The Path to Rome

 

In his book Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know, Joseph Pearce provides a quick overview of what he considers great work of literature. He includes at the end a list of 100 works "every Catholic should aspire to read."

For the most part, I agree with him. And I've used his list to help guide my effort to fill the gaps in my own reading history. Mind you, as a Literature major, and as a Chestertonian, I had read many of the works he cites.

Chesterton. Dickens. Dostoyevsky. Tolkien. Lewis. Shakespeare. Sophocles. 

Ah. 

But there have been some works he mentions that I did not like. I tried Don Quixote, and got a hundred pages in before I gave up. I did read a few of Jane Austen's books that I had not previously read, but did not really enjoy them. Manners and romance are not my cup of tea. And I did read both of Flannery O'Connor's novels; too grotesque for my taste.

I decided to tackle Hilaire Belloc. I had only previously read Cautionary Tales for Children (which I had enjoyed) and Pearce's Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc. I enjoyed the biography, but came away not really liking Belloc as a person!

Nevertheless, I thought it was time to tackle one of the Belloc books on Pearce's list: The Path to Rome. I started it, but it did not hold my interest, so I drifted away to other works. Still, given his ties to Chesterton, and Pearce's championing of the book, I felt obligated to finish it. So I returned to it.

I did finish it yesterday. But I have to admit I did so just to say I did. 

It could be that I'm not a fan of travel books or of long rambling works. But even more, his personality got in the way. I did not care about his struggles, and got tired of his commentary and judging. Oh, there were some descriptive passages that were quite fine, and I could appreciate them. But that's about all I did enjoy.

I have his The Four Men on my bookshelf, but I hesitate to  even attempt it. I also have a collection of his essays; those I might read as I do enjoy essays. Not yet, however.

Instead, I'll just end this with a clerihew I wrote about Belloc a number of years ago:

Hilaire Belloc
walked off the end of a dock,
but being in the midst of a debate
he was unaware of his fate.

The Clerihew Contest

 

At every national Chesterton Conference they have a clerihew contest. As I was not goign to attend this summer, I sent Dale Ahlquist some clerihews and asked him to submit them for me. (Actually, I asked him to inflict them on the judges.)

Apparently he did. Thanks Dale. Not sure how the judges feel about it.

I've heard from two different people that I got an honorable mention in one of the categories, but they did not know which poem made the cut.

I'll have to wait for the next issue of Gilbert.

But for now, here are the ones I submitted: 

Before Chesterton

We can probably assume Saint Blaise
is in Heaven these days.
Martyrdom likely led him to eternal glory
and not just some fish story.


Elizabeth Barrett Browning
sat in her parlor frowning.
Robert had bought her something labeled "Serra da Estrela cheese,"
that clearly wasn't Portuguese.


St. Robert Southwell
sat musing for a spell,
then sadly said, “It does seem a shame
Americans don’t properly pronounce my name.”


During Chesterton

Lord Peter Wimsey
was never deterred by evidence flimsy,
but his confidence suffered years of strain
when faced with the mystery of Harriet Vane.


Hilaire Belloc
walked off the end of a dock,
but being in the middle of a debate,
he failed to recognize his fate.



H. G. Wells
crafted some literary hells.
When it comes to romance, too,
he created more than a few.


After Chesterton


Alfred Hitchcock
developed a bad case of writer's block
despite his use of a bran muffin
as the MacGuffin.


In the kitchen, Julia Child
was amusing but never wild.
To fill that void
we had to rely on Dan Aykroyd.


Megan Rapinoe
picked up a banjo.
As she played a tune on it,
she sang, "That #$@&*! is full of %@!#*"


Matthew Perry,
boarded Charon’s ferry.
As Charon pushed off, Perry was heard to crack.
“That parachute really WAS a knapsack.”

For the Feast of the Assumption

 

On this Feast of the Assumption, here's an essay by Chesterton, "Mary and the Convert." 

I was brought up in a part of the Protestant world which can best be described by saying that it referred to the Blessed Virgin as the Madonna.

Sometimes it referred to her as a Madonna; from a general memory of Italian pictures. It was not a bigoted or uneducated world; it did not regard all Madonnas as idols or all Italians as Dagoes. But it had selected this expression, by the English instinct for compromise, so as to avoid both reverence and irreverence. It was, when we came to think about it, a very curious expression. It amounted to saying that a Protestant must not call Mary “Our Lady,” but he may call her “My Lady.” This would seem, in the abstract, to indicate an even more intimate and mystical familiarity than the Catholic devotion. But I need not say that it was not so. It was not untouched by that queer Victorian evasion; of translating dangerous or improper words into foreign languages.

