Interlude: Finding Out of Print Series

I came across Henri Daniel-Rops' thirteen volume history of the Church sophomore year in Annapolis and ever since I have been trying to locate a copy. It has been a most frustrating task; the books are almost all out of print, and the copies I can find are prohibitively expensive. Still, I shall continue in my efforts, and perhaps good things will yet come of it.

The series is entitled The History of the Church of Christ, and its volumes (ten in its English translation) are:

1.  The Church of Apostles and Martyrs
2. The Church in the Dark Ages
3. Cathedrals and Crusade
4. The Protestant Reformation
5. The Catholic Reformation
6. The Church in the Seventeenth Century
7. The Church in the Eighteenth Century
8. The Church in an Age of Revolution
9. A Fight for God
10. Our Brothers in Christ

Homer, The Iliad

It is both a pleasure and a shock to return to Greece by means of Homer. From the opening lines celebrating and mourning Achilles' wrath, to the closing lament over the Breaker of Horses, I was fully spellbound. Homer's depiction of heroic virtue is unforgettable, and Achilles, Hector, Diomedes, Agamemnon (specifically not Odysseus) and Aias are the standards against which subsequent heroes shall be judged. There is beauty, courage, grace, and honor amongst them which is alien, yet not unattractive (though I remember how much The Iliad shocked me as a freshman) to a modern. Like my experience with the Waldstein Sonata, I grew to love The Iliad and to revel with the heroes in the pride of their strength.

The problem of honor and glory is what concerns me most in the poem, and how they unfold the magnificent tragedy. Honor and glory seem to be related to one's own and the other; honor is given a man by other men, and it can be easily stripped away, as Agamemnon effortlessly shames Achilles; but once taken, it is unclear whether or not it may be returned, though the offender may wish it so. On the other hand, glory, or fame, κλέος - literally, a report - though it requires the efforts of others and possibly would be unsatisfying without it, does not admit of this weakness, far more dependent on the feats of the individual. Thus the wrath of Achilles is spread about the four winds and all men sing his songs, and none can strip him of his great deeds. In this light Nestor refutes Diomedes, who claims he will lose glory by fleeing Hector. Even more, it seems Achilles might make a transition from honor-loving to glory-seeking midway through the Iliad when Agamemnon's envoy comes upon him singing and delighting his heart with the songs of the great men from the past. Since it is possible to be dishonored by a lesser man (though I hardly dare to assert even this; for, losses of faith notwithstanding, Agamemnon's conduct in battle is irreproachable, and Homer's depiction of the troubled shepherd of the people is among the most moving of passages), what is a hero to do? How to hold honor, based on the words or praises of men (which are but wind, right?) and glory, based on deeds? Do the two come together as one more than I am allowing here?

Since all the heroes fight for honor and glory (Hector is emphatically not an exception, read carefully Andromache's plea and his response and you might be convinced it does not properly address her request), there are no villains, strictly speaking, though I vastly prefer the Achaian heroes, and Diomedes in particular (what a lion!), to anything Ilion has to offer. Further, though frequent mention is made of fate, it seems Zeus is not subject to fate at all, but that fate is merely Zeus' will, for Hera all but says that in book sixteen, and among the first lines of the Iliad is "the will of Zeus was accomplished", and when Zeus bows his head in assent to a thing, nothing may gainsay it. Unrelated and probably trivial, but interesting, is the discovery that Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are all equals, give or take, though the Furies tend to side with Zeus, for he is the eldest.

There is much to say about the poem, and these scattered reflections hardly do it justice. Buried beneath the beauty, honor, and glory of noble battle is harsh, unromantic bloodshed and a deep sadness about the nature of things. I am not sure how friendship figures in The Iliad, nor to what extent the vivid pictures of death and violence change the beautiful picture of heroic virtue, though I am not inclined to say Homer is attacking that virtue in every line. Plenty of open questions for next time.

"Of the creatures that crawl the earth, man is the most miserable of all."

