Dear Misfits
I now report
the end of another year of reading the wonderful books of our Catholic Literary
Tradition. We closed our year with a meeting on 12-12-12.
We discussed
Fabiola or The Church of the Catacombs by Cardinal Nicholas
Wiseman. The story is set in Rome in the early 4th century AD, during the time
of the persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Diocletian. The novel
was written in 1854 and remains topical today. Christians around the world are
suffering greatly for their faith. In that regard, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel recently declared that Christianity is “the most persecuted
religion” in the world today. It is so severe that a new word was recently
added to our vocabulary: "Christianophobia". The word refers to two
different, though related, phenomena:
-The
first "phobia" is the anxiety and antipathy that traditional
Christianity creates in cultural and intellectual institutions in the West
particularly in academia, journalism, publishing, and the entertainment
industry. This is the “Christianophobia” to which the Holy Father often refers
when he speaks of the growing “hostility and prejudice” against Christianity in
Europe.
-The
second form of “Christianophobia” is a murderously different thing. In
countries like Egypt, Mali, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria, Christians are being
murdered and forced to leave their homes in record numbers. Churches are being
destroyed and Christian villages emptied in violent attacks by Islamists and
Muslim radicals. “Phobia” describes this phenomenon, however, “phobia” may be
too mild a term: what we are seeing in these places is an anti-Christian genocide.
Yet, as
described in Fabiola, these times of persecution strengthen the Church both by
the example of those who persevere in their faith and most dramatically, by the
blood of the martyrs. We can also contribute by keeping our fellow Catholics in
our prayers and in our support of efforts to counter the growing persecution of
Christians around the world.
Now to the
future:
For
January and February
we will read The Confessions, the autobiographical work of St. Augustine
of Hippo, written between AD 397 and AD 398. The work consists of 13 books
which outline Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It
is widely seen as the first Western autobiography and was an influential model
for Christian writers throughout the following 1000 years of the Middle Ages.
It is not a complete autobiography, as it was written in his early 40's. St.
Augustine lived long afterwards and went on to write another important work The
City of God. However, The Confessions does provide an unbroken
record of the development of his thought and is the most complete record of any
single person from the 4th and 5th centuries.
For January we
will read and discuss the first 7 books of The Confessions.
For February
we will read and discuss the remaining 6 books for a total of 13 books for the
complete The Confessions.
I have
been reading the Ignatius Critical Edition of The Confessions edited by
Fr. David Meconi, SJ and translated by Sr. Maria Boulding, OSB. I think it is a
very accessible, excellent translation. It is available from Amazon in
Soft cover.
For March, we will read Marilynne Robinson's
highly acclaimed novel, Gilead. The novel won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize
for Fiction and was a 2004 National Book Critics Circle Winner. Gilead
is the fictional autobiography of the Reverend John Ames, an elderly
Congregationalist pastor in the small, secluded town of Gilead, Iowa who knows
that he is dying of a heart condition. The novel begins in 1957 as the Reverend
Ames explains that he is writing an account of his life for his seven-year-old
son so his son will have memories of him after he is gone.
The story spans three generations from
the Civil War to the twentieth century. It is a profound examination of the
relationship of fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at
America's heart. “Writing in the tradition of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman,
Marilynne Robinson's beautiful, spare, and spiritual prose allows "even
the faithless reader to feel the possibility of transcendent order"
(Slate)”. The luminous and unforgettable voice of Congregationalist minister
John Ames reveals the human condition and the often unbearable beauty of an
ordinary life. The novel is available at Amazon.com.
For April, we will read a novel by Dean Koontz,
an author who may surprise some of you. I've only recently learned that
Koontz is a convert to the Faith and a wonderfully articulate one at
that. We will read the first book in the Odd Thomas series (now four
novels) called, strangely enough, Odd Thomas. Odd Thomas, who narrates
the story, is odd indeed: only 20, he works contentedly as a fry cook in a
small fictional California town, The story line of this novel, "like most
great stories, runs on character-and here Koontz has created a hero whose
honest, humble voice will resonate with many. In some recent books, Koontz has
tended to overwrite, but not here: the narrative is as simple and clear as a newborn's
gaze. This is Koontz working at his pinnacle, providing terrific entertainment
that deals seriously with some of the deepest themes of human existence: the
nature of evil, the grip of fate and the power of love." The novel is
available at Amazon.
For May, we will read an autobiography that
will resonate with and enlarge upon a number of the fictional works we have
read on the persecution of Priests and Catholics during Elizabethan England. We
will read The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest written by Father John
Gerard, SJ. Father Gerard was a remarkable Priest at a time when being a
Catholic in England invited torture and imprisonment; to be a Priest was
treason as declared by act of Parliament.
Finally, let me wish each of you a
joyous Christmas and a very happy and healthy New Year. I look forward to
another year of reading with you and encourage you to submit any
recommendations you may have on books you want us to read. (I have attached
an updated list of books we have already read along with a consolidated list of
authors.)
Misfit Buzz
****************************
“E-readers may
bulk out millions of stockings this season. Yet the works you read on them remain
ghostly, intangible files, hard to transfer easily as gifts or loans between
readers or (most) devices, thanks to the fences erected around them by
"digital rights management". So, however much you adore your iPad or
Kindle, why not renew your acquaintance with the joy of the printed volume as a
source of festive delight this year….each book a valuable object to have – and
to hold.”
