What We're Reading Wednesday

Sept. 25, Feasts of Saint Finbarr of Cork, from whence my husband's maternal family hails.  The Irish saint drove out a great serpent from the lake in Gougane, creating the channel that is now the river Lee.

Today is my husband's birthday!  We love you, cariad!

However, he has no interest in books, so the above three are my picks.  (Interestingly, and totally unrelated, two of the three books above have punctuation marks as part of their titles.  Huh.)

1.  Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

I've been interested in this book ever since I caught scenes of the movie The Thirteenth Warrior on television and saw that it was about VIKINGS.  I wanted to know more, and gathered over the years that it was based on a book that was a re-telling of the Beowulf epic.  I knew then I had to read it.  However, I could never find it in the library, despite the popularity of this author (Crichton also wrote Jurassic Park, among others).  So last time I was at the book store, I bought this little inexpensive copy and am very happy I did.

The story is narrated by a real historical figure whom the author borrowed and adapted for his novel, naturally infusing it with veracity--but he doesn't stop there.  He makes the narrative a kind of "found" manuscript, with notes and insertions from translators and even an appendix in back, with imaginary sources and experts in the field.

Crichton adopts the voice of the Arabic courtier, Ibn Fadlan, and makes a pretty good transition between the original, true accounts and the fictional ones.  I notice a greater tendency toward poetic description and more personal reaction in the fictitious part, which makes up the entirety of the book after the first three chapters, but I didn't really notice the transition until I was already well in and won over.

The premise of the novel is that the monsters of Beowulf, particularly Grendel, were based on a historical event--actually a tribe of remnant Neanderthals that survived in Scandinavia and attacked Hrothgar's (Rothgar in the novel) hall.  The account of the event through a foreigner's eyes is well chosen because Ibn Fadlan gives us explanations and reflections that he wouldn't have if he were a Northman.  I enjoyed reading about their unique customs and culture (not sure what was fact and what was fictitious--this book has made me realize that I need to pick up some non-fiction reading on Vikings) and also this re-adaptation of a classic of Western civilization.

According to Crichton, he set out to write Eaters of the Dead to prove to a scholar friend that the saga of Beowulf was not boring.  I say, good for you!  And well done.

2.  Call to Action or Call to Apostasy? by Brian Clowes

I rented this from the parish library on a whim.  I was intrigued because I accidentally attended a Call to Action talk in college at the local Franciscan center and was shocked into a cold sweat by what the woman was saying.  It took all my strength to remain sitting, firmly gripping my chair, my jaw clenched--and a few dozen Hail Mary's besides.  This is basically a rudimentary booklet outlining the way dissenters attack the four aspects of the Church--one, holy, catholic, and apostolic--with some resources and advice for beginners wanting to get involved.  The author remains charitable and makes a clear distinction between the dissenters themselves and their unworthy intentions.  He writes, "It is not us against them.  It is all of us against Satan."  Very important.

It was a quick and easy read, and I'm glad for having read it.  However, there are probably more thorough and contemplative studies out there, if CTA, CORPUS, WATER, and other agitation groups aren't new to you.

3.  Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara

I.  Love.  This book.  It's most everything I cherish about my childhood memories of Halloween between two covers, accented by beautiful, tri-chromatic illustrations.  The crisp, elegant, and cute illustration style is so typical of Japanese children's art (think Hello Kitty), and the white-orange-black combination is surprisingly stunning and effective.  It looks like Ms. Kohara cut out tissue paper for the ghosts and glued it to her wood-block-print pictures.

The story itself is cute and fun, from the ghosts in the washing machine to the little white cat who puts on a black "catsuit" when his mistress dons her pointy witch hat!  My two-and-a-half-year-old son loves this, and I love reading it to him!  New favorite.  Perfect for Halloween.

I really want her other picture books now, Little Wizard and Jack Frost.

Dogs and Gravity

I'm going to pull a Chesterton and paraphrase a thought from a source whose name I do not remember.

The idea went something like this:

It is not counter-productive for women, in feminist literature, to do bad things and sometimes even to be portrayed as morally depraved.  Adherence to traditional patriarchal mores and ethics is another way that men subjugate and oppress women.  The character who neglects or abuse her children, betrays her lovers, and harms others for the sake of herself is one who is enlightened because she is free to explore an existence outside that which is expected of her.

My thoughts upon reading this were:

What?