Plato, Ion

What a pleasure it is to return to inexhaustible literature! This short gem of a dialogue is the beginning of my return to Ancient Greece; on deck now is the Iliad and a modern doorstopper, Tragedy and Hope, recommended to me by David Fabe via Josh Barr.

The Ion appears to be part of a critique of poetry and the poets. Through inquiring if Ion is clever about all poets, not just Homer, Socrates is able to show Ion that the rhapsode's ability is not an art or craft, that it possesses no knowledge, and that in general, the poet does not know what he is talking about. But when one reexamines the argument, specifically with the question how Socrates gets Ion to admit all this, it becomes ever clearer that Socrates uses poorly constructed arguments for his assertions - switching subjects unbeknownst to Ion, ignoring implications, etc. Further, the examples he uses make the question of what τέχνη and ἐπιστήμη are completely unclear, inviting us to consider the possibility that the argument is not intended to be taken seriously, culminating in a twin example of generalship: Ion claims he knows what a general should say to exhort his troops before battle, and this he learned from Homer. Socrates changes the subject again ("So the rhapsode is a general? Seriously?"), mocks him, and ends the discussion, but it is unclear just how a general should learn to exhort his troops, and perhaps Ion's claim is not quite so ridiculous. Through an examination of the general, it seems that far from banishing the poets from the city, they are necessary to form its soul, and provide a vision of the whole for its citizens.

There is more. Homer occupies a special place in Athens; he is an artist who truly formed the soul of man; his depiction of heroic virtue was the standard until Alexander the Great, and his work was about as authoritative to the Greeks as the Bible was to the Medievals. As such, Homer is the commonly received opinion or tradition of the Greeks (Athens' cave, perhaps - what a great cave!), and by focusing solely on him, Ion is the most conventional, unreflective of men. He does not inquire or even seek to inquire whether there might be alternatives to Homer, using him to bolster his own achievements and reputation. Socrates, in investigating the link between art, poetry, and "speaking well or badly" (is this related to knowledge? the word "knowledge" occurs very seldom in the dialogue, hardly an accident), is investigating the very foundation of the city's most dearly held beliefs, what reason there is to hold those beliefs, and whether there might be alternatives: a dangerous business, for it is simple to see such a man as subversive.

I am sure that hardly covers the entire Ion. I have only read it five or ten times, and will probably see more as the count approaches fifty. But it is a good beginning. Reading Plato is like reading nothing else; it is exhilarating, shocking, infuriating, and provoking towards education of the highest sort; a great adventure. This is the first of the Dialogues I have read carefully; one down, thirty four more (plus the Letters) to go.

"As for me, I speak nothing but the truth, as is fitting for a private human being".

Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

The most significant objection I have to modernity and especially to modern literature is the refusal to devote oneself to principle, choosing instead arbitrary, dogmatic sentiment. Perhaps I am expecting too much of the literature of my decadent and effete era or maybe I am just too old-fashioned, too Greek or Medieval. Who knows.

Niffenegger's book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was an engaging read. It would have been as disappointing as The Sinner of Saint Ambrose had I been as invested in it, but I bought it (probably a poor choice, but it was really cheap, after all) on a friend's recommendation, and after he introduced me to The Stars My Destination I was prepared to believe him. Time Traveler is far more about telling a story than disclosing topical references or even allegory. Naturally, since a  committed modern wrote it, its intellectual foundations are laced in modernity; for example, whenever it discusses love I see late 20th Century thought at work. Perhaps the author recognized this tendency, or perhaps not, for it does not seem to be much of a self-aware book on that level.

That was the reason I wound up enjoying it; I was able to identify Proust and the new contemporary sentiment, and was quite surprised how far we have come since the Middle Ages, which were strong on reason and weak on sentiment; now we doubt reason's claim to truth and live for sentiment. Feeling is more important than insight, etc. Almost more than a rollicking good tale I love the exciting treatment of ideas, and this is where the book fell short. I bought it because Ty told me it was a magnificent tragedy and a wonderful love story. Since love is a mystery to me, I thought Time Traveler might teach me something. In the end, much of what I learned from the book was that the ideal is more real than the materially existing individual, and that what we love is an ideal we see in another, not the 'individual-itself'. Perhaps this is not quite right, but it almost sounds a bit like Plato, a distinction I shall retain when I return to Greece. So maybe I am completely wrong and Niffenegger is an ancient, not a modern. But I wouldn't hold my breath to find out.

