the people Stephen King portrays--people whose language tends, shall we say, to the salty side. More bluntly, the book is liberally laced with unnecessary and distracting vulgarities that neither give me a sense of character nor enhance my reading experience. They are so common that one finds oneself in the the position of beginning to filter them out. Another less-than-attractive aspect of Mr. King's work is his tendency to give us his opinions in the guise of a character's thoughts. I don't much care what Mr. King thinks of Mr. Bush, the war in Iraq, or the taste of ranch dressing. Moreover, these details are distracting enough to be remember because, once again, they neither advance plot not contribute anything to character.
All of that said, Duma Key is one of the best things Mr. King has written in some time. (Although to be honest, I can't compare it to Lisey's Story so I could be wrong in that evaluation.) The story centers around a man who suffers a traumatic head injury, the loss of an arm, and other injuries in the course of his work. (I was provoked to wonder about how much of what he relates in the book is autobiographical reflection given his own traumatic experience and recovery. No matter, it doesn't intrude or harm the story line--just reader speculation.)
He moves to a house on Duma Key, and the fun begins. Just as a point of information--Duma Key does not exist. When I first started to read, I associated the key with the Southern Keys; however, Duma Key is in a chain off the west coast of Florida near Sarasota and St. Petersburg. Once I got the geography straight, much else fell into place.
The story is a long meditation on the creative impetus and its ability to both heal and destroy the artist. The supernatural intrudes in the way expected in a Stephen King novel, and yet, it is much more subdued, much more subtle and only comes into strong play about two-thirds of the way through the novel. This is NOT a criticism--it shows a markedly altered and, I think, correct sensibility with regard to the use of the supernatural. This full length novel is much closer in spirit to some of the exquisite short works that Stephen King has given us. Reading it, I was reminded of the sheer joy and power of The Colorado Kid, probably a lesser-known but very nicely done King opus in the Hard Case Crime series.
The horror in this book is suggested to be Lovecraftian in nature, although such hints are very subtle, very light touches. The real horror is the horror all of us can understand--the loss of a child or the irrevocable and unspeakable alteration of a child through the growth and maturity process. We adjust to this naturally as time progresses, but King's living metaphor of the shifting sand-and-shell simulcrum at the end of the novel is telling.
I asked in an earlier note on the book whether or not he was taking some lessons or hints from his son Joe Hill. Given the prominence of place and the story-line importance of a certain heart-shaped box in this story, I would say that there are certainly mutual influences. Interestingly, King flips the metaphor on its head and the heart-shaped box in this novel contains the means of redemption and salvation.
The book is atmospheric, well-wrought, powerfully imagined, and written by a King at the height of his powers and sensibility. It's a shame that I find certain aspects of that sensibility appalling, but so it is. Nevertheless, for people who enjoy supernatural fiction, and for fans of Mr. King who were wondering if he would ever return to the heights of the early days, I would say that the chain of the last three books suggest that the answer is "Yes." He has returned to a height that he never occupied--one far superior to that of the early days--potentially that of a true literary master. Now, if only he could bring himself to not so liberally lace his prose with unfortunate vulgarities and unneeded opinions.
Highly recommended for a select audience.
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March 4, 2008
The Realm of the Inconstant
The first person we have speak to us from the realm of the Inconstant (the lowest and slowest sphere of heaven) is a woman named Piccarda. She is consigned to this realm because of her "inconstancy" to her holy vows of a religious. However:
from Paradiso
notes by John CiardiPiccarda was already a nun and living in her convent when her brother Corso, needing to establish a political alliance, forced her to marry Rossellino della Tossa of Florence. Various commentators report that Piccarda sickened and soon died as aconsequence of having been so forced against her will and vows.
It is this kind of reasoning that throughout time has bred atheists. Circumstances that we do not will nor do we consent to force us to actions that we would not take for which God, who created and allowed these very circumstances, then punishes or demotes us.
Piccarda had no choice in this matter. For much of medieval time in many places women were just a step (and a very small step) above chattel. A few extraordinary women did rise above these circumstances--but for the most part your lot in life as a woman was to do what the men around you told you to.
But in Dante's mind, a woman who against her will is forced to marry and is basically raped, is inconstant to her vow. I'm surprised she isn't in The Inferno for being false to her vow. Instead God in his infinite love and mercy says--"you were trapped by circumstance and by the situations my will allows, and couldn't puzzle your way out of it--so off to the lowest circle of beatitude and be glad I don't kick you downstairs."
