Dear
Misfits,
At
our meeting last Wednesday, there was unanimous agreement that Walker Percy's Lost
in the Cosmos is a very challenging and enlightening read. Witty,
provocative, original, somber are some of the adjectives that only
begin to describe this book. We also concluded that it is a very dense
book that bears rereading and study. Percy begins by describing each
of us as a "self" in a Cosmos "about which you know more and
more while knowing less and less about yourself, this despite 10,000 self-help
books, 100,000 psycho-therapists, and 100 million fundamentalist
Christians". In the end, Walker firmly concludes that the Catholic
faith, with its "preposterous" claim to truth is the key to survival
in the Cosmos. Without Faith, the "gap between our knowledge of the
Cosmos and our knowledge of ourselves widens and we become ever more alien to
the very Cosmos we understand..." Faith is the sole remedy for the
“predicament" the human self finds itself in. We may be lost in the
Cosmos but we can anchor ourselves in the man-God who gave us the Catholic
Church and the certain promise of His return.
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| Group Therapy |
I
have also [linked to] an excellent essay on Walker Percy’s life that was sent to
me by Misfit Brad Lindberg. The essay by
Father Damian J. Ference
explains many of the themes that Percy writes about in Lost in the Cosmos. Father Damien is particularly insightful on
the subject of suicide which claimed many of Walker Percy’s closes family
members early in his life. It explains
many of the comments on suicide that Percy makes in Lost in the Cosmos.
Now
to the future:
For October, we have chosen to read All
Hallows Eve by Charles Williams. Williams—novelist,
poet, critic, dramatist and biographer—died in his native England in May, 1945.
He had a lively and devoted following
and achieved a considerable reputation as a lecturer on the faculty of
Oxford University. T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Sayers and C. S. Lewis were among his
distinguished friends and literary sponsors. He was also a member of the
Inklings, a group of Christian writers that included J.R.R. Tolkien.
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| Charles Williams |
All Hallows' Eve is the story of a man and woman
whose love was so great it could bridge the gap of death; of evil so terrible
as to be unmentionable, of a vision so beautiful it must be true. A consideration in our choice
of this novel is the occurrence of Halloween next month.
The novel is available from Amazon $13.81.
For November, we return to William Shakespeare, one of the greatest
Catholic authors in literature. (Some
may argue that Shakespeare wasn’t a Catholic author. The Misfits think he was, so get over
it!) We will read King Lear, one of Shakespeare's darkest
and most savage plays. It tells the
story of the foolish and Job-like Lear, who divides his kingdom, as he does his
affections, according to vanity and whim. Lear’s failure as a father engulfs
himself and his world in turmoil and tragedy.
The play is available from Amazon in many editions, some for
as little as $6.26 in paperback.
In December, the Misfits have decided to
begin reading C. S. Lewis’ classic Space Trilogy. We will start with Out of the Silent Planet which begins the adventures of the remarkable Dr. Ransom.
Dr. Ransom is abducted by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice and
taken via spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra. The physicist is in need of a human
sacrifice, and Dr. Ransom was selected to fill that role. Once on the planet,
however, Ransom eludes his captors, risking his life and his chances of
returning to Earth, becoming a stranger in a land that is enchanting in its
difference from Earth and instructive in its similarity. Even though it was
first published in 1943, Out of the
Silent Planet remains a topically current, very modern read.
The Space Trilogy, continues with Perelandra (our January, 2014
book) and concludes with That
Hideous Strength (our
February, 2014 book).
Finally,
let me recommend a web site wherein the Misfits are mentioned by another of our
Misfits, Chris Hagen. The web site
features an interview titled, “Why Catholic Books Still Matter: An
Interview with Christopher Hagen.” Give
it a read. I think you will enjoy it
(and the mention of The Misfits.) (See: http://brandonvogt.com/why-catholic-books-still-matter/)
And to remind, we always meet at 7:00 pm on the second
Wednesday of every month in the St. Thomas More Library Room, the Church of St.
Michael, Stillwater, MN. Therefore, our next meeting will be at 7:00 pm
on Wednesday, October 9th. (Our meetings and discussion always end
at 8:30 pm. )
With warmest regards,
Misfit Buzz
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