"I'm a close approximation she is guiding surreptitiously toward a me that exists in her mind's eye. What would I be without her?"

Robert Raynolds, The Sinner of St. Ambrose

Seldom have I been so disappointed in a novel. On the one hand, The Sinner of St. Ambrose was a moving picture of the fall of Rome and a rather ordinary, (very) flawed 'hero' on his search for God. Stirring indeed was the account of pagan honor and virtue; I doubt I shall see Julian the Apostate in the same light again (though I hope Raynolds did his research well, for I did not attempt fact-checking of the letters, inscriptions, etc. reported in Sinner), and even the conflict between reason and revelation was hinted at in the opening chapters, and most wonderful of all, the question concerning the compatibility between faith and nobility. I was thus primed for an exciting time.

How very disappointed I was when not only were these serious questions not developed, but the novel devolved into a twin promulgation of the Pelagian heresy and what amounts to secular humanism (perhaps the close kinship of the two explains Raynolds' appreciation of the former). What little faith Gregory finds destroys his pagan honor and nobility (which I suppose would not have surprised Nietzsche at all, but I doubt this was Raynolds' intention), ripping the soul out of everything specifically Christian: what is left when you say, "a man can, by his exertion of will to good achieve grace, though of course God's help makes it easier"? or, "God is great enough to tolerate diversity", by which is meant "what you believe does not matter". Added to these is a disdain of asceticism, celibacy, and the institutional Church: Pelagius is the "human Christian", Augustine the "Catholic Caesar" - given the disdain of autocracy, one can imagine all the negative connotations Raynolds intended for this latter. All this I could tolerate (for heaven's sake I adore reading Nietzsche) if Gregory remained an honorable nobleman, but he does not, exchanging pagan virtue for modern secular humanism. This resulting destruction of heroism makes it easy to see why Nietzsche despised Christianity and why I ended up despising this book.

I opened the novel excited to read about the passionate conversion of a proud, noble pagan and all that entailed; bound in an exciting, wrenching tale of the fall of Rome. And indeed these portions are good. But the most important parts of the book are those least important to the author/Gregory, who prefers to remind us at every turn of the humanistic, comforting elements of his secular heresy. Flaws granted, it does provoke an uncomfortable, lingering question: is nobility possible for the Christian?

"All the gods are one God, and He breaks the human heart."

George Martin, A Dance With Dragons

The fifth volume in the seven-volume series A Song of Ice and Fire was released yesterday. It counted nine hundred and fifty nine pages, and I turned the last one minutes ago. A decent book. Few (I can only remember two) graphic sex scenes and no - that's right, zero - tweaking of nipples. How thrilling!

Dance is a fun book, I shall readily admit. Despite its almost inexcusable length, it is swiftly paced and quite a page turner. My complaints of A Song still, remain, though I will admit Martin has grown more accustomed to writing about religion, at least the paganism of the North. His work has the power to sweep you completely into Westeros and beyond in the same way that Tolkien was able to do. But Martin's work is simply not beautiful. The Lord of the Rings ached beauty from almost every page, and even in the victory of the Third Age tragedy showed itself. There is no such thing here. All is gritty, dark, and after calamitous misfortune strikes again and again endlessly, one comes only to expect the worst. Thus, when the virtuous and/or noble are overcome by the vicious, I cannot say I am surprised or shocked; for Martin and the writers of the television adaptation (which incidentally is better than the written saga in several important respects) seem quite convinced that cruelty, injustice, and deception are mightier than, and superior to, the virtues: courage, honor, and nobility especially. It's almost the starting position of Alcibiades in the first dialogue of his name, and I shall look into this problem more carefully. But there are two more books to go, and given how convinced of his position Martin seems to be, I cannot see how there possibly can be a noble ending, for the Stark family is all but extinct, Daenerys exchanges authority for weakness, and Jon Snow betrays his vow to the Wall. The best I can hope for is for Tyrion to survive, as Martin, given his preference for Odyssean cleverness over the honorable heroism that so formed Achilles and Diomedes, seems to indicate.