Yuck! This is what I constantly run up against in Paradise. A strange sort of paradise it makes it.
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Beatrice--Snide and Smug
Here's an example of what I spoke of before. Beatrice speaks to Dante:
from Paradiso
Dante (tr. John Ciardi)"Are you surprised that I smile at this childish act
of reasoning?" she said, "since even now
you dare not trust your sense of the true fact,but turn, as usual back to vacancy?
Charming. Simply charming. There's nothing to inspire love and admiration like some smug, self-righteous, overly informed combatant smiling at your stupidity and then telling you so. I'm supposd to be enchanted/enthralled by this? Color me appalled.
Fortunately Dante's goal was not entirely to make me love Beatrice as he did. If so, his cause is utterly lost. Unfortunately, I perceive that this guide to the celestial realms will not be nearly so convivial as our guide through the other two. We can expect to be laughed at, lectured sternly, and variously assaulted and accosted as we try to enjoy the scenery.
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The Divine Comedy Act III
As often as I have read the Divine Comedy, I have found profound difficulty with the third part--the part that should be so compelling. It seems that all forward motion stops and Dante enters into a realm of airy speculation (mostly wrong) and cosmology that is both weird and vaguely uninteresting. The people in paradise maunder on and on about abstruse theological theories and oddities of the medieval sort. In short, it is the "most dated" and least "useful" of the three acts. And yet, I am sure that I am missing something in the reading. I am sure that as often as I have been through it, I have been left out of paradise through my own fault.
So I try again. And once again I am treated so some odd explanation of the spheres of the cosmos and to Beatrice (who if you ask me isn't some Divine avatar but a relentless and self-righteous harridan--see the end of Purgatorio. One is left to ponder what in the world Dante saw in this woman.
Not that the rest of the comedy isn't riddled with similar lectures, cosmologies, and oddities, but somehow amid the grotesques and the "poetic justice" they seem to fit in. If the realm of perfection is nothing other than an endless lecture series on the Divine glories, unless I become a completely different person (by which I do not mean simply abandoning sin and growing closer to God, but having something approaching a spiritual lobotomy) I think that the suffering there would be akin to the suffering of some of the souls in Dante's Inferno.
But then, why might Dante think that this endless lecture circuit is Divine? Perhaps because knowledge was so highly valued a commodity in a time when its dissemination was so difficult? Perhaps it was just that particular poet's mind? I don't know, but perhaps that is a focus to pay attention to as I try to ignore the lectures that get in the way of a tourists view of paradise.
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March 3, 2008
Hidden Humor
Where else, but in Faulkner. Light in August is an interesting study in neurosis and psychosis and how one feeds the other until disaster. It is also a repudiation of Calvinist fatalism, even though there seems to be that about it which suggests inevitability. But regardless of the dire and drear events, we have in the midst of them this:
from Light in August
William FaulknerPresently the fire truck came up gallantly, with noise, with whistles and bells. It was new, painted red, with gilt trim and a handpower siren and a bell gold in color and in tone serene, arrogant, and proud. About it hatless men and youths clung with the astonishing disregard of physical laws that flies possess. It had mechanical ladders that sprang to prodigious heights at the touch of a hand, like opera hats; only there was now nothing for them to spring to. It had neat and virgin coils of hose evocative of telephone trust advertistements in the popular magazines; but there was nothing to hook them to and nothing to flow through them. So the hatless men, who had desert edcounters and desks swung down, even including the one who gound the siren. They came too and were shown several places where the sheet had lain, and some of them with pistols already in their pockets began to canvass about for someone to crucify.
But there wasn't anybody. She had lived such a quiet life, attended so to her own affairs, that she bequeathed to the town in which she had been born and lived and died a foreigner, an outlander, a kind of heritage of astonishment and outrage, for which, even though she had supplied them at last with an emotional barecue, a Roman holiday almost, the would never forgive her and let her be dead in peace and quiet.
In and among the solemn events, these flies in their brand new and utterly useless fire engine provide the kind of comic relief that Shakespeare (and probably a good many playwright of lesser compass before him) employed so effectively with the drunken porter in Macbeth.