But it was also not untouched by a certain sincere though vague respect for the part that Madonnas had played, in the actual cultural and artistic history of our civilisation. Certainly the ordinary reasonably reverent Englishman would never have intended to be disrespectful to that tradition in that aspect; even when he was much less liberal, travelled and well-read than were my own parents. Certainly, on the other hand, he was entirely unaware that he was saying “My Lady”; and if you had pointed out to him that, in fact, he was generally saying “a My Lady,” or “the My Lady,” he would have agreed that it was rather odd.

I do not forget, and indeed it would be a very thankless thing in me to forget, that I was lucky in this relative reasonablenesss and moderation of my own family and friends; and that there is a whole Protestant world that would consider such moderation a very poor-spirited sort of Protestantism. That strange mania against Mariolatry; that mad vigilance that watches for the first faint signs of the cult of Mary as for the spots of a plague; that apparently presumes her to be perpetually and secretly encroaching upon the prerogatives of Christ; that logically infers from a mere glimpse of the blue robe the presence of the Scarlet Woman–all that I have never felt or known or understood, even as a child; nor did those who had the care of my childhood. They knew nothing to speak of about the Catholic Church; they certainly did not know that anybody connected with them was ever likely to belong to it; but they did know that noble and beautiful ideas had been presented to the world under the form of this sacred figure, as under that of the Greek gods or heroes. But, while putting aside all pretence that this Protestant atmosphere was actively an anti-Catholic atmosphere, I may still say that my personal case was a little curious.

I have here rashly undertaken to write on a subject at once intimate and daring; a subject which ought indeed, by its own majesty, to make it impossible to be egotistical; but which does also make it impossible to be anything but personal.

“Mary and the Convert” is the most personal of topics, because conversion is something more personal and less corporate than communion; and involves isolated feelings as an introduction to collective feelings. But also because the cult of Mary is in a rather peculiar sense a personal cult; over and above that greater sense that must always attach to the worship of a personal God. God is God, Maker of all things visible and invisible; the Mother of God is in a rather special sense connected with things visible; since she is of this earth, and through her bodily being God was revealed to the senses. In the presence of God, we must remember what is invisible, even in the sense of what is merely intellectual; the abstractions and the absolute laws of thought; the love of truth, and the respect for right reason and honourable logic in things, which God himself has respected. For, as St. Thomas Aquinas insists, God himself does not contradict the law of contradiction.

But Our Lady, reminding us especially of God Incarnate, does in some degree gather up and embody all those elements of the heart and the higher instincts, which are the legitimate short cuts to the love of God. Dealing with those personal feelings, even in this rude and curt outline, is therefore very far from easy. I hope I shall not be misunderstood if the example I take is merely personal; since it is this particular part of religion that really cannot be impersonal. It may be an accident, or a highly unmerited favour of heaven, but anyhow it is a fact, that I always had a curious longing for the remains of this particular tradition, even in a world where it was regarded as a legend. I was not only haunted by the idea while still stuck in the ordinary stage of schoolboy scepticism; I was affected by it before that, before I had shed the ordinary nursery religion in which the Mother of God had no fit or adequate place. I found not long ago, scrawled in very bad handwriting, screeds of an exceedingly bad imitation of Swinburne, which was, nevertheless, apparently addressed to what I should have called a picture of the Madonna. And I can distinctly remember reciting the lines of the “Hymn To Proserpine,” out of pleasure in their roll and resonance; but deliberately directing them away from Swinburne’s intention, and supposing them addressed to the new Christian Queen of life, rather than to the fallen Pagan queen of death.

“But I turn to her still; having seen she shall surely abide in the end; Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.”

And I had obscurely, from that time onwards, the very vague but slowly clarifying idea of defending all that Constantine had set up, just as Swinburne’s Pagan had defended all he had thrown down.

It may still be noted that the unconverted world, Puritan or Pagan, but perhaps especially when it is Puritan, has a very strange notion of the collective unity of Catholic things or thoughts. Its exponents, even when not in any rabid sense enemies, give the most curious lists of things which they think make up the Catholic life; an odd assortment of objects, such as candles, rosaries, incense (they are always intensely impressed with the enormous importance and necessity of incense), vestments, pointed windows, and then all sorts of essentials or unessentials thrown in in any sort of order; fasts, relics, penances or the Pope.

But even in their bewilderment, they do bear witness to a need which is not so nonsensical as their attempts to fulfill it; the need of somehow summing up “all that sort of thing,” which does really describe Catholicism and nothing else except Catholicism. It should of course be described from within, by the definition and development of its theological first principles; but that is not the sort of need I am talking about. I mean that men need an image, single, coloured and clear in outline, an image to be called up instantly in the imagination, when what is Catholic is to be distinguished from what claims to be Christian or even what in one sense is Christian.