It is the feminist point of view that women are constricted by man-made morals?  That's like saying that dogs are forced to stay on the ground by that antiquated, fowl-favorable, man-made Law of Gravity.

Our canine friends, who are aerially challenged, get together and determine the best way to overcome this obstacle is to ignore the Law of Gravity altogether and just do what they feel like.  Far from realizing their folly, they applaud the boldest of them that launch themselves from cliffs and jump from the roofs of doghouses with reckless abandon.  True, they're injured from their defiance and sometimes even killed, but darn it, at least they showed those close-minded anti-quadrupeds what's what.  And they've explored what it means to be dogs, not just what humans say it means.

Okay, I think I squeezed every last drop of usefulness-just-dodging-ludicrous out of that metaphor!

My paraphrase probably oversimplifies the author's original intentions, but it is an interesting thought nonetheless.  It reminds me of the often-dragged-out charge against Christianity that Christians have long subjugated women because they blame Eve for the Fall (and cite Augustine, as if infalible, to prove it), but smoothly overlook that

a)  Adam was complicit; it took the two of them to ruin Paradise.  When Adam tried to put the blame solely on Eve, God didn't let him.

b)  Mary the mother of Jesus gave life to the Child who would reverse the ill effects of the Fall and rescue us "poor, banished children of Eve."  She is probably the most revered and honored single woman of all time.  That's all.

Morals aren't man-made.  They are formed by natural law, as natural as the Law of Gravity.*  They can be found etched into the heart and soul of every person regardless of religious, ethnic, and geographical background.  You could even call it conscience.  And rebelling against that law, whether man or woman, exiles.  It doesn't free.  It's as simple and as difficult as this

versus this

Since I started with him, I'll give the last word to Chesterton:

"When I finally saw what was nobler than my fate, the freest and the hardest of all my acts of freedom, it was in front of a gilded and very gaudy little image of [Mary] in the port of Brindisi, that I promised the thing that I would do, if I returned to my own land."

 - - -
*Perhaps even more so.  For natural laws of science can be suspended, which is what a miracle is.  But to suspend conscience in a human being is to rob him of that which makes him human.  And yeah, I know that there's a fundamental difference between science and philosophy.  Don't read the dog-and-gravity metaphor too literally.

To Who Be What, Now?

Shakespeare is the best author who ever lived, and Hamlet is the best play ever written. 

If you're not impressed, imagine it this way: Hamlet is the rough literary equivalent of homemade coconut ice cream; just when you thought it couldn't get any better, it is served to you on a Gigantic.  Fudge.  Brownie.

Photograph (c) Oli Scarff/Getty.

If you are at risk of being abandoned on a dessert island with only one option for edifying, entertaining, and inspiring literature, choose Hamlet.

If you had one day left to live and have yet to put a dent in that reading list, do nothing until you've read Hamlet.

While you're at it, why not catch a play or a movie?  (Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet.)

At the risk of repeating myself, did I mention I like Hamlet?

How many great things about Hamlet are there? 

Well, too many to list on one post, but one of them is that we think we know the meaning of something until our Elizabethan host from Merrie Olde England winks and pulls the phrase right out from under us.

In the play, there is a comedic character named Polonius.  

After his impressive display of idiocy (knavery, in Shakespearean) so far, he surprises by giving his son . . . well, sound advice.  Among these is the famous line,

"To thine own self be true."

It sounds good, right?  Be true to yourself.  Don't change who you are for anyone.  If it feels right, do it.

That's what I was taught and assumed it meant.  Then Joseph Pearce, professor and author of insightful biographies including C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church and Tolkien: Man and Myth, cast this famous quote in a new light.

In summary he says, Polonius is an idiot.  Polonius's advice is in fact relativist error.

What is really important is that we be true to the Truth beyond ourselves.  It is a hard lesson that the Danish prince has to learn throughout the course of the play.

If I have to choose between being true to myself or to The Truth, I would be silly not to choose The Truth every time.

Look at it this way.  Do I really want to be true to me, when I fail and when I hurt those around me?  When I am too stubborn to let go of a bad habit or sin that is hurting me?

Shouldn't I be more than happy to let God in to change me and, through the sacraments and prayer, to let him make me a better person?

I don't know if I should necessarily trust myself.  I'd rather listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

So let's change this advice into a prayer:

Lord, to thyself (let me be) true.  Amen.






Hamlet!  Let's just throw that in to make ten.