Every now and then, I find an exhilarating portrayal of power and the lengths men will go to obtain it. Every now and then, a moving section on honor. Very rarely, an honorable, valiant man, however doomed he might be (and usually is). I suppose that is all that I can expect. Who would we rather follow? Ned Stark or Tyrion? Honorable death or dishonorable life? On the one hand, what good is honor and nobility if it gets you killed? But on the other, what good is life if you become dishonorable?

I definitely shall not buy the books in hardcover; either in the cheapest paperbacks I can find or not at all, but I am glad I read them. After all, few have written so well about impending, unknown terror, and the frightening isolation that is the North.

"Not all men are meant to dance with dragons."

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Bloom's book is probably one of those who got provocative reviews in the New York Times, making it a bestseller which no one reads. At almost four hundred pages long, it is quite dense, and Bloom shares the Straussian love of long paragraphs. As such, probably most people who bought it cracked it open, read a few pages, and then consigned it to an indefinite prison sentence on the bookshelf.

Closing is a critique of the soul of the American university student; Bloom writes about choice, love, eros, music, and the history of thought (my favorite section), especially how words like "values", "ideology", and such words come to American popular thought and altered their original meaning; he writes how all these elements culminate in rather nihilist-unawares ways of thinking and being. Closing is often beautifully written (especially when he is discussing the merits of a particular book), and while its arguments were sometimes surprising, more often it voiced sentiments and concerns already at work within me. It fell upon fertile soil, you may believe that. This book and Crisis of European Sciences should be enough to convince anyone of the importance of liberal education, which of course for Mr. Bloom is the answer; the Great Books education. This has earned him hatred from other sectors, who accuse him of only teaching students what to read, not how to think for themselves, but any intelligent person can mock the pseudo-thinker who would be blinded enough to say such a thing.

One of its finest achievements is how Bloom is able to show us (for though I am a zealot for liberal education, I am also a Millennial and a modern, however much I may hate both of these things) ourselves. It is occasionally as frightening as peering into a mirror, for we often do dislike what we find.

"An American student knows only the word 'philosophy', and it does not seem to be any more of a serious life choice than yoga."

Chaim Potok, The Chosen

The Chosen is simply a marvelous book. The father and son relationship, the education of children's souls, their emergence into the world - all this is treated in such a slim volume. Danny, the orthodox Jew, is bound by tradition and birthright to take his father's place as rabbi for his people, but yearns to study psychology. Far from the common "I-want-to-be-my-own-man" American pseudo-novel where the strict father is demonized and autonomous freedom celebrated, choice truly means something, and the corresponding sacrifice is great. Potok writes of a certain tragedy of choice, I think, and this tone of tragedy permeates the novel and lends it compelling character.

"When you have a son, will you raise him in silence?"
"Yes, if I can't find another way."

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

I've been interested in the bildungsroman lately. Obviously this means more interest in that beautiful quartet "Republic-Comedia-Emile-Phenomenology", but I shall put those off till later and instead focused on a short, simple, (rather) girly book, Anne of Green Gables. In my defense, I thought the writer was a man, for the prose was reminiscent of Mark Twain's Joan of Arc. Besides, I had never read the book before, though I opened it about five, six years ago and plopped it down in disgust - Anne simply would not shut up.

Anyway I reopened the case, and devoured the book in one sitting. Of course you know how much I like a character who is Life personified. Joan is the exempla prima, but Anne is cut from the same cloth. Like Joan, she dominates the novel, and all other characters could be said to exist in reaction to her. Best of all, she becomes a scholar! I picked up on the Euclid and Virgil jokes and was ashamed of my own education when I compared it to hers. Thomas Jefferson's ideal alive and well in Canada at the time, I suppose.