Now I can scarcely remember a time when the image of Our Lady did not stand up in my mind quite definitely, at the mention or the thought of all these things. I was quite distant from these things, and then doubtful about these things; and then disputing with the world for them, and with myself against them; for that is the condition before conversion. But whether the figure was distant, or was dark and mysterious, or was a scandal to my contemporaries, or was a challenge to myself–I never doubted that this figure was the figure of the Faith; that she embodied, as a complete human being still only human, all that this Thing had to say to humanity.

The instant I remembered the Catholic Church, I remembered her; when I tried to forget the Catholic Church, I tried to forget her; 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 her in the port of Brindisi, that I promised the thing that I would do, if I returned to my own land.

Memorizing Lepanto

The July/August issue of StAR (Saint Austin Review) arrived the other day. The focus of this issue is on "Ageless Children's Literature."

My attention was drawn to an article by G. K. Martin, "Chesterton's 'Lepanto' and Why Boys Should Love Poetry."

Martin begins by talking about his love of poetry from a young age. He talks about the value of poetry for boys. "The restlessness of the pre-pubescent boy, that untethered creature who walks like a naughty child with the body of an old man, could find a harbor to dock his heart at within the wiser musings of those old, dead men we call poets."

He goes on to note, "Poetry is loved because it reveals love. Poetry is treasured because poetry treasures the world. Poetry is not about itself; the best poetry is always about something else. It heals a poisoned imagination, it tenderly approaches a broken heart, and it forces one to return to a slower pace of being, the pace of peace."

He admits that reading an memorizing poetry has brought him "much fulfillment."

When he was in high school he memorized "Lepanto." I won't disclose the rest of his article, other than to day he found a way to use the achievement, and to offer more praise for poetry and memorizing.

The article is well worth a read.

As is StAR in general. This particular issue has other articles of interest to Chestertonians, including  looks at Narnia, C.S. Lewis, and fairy tales. 

Joseph Pearce is co-editer of the magazine, by the way.

If you don't subscribe, consider doing so!

Tim Walz Clerihew

 

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has been nominated for Vice President - he hasn't been officially approved as of the time I'm posting this. 

Since he was nominated, he's been under attack for a variety of actions and alleged actions. One of actions was allegedly requiring tampon machines in boys' bathrooms - leading opponent to label him "Tampn Tim."

Whatever the truth of this story, it inspired me to scribble a political clerihew! 

Governor Tim Walz

was enjoying some spaghetti and meatballs,

but then got a sick feeling in his belly

when an ad for tampons came on the telly.

Reading With Urgency

 

In the July/August issue of  Gilbert, an article by Mark Johnson caught my attention. In "Urgent Conversations with the Dead" he discusses reading good and old books - a subject near and dear to my heart.

He notes that we used to read books with a sense of urgency, books that elicited a personal response, books that revealed truth about the world and human nature.

Johnson laments the fact that too many people no longer read books "with urgency" due to television and the internet. And he points out that even when we do read current bestsellers too many new books are tainted by "characters engaged in fruitless searches for an ever-elusive 'inner self'' and trapped in personal development purgatories." He goes on to say "If The Brothers Karamazov were written today, all the brothers would be sent off to therapy by page 80 or so and live pleasantly medicated lives ever after."

He even quotes Screwtape, and, of course, Chesterton.

As a retired middle school and high school English teacher I did indeed see such tendencies in the "young adult" and even adult novels were were supposed to teach. They were shallow, and tended to water down moral and ethical values. Thank God I ended my teaching career at a classical education  school with ties to the Chesterton Network!

One of my joys since retiring is that I have had time to read more of those books with values and depth. Oh, some are for fun - I'm currently reading a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery - but many are books and works I've wanted to read or reread. Some are old classics, some are more contemporary books with substance. Just this year I've read such books as:

Heretics by G. K. Chesterton

The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton

Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales

By the Rivers of Babylon by Michael D. O’Brien

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift  

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Mixed in are some mysteries, theological works, papal encyclicals, and poetry collections.

All told, I've read some 35 works so far this year. I would have read even more had I not wasted so much time on social media!

Johnson points out the importance of novels in challenging the current trends: "The path back to reading for truth may also be though the novel ...."

I completely agree.  

I read novels - and other works - to find truth, beauty, and goodness.

And I read them with urgency.

But maybe I need to be more urgent about my reading, and to read more good novels.