-The Independent, Nov 25, 2012
Author List
Peter Ackroyd
The Life
of St. Thomas More (November, 2007)
Saint Augustine of Hippo
The
Confessions (January-February 2013)
Anonymous
The Way
of A Pilgrim (April, 2009)
Lucy Beckett
A
Postcard from the Volcano (February-March 2012)
The Time
Before You Die (September, 2012)
Hilaire Belloc
The Four
Men: A Farrago (October, 2008)
Fr. Robert Hugh Benson
Lord of
the World (December, 2004)
Georges Bernanos
The
Diary of a Country Priest (July, 2003)
William Blatty
Dimiter
(November, 2010)
Willa Cather
Death
Comes for the Archbishop
(September, 2002)
My
Antonia (December, 2011)
G. K. Chesterton
The Ball
and the Cross (January, 2003)
The
Innocence of Father Brown (April, 2003)
The Ballad
of the White Horse and Lepanto (February, 2004)
The Man
Who Was Thursday (March, 2005)
Saint
Thomas Aquinas (May, 2007)
Saint
Francis of Assisi (June/July, 2007)
Orthodoxy (May, 2008)
Manalive
(October, 2009)
Fr. Walter J. Cizsek, S.J.
He
Leadeth Me (April, 2012)
Myles Connolly
Mr. Blue
(October, 2005)
Thomas B. Costain
The
Silver Chalice (September-October, 2006)
A. J. Cronin
The Keys
of the Kingdom (February, 2005)
The
Citadel (December, 2006)
Louis de Wohl
The
Spear (November, 2006)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The
Brother’s Karamazov (September –December, 2003)
The Great
Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky (July, 2010)
Eamon Duffy
The
Stripping of the Altars (November-December 2009)
Paul Elie
The Life
You Save May Be Your Own (August,/September, 2007)
T. S. Eliot
Murder
in the Cathedral (February, 2010)
Shusako Endo
Silence (October, 2002)
The
Samurai (March, 2009)
Father John Gerard, SJ
The
Autobiography of a Hunted Priest (May,2013)
Jose Maria Gironella
The
Cypresses Believe in God (February-May, 2006)
William Golding
Lord of
the Flies (July, 2008)
Rumor Godden
In This
House of Brede (December, 2005)
Roger Lancelyn Green
The
Adventures of Robin Hood (August, 2009)
Graham Greene
The
Power and the Glory (November, 2002)
A
Burnt-out Case (March, 2007)
The
Heart of the Matter (February, 2009)
Brighton
Rock (June, 2009)
Ron Hanson
Mariette
in Ecstasy (October, 2007)
Exiles
(September, 2008)
Jon Hassler
Dear
James (April, 2010)
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The
Scarlet Letter (May, 2012)
John W. Kiser
The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith,
Love and Terror in Algeria (October, 2012
Fr. Ronald A. Knox
The
Viaduct Murders (January, 2009)
Dean Koontz
Odd
Thomas (April 2013)
C. S. Lewis
The
Screwtape Letters (September, 2004)
The
Great Divorce (July, 2009)
Til We
Have Faces (February, 2010)
Francois Mauriac
The
Woman of the Pharisees (June, 2003)
Viper’s
Tangle (January, 2006)
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A
Canticle for Leibowitz (January, 2012)
Czeslaw Milosz
The Issa
Valley (November, 2008)
Father Peter Milward, S.J.
A
Commentary on the Sonnets of G. M. Hopkins (December, 2008)
Brian Moore
Catholics
(August, 2008)
Black
Robe (October, 2010)
Sir Thomas More
Utopia (August,
2006)
Blessed John Henry Newman
Loss and
Gain (January, 2011)
Michael D. O’Brien
Father
Elijah (January, 2004)
Island
of the World (February, 2010)
Flannery O’Connor
A Good
Man is Hard to Find (December, 2002)
Everything
That Rises Must Converge (December, 2007)
Walker Percy
The
Moviegoer (May, 2003)
The
Thanatose Syndrome (February, 2007)
J.F. Powers
Morte
D’Urban (March, 2003)
Piers Paul Read
The Death of a Pope (September, 2009)
Marilynne Robinson
Gilead
(March 2013
Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe
(April, 2005)
Dorothy Sayers
Unnatural
Death (February, 2011)
William Shakespeare
The
Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (June, 2012)
Mary Shelley
Frankenstein
(October, 2010)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Day
in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (July, 2006)
Murial Spark
Memento
Mori (January, 2007)
J.R.R. Tolkien
The
Hobbit (May, 2010)
Leo Tolstoy
The
Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy (June, 2010)
Mark Twain
Joan of
Arc (October, 2004)
Sigrid Undset
Kristin
Lavransdatter I: The Wreath (May,
2005)
Kristin
Lavransdatter II: The Wife (August,
2005)
Kristin
Lavransdatter III: The Cross
(September, 2005)
The
Master of Hestviken: The Axe (January, 2008)
The
Master of Hestviken: The Snake Pit (February,
2008)
The
Master of Hestviken: In the Wilderness
(March, 2008)
The
Master of Hestviken: The Son Avenger (April,
2008)
Evelyn Waugh
Brideshead
Revisited (February, 2003)
Officers
and Gentlemen (April, 2004)
Unconditional
Surrender (May, 2004)
The
Loved One (November, 2004)
Helena
(November, 2005)
Edmund
Campion (April, 2007)
Morris West
The
Devil’s Advocate (May, 2009)
Oscar Wilde
The
Picture of Dorian Gray (June, 2006)
Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman
Fabiola
or The Church of the Catacombs (November-December, 2012
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