The best part about being Life personified is the full commitment Anne shows for all things, for in the novel,  being lukewarm is as far from her as the east is from the west. This commitment impels her to passionately love life in everything; this is why she is such an adorable girl at eleven, and why she matures into a lovely, intelligent young woman at the novel's end. Some may find her constant extremes wearying, but I found them fully delightful. Her character is an inspiration, regardless of its extremity.

"Don't give up all your romance, Anne - keep a little of it."

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

Over spring break I glanced at a book on my bookshelf and surprised, picked it up. I had no idea that Mark Twain wrote a book about Joan of Arc; even more surprising, that he thought it was his best work. I figured it was his big chance to poke fun at organized religion; his humorous disdain of it is rather well-known. But most surprising of all, I noticed the book was published by Ignatius, a Catholic publisher (so it couldn't be too irreverent), and as I was reading, I realized Mark Twain adored this girl. After reading his book, so do I.

Personal Recollections is told by her first page and secretary, Sieur Louis de Conte, who was purportedly with her from childhood to martyrdom. But such details are irrelevant; the obvious hero (excuse me - heroine) is Joan of Arc from the first page to the last, working her will despite any and all obstacles. She convinces and charms all who speak to her; after her review of Blois Camp, I was ready to follow her myself.  The work is similar in some ways to The Stars My Destination in that it is giant refutation of Tolstoy's account of history, but it is far more effective in this vein than Bester's work. Joan of Arc had a mission and a world-changing directive. If time is a river and us commoners are but small grains of sand or pebbles, she is a gigantic boulder. Flawless character, passionate, resolute religious faith, extraordinary nobility, and unbelievable courage are only a few of her traits. When reading of the conclusion of her trial I sank down and wanted to weep, and this feeling arises in me but exceptionally rarely.

Equally impressive is Twain's restraint. He does not use this book to express his criticism or reservations of the Catholic Church, though he has both and both are real. Joan of Arc has neither, and in distancing himself from her via de Conte, Twain keeps his silence. Joan was neither feminist, lesbian, nor transvestite opposing oppressive Catholic traditions and he does not write her as being such; rather her nature comes to us as it was made clear to him over twelve years of research in France.

I had heard something of her exploits before, and admired her through Chesterton's brief mention in Orthodoxy, but reading Personal Recollections floored me. Many of her deeds are common knowledge: raising the siege of Orleans, the Loire Campaign, Patay, The Bloodless March, Rheims, but seeing her ride down her path like a thunderbolt was awe-inspiring. It is true, as one reviewer complained, that the battles lack suspense; I minded that not at all, for I was under her spell and swept along with her in victory after victory. I am not a partisan concerning the Hundred Year's War, but I admire greatness in all its forms, and St. Joan of Arc, a poor peasant girl of eighteen, is the greatest solely human being I know of - man or woman, and Mark Twain enabled me to see that.

"Whatever men call great, search for it in Joan of Arc and you will find it."

The Chronicles of Prydain

I love fantasy. I always have and I always will. I never passed into the middle phase where Lewis says we are too old for fairy tales and must wait till we are old enough again; I grew up on Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. Sometime later, in my early adolescent years, I discovered Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three. Over winter break I read it again, along with the later four novels that comprise the five-part series. The Chronicles of Prydain is a work which so far has grown with me. I may not learn anything new from here on out, but will always retain a fondness for it. 

The Prydain books are about what it means to be a man, and it traces the life of one such man from impetuous boyhood through the suffering required to achieve self-knowledge, wisdom, and greatness. In particular I loved the fourth volume, Taren Wanderer, where the hero undergoes a quest of self-knowledge. He is unable to perform that which he most longs to do, which naturally resonated strongly with me, for precisely that occurred to me as well. 

Alexander may be a modern democrat with Christian-esque views of greatness, but his work is fabulous, moving, and even tragic at times. And yes, in the end, Taran becomes great.