“You that cry out so loud for right and justice, Do you mean justice? deed and word and thought Judges in yourselves by one eternal measure Of absolute and incorruptible right? I do not think so. When you call for justice You would make God your bailiff, to collect Your legal dues; but not your …
The angel Raphael, speaking of the architect William of Sens as he works on the Canterbury Cathedral, in Dorothy Sayers’ The Zeal of Thy House: “Behold, he prayeth; not with the lips alone, But with the hand and with the cunning brain Men worship the Eternal Architect. So, when the mouth is dumb, the work …
“Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood.” Lionel Trilling, “Art and Fortune,” in The Liberal Imagination I need to be reminded of this from time to time, if only to assure that I do not take leave of my senses in the process of trying to help others …
“He sat in the dappled light among the stones. A bird sang. Some leaves were falling. He sat with his hands palm up on the grass beside him like a stricken puppet and he thought no thoughts at all.” Suttree, Cormac McCarthy
“I think it’s because when we are in situations where we cannot depend on anything but God’s provision, some dimension of our humanity comes out that otherwise is hidden in the numbness of comfort.” Peruvian artist Daniel Garcia, in the Spring 2010 issue of Image.
It’s no secret, my stand on vampires, and my utter disregard for modern vampire literature, and especially for the received wisdom about what Dracula means. There’s no stopping a good meme, I suppose, but perhaps this will be the stake in the heart of modern chic vampire lit: Christian vampire novels. If Christian genre writers …
More evidence of the paucity of literary education in high schools, from professors at the University of Arkansas, and reported by Mark Bauerlein: “First, the content of the literature and reading curriculum for students in standard or honors courses is no longer traditional or uniform in any consistent way. The most frequently mentioned titles are …
Another reason nobody reads anything worthwhile any more Read More »
Adam Roberts begins a five-part manifesto on why you should be reading poetry: “I remember, as a young person, being posed the question, ‘what kind of music do you like?,’ and coolly, sensibly replying, ‘everything but classical!’ Now, as a graduate student and adjunct professor, when I ask my students what they like to read, …
I’ve begun reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane to the boys. It’s by Kate DiCamillo, author of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux. She had me at the verse with which she begins her novel, excerpted from Stanley Kunitz’s “The Testing-Tree:” The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking. It is …
Evert Cilliers on lousy, pretentious, self-celebratory modern film and fiction: “Urban Intellectual Fodder. Neither original nor path-breaking, this art is derivative hommage; postmodern commentary around the edges of art. It is art born of attitude, not passion. It is art that postures but doesn’t grip. It is art created by those who are more passionate …
“Hey Worm, did you see old Crumbliss in the paper this mornin? What’s he done now? They found him about six oclock this mornin under a tree in a big alfalfa field. He found the only tree in the whole field and run into it. They said when the cops come and opened the door …
Thomas Spence, president of Spence Publishing, has a must-read piece in last week’s Wall Street Journal, titled “How to Raise Boys Who Read.” He takes aim at the latest fad, which is to get the video-game and television-besotted little cretins to read by dealing out books about farts and boogers, as if reading is itself …
“He said that he did indeed have a long journey. He said he did not know what the end of his journey would look like or whether he would know it when he got there and he asked her in spanish to pray for him but she said she had already decided to do so …
“She felt justified in getting anything at all back that she could, money or anything else, as if she had once owned the earth and been dispossessed of it. She couldn’t look at anything steadily without wanting it, and what provoked her most was the thought that there might be something valuable hidden near her, …
“Disentangling beauty from sentimentality is unlikely to be accomplished until it is recognized that evil (as with God’s saving grace) cannot be accommodated within systems that seek to ‘make sense’ of all things within closed cosmological and metaphysical systems… In a nutshell, Christian sentimentalism arises from a premature grasp for Easter morning, a refusal to …
Oscar-winning composer Johnny Mandel, on how he arranged orchestral accompaniments for Barbra Streisand: “The only thing the orchestra should do is provide a lovely cushion for her to sing against.” Sounds good to me, Johnny. The NPR piece on Mandel is also worth a read to learn how M*A*S*H director Robert Altman got his untalented teenaged …
“Many things that I would not care to tell any individual man I will tell the public.” (Michel de Montaigne, quoted in Rob Nixon’s interesting essay on the state of non-fiction)
“Like legitimate art, legitimate criticism is a tragicomic holding action against entropy.” (John Gardner, On Moral Fiction, p. 6)
My favorite sometime nemesis Caitlin Flanagan has a piece in the recent Atlantic about this trend in urban schools to orient the school day and even the curriculum around the cultivation of big gardens. On the surface it sounds brilliant, doesn’t it? Flabby city kids growing their own vegetables, getting some time in the sun, …
Listening to a local film critic’s tired dismissal of the new film, Edge of Darkness, I was struck by the need, in film, literary, and art criticism just as much as in theological or architectural or epicurean criticism, for a foundational sense of what makes something good. All else flows from that. For some critics, this …
I’m pretty sure that somewhere in the unofficial New Yorker film critic handbook there’s a rule that goes something like this: If Christian faith is central to a film, don’t be afraid to stoop to name-calling and character assassination. Thus it wasn’t surprising to see in what manner David Denby unleashes his ire on The …
My friend John Miller brings the smack on modern vampires. This may be a good way to sum it up: if your bloodsucker needs hair gel, he’s really just a big thirsty sissy with bad teeth. In general, vampires ought to be scarier than personal injury attorneys. Though both species deserve a stake through their …
“There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books . . . This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. …
Perhaps you’ve seen commercials for the movie Legion, which appears to be two very different movies, depending on whether you’ve seen it advertised in the theater or on your television. On television, the premise appears to be that a host of demons has possessed townspeople, who must now be fended off by the inevitable rag-tag …
The great division within man is rooted not in ideology or religion or tribe, but in darkness and death, counterposed against light and life, which comes not from man but is placed within him. The line separating dark from light is the battleground of the soul, and it runs, as Solzhenitsyn said, through the heart …
This in memory of Peggy Rabb, who I knew only a little and a little while, but who was all kindness to me. In our first conversation we talked about things I have written and things she has written and writers we know, and she told me where she would be buried, and she spoke …
I just found out I scored a mention in the 2010 Pushcart Anthology for my short story, “Name,” which was published last year in Image. And the good people at Ruminate nominated my story, “The Glass Child,” for a Pushcart this year. If you’re still looking for Christmas gifts for your more discerning loved ones …
“The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern because a London cut-purse went unhung. Through Chance, we are each a ghost to all the others, and our only reality; through Chance, the huge hinge …
You know he’s neck-deep in work when he busts out the quotes Read More »
I saw U2 in Norman, Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago, so my ears are attuned to all things Bono of late. With that in mind, I figure this is a good opportunity to introduce you to something you should know about if you don’t — John Wilson’s Books and Culture site at Christianity Today …
Philosophy professor Stephen Amsa writes this in The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Any careful reading of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for example, will reveal not only a highly sexualized description of blood drinking, but an erotic characterization of the count himself.” What he means to say, I think, is that a Freud-besotted modern reading confirms the …
Think bloodsucking is hot? Ever have your blood sucked? Read More »