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February 26, 2008
Reflections on Purgatorio
I feel obliged to start this discussion with the customary disclaimers. I don't claim to be a deep reader, one filled with wisdom and overflowing with information about Dante. I am, like most of you who read this, a reader--one who enjoys reading things that challenge me and provoke me. I find most readings of critiques to be highly worked up and overwrought--often I find myself doubting that any author would have so contrived and twisted the work they were completing to meet the gyrations of the critics. A critic lays a layer atop a work even though the seeming effort is to explore the labyrinth laid before them.
On the other hand, a reader sees the work from within the labyrinth. There may not be a complete sense of its design, nor may we see clearly all the elements that make up the patterns; however, we see clearly what is clearly spoken and we appreciate the work for that.
That said, let me start these reflections by sharing one line that really struck me. Bear in mind that the translation I am using, for a great many reasons, is the one by John Ciardi:
". . . the blessed wormwood of my agony."
It is strictly out of context, but it started the other chain of thought I wanted to share. This line is spoken by one in purgatory. Speaking of his wife's ardent prayers on his behalf, he notes that her prayers have lifted him already so high in purgatory, setting aside years and years of suffering that would otherwise be required for purgation.
But notice the way he refers to this suffering--"the blessed wormwood of my agony." The suffering is real--it is as real as the suffering in Hell, and yet it is not torment. Over and over again Dante makes the point that this suffering is gladly engaged in, indeed embraced by the souls themselves as they know the end of it in time. The Lustful souls in conversation with Dante stay strictly within their sheets of flame, and so it is throughout the Purgatory. The souls know that this suffering cleanses, this suffering purifies, this suffering leads to heaven.
Extend that a bit--human suffering, properly viewed and with a heart set on God's will is purgative. And that suffering be it "Nella's tears" (the wife referred to above) for the loss of her husband and for the sympathy with his suffering, or our own physical pain borne with the expectation of seeing God, is purgative not only for ourselves but for others as well. In the Christian context, suffering has meaning. But so too does the beatific vision. Those in purgatory do not needless extend their stay, reveling in their suffering and purgation. Rather, they move on to the beatific vision and to the enjoyment of the presence of God. This is where I part company with many of the Saints. While suffering is purgative, life is filled with enough--we needn't add to it through our own contrived mortifications that have as their end release from attachment. Properly lived, life has quite enough that should provoke us to give up the things we are attached to--the celice and the discipline are neither required, nor, it seems to me, within God's ordained will for us. He hands out the suffering we require--we need not add to it. And indeed, adding to it is contradictory to His will, it is clinging to purgatory when He has decided we need bliss.
Purgation happens. Life carries with it enough of heaviness. Little things like denying ourselves too much food or food of a certain kind--that isn't really suffering, or if it is it is suffering borne of our own selfishness and self-centeredness. People in India live very well without a Hershey's bar a day. Real suffering--not having enough to eat, losing someone we love, living through a terrible wasting disease with Death hanging over us--is not something we choose. It is something that with the grace of God we live through and by living through it contribute both to our own purgation and to the purgation of those around us. We are not saved singly, although salvation is individual and singular for each person. Rather, we are saved within the community, the entire Body of Christ is resurrected, not merely a cell on the big toe. Our own bliss in salvation comes in part from the knowledge that salvation is for all and we have worked for it through our many small works of spiritual and corporeal mercy.
Thus purgation can begin here as we abide in God's will, accept what life brings us, and relish God's perfect plan expressed through it. That doesn't mean we do not mourn or hurt. But it does mean that our pain has meaning both for us and for those around us. When we live through a time of suffering, we are in sympathy with those in Purgatory and we are spending a little of our own time there as we head for heaven. Suffering isn't to be sought out--it will find us soon enough. But once we have been found, bearing with the suffering through the strength of the One who saves us strengthens both us and those around us even though we do not necessarily see this effect.
One last point on Purgatorio comes from a provocative note by the translator in the endnotes. I will let it stand without further comment:
from "How to Read Dante"
John CiardiThe Seven Deadly Sin for which souls suffer in Purgatory are--in ascending order--Pride, Envy, Wrath, Adedia, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust. Acedia is the central one, and it may well be the sin the twentieth centruy lost track of. Acedia is generally translated as Sloth. But that term in English tends to connote not much more than laziness and physical slovenliness. For Dante, Acedia was a central spiritual failure. It was the failure to be sufficiently active in the pursuit of the recognized Good. It was to acknowledge Good, but without fervor.
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