Librarium: The Man Who Was Thursday
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this postThe next book choice for the Librarium is G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. The subtitle to this book, which is A Nightmare, gives only the slightest hint at the strange twists and turns that Chesterton takes the reader through until coming to a conclusion that seems to have come out of nowhere.
I don't want to use the word allegory or any such nonsense. All I can say about this book is that Chesterton has a way of making a seemingly simple and poetic period detective story and turning it into a kind of treatise on creation (and more).
I recommend reading the enotes.com introduction to the book. In the right-hand column of the enotes.com page for the book, you'll find a treasury of essays and critiques written on the novel, ranging from the early 1900's and on. I would recommend, however, reading the actual book first to avoid spoilers.
Other related Links:
- Wikipedia entry (Warning: spoilers. This is not a book you want spoiled before you get to the end on your own.)
- Dale Ahlquist's lecture
- Sonja West's essay
- Hilaire Belloc's essay on Chesterton
Discussion questions (provided by the Modern Library edition):
- What is the Council's objective throughout the book? Do you think it ultimately represents Good or Evil? Is such a distinction possible, in Chesterton's view?
- Discuss the Council's role as a secret society. What is important about their ability to function as a group and their determination to keep their activities secret? What is the point of their conspiracy?
- What is the meaning of the book's title? Is personal identity less important than collective identity, in Chesterton's view? Does Syme, in effect, lose his identity? What does he gain?
- Who, or what, does Sunday represent?
Labels: reading group, recommended reading
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 2/12/2007 02:03:00 AM
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The Librarium: A Prayer for the Dying.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this postThe most recent book pick over at the Librarium, A Prayer for the Dying, has proven to be an excellent read but a difficult critique. I don't even want to use the word critique. Instead, reaction would be more accurate.
And my reaction would be "unnerved."
It was a later post that posed some challenging questions about the book that again reminded me why I'm not cut out to be a critic, but more prone to telling you how I reacted to something. I wish I could pull together a lovely and fluidly written post for this, but I've left this to the last and I'm going to be leaving the country in a few days. So, a simple Q and A will have to do. I took a few questions from the last post on the book over at the Librarium.
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Q) A Prayer for the Dying uses as it's epigraph a quote from Albert Camus: "There is no escape in a time of plague. We must choose to either love or to hate God." How does A Prayer for the Dying illustrate this quote? Do you believe that Camus is correct in presenting the choice we must make in such stark terms?
A) There are actually two quotes used as an epigraph. The second is by Glenway Wescott: "It shall never be said that my sorrow has hardened me toward others." It is important to consider both quotes, as they play off one another. Though they are "meant" to be on their own as quotes, O'Nan has put them together for a reason.
Back to Camus' quote - yes, I think he is correct. A plague, such as described in APFTD makes sensible and logical behavior lead logically into what makes no sense at all. When things that make sense no longer make sense, and vice versa -- when up is down and down is up -- we either love or hate God. Humanity won't suffice; we direct our attention to what is not human. We look to God and love or hate Him.
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Q) Richard Eder, in his review of A Prayer for the Dying, writes:
[Jacob Hanson, the protagonist] is, he tells us, the town sheriff. He is the minister. He is the undertaker.
This wacky accumulation expresses his obsession: Out of the destruction of the war, when God seemed to have vanished, Jacob is determined to reinvent Him. He cares for his town as God is supposed to care for the world: He punishes transgressions, provides faith for the living and passage for the dead. "Credo quia absurdum" -- the classic religious formula of, roughly, "I believe even to absurdity" -- becomes, as horrors multiply, its own horror: I believe right on into madness.
What are your feelings about Jacob's descent into madness? When did you first recognize that all was not well with him? Can religious belief become absurd, and do you see evidence of Eder's contention above in the book? And, can religious faith not only descend into absurdity, but even madness?
A) Part of what disturbed me the most was that I didn't recognize the madness for what it was. It was only until I realized he was keeping his dead family with him and continuing on -- that was a shock. I had missed seeing the tipping point of whatever would make a person do that. I'm not unfamiliar with that punishing inner dialogue of the main character, either, and it took me a while to se where it was headed. That was extremely discomforting to say the least.
The question of religious absurdity is a common one -- faith is, I suppose, absurd by its very nature. It is easy to carry it to a further degree. After all, a little faith is good. Even more, (i.e. absurd) amounts of it must be better.
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Q) Eder also goes on to state, "Clinging to his faith, Jacob disputes it as well. Here is one of his tortured arguments with himself:
" 'It's not right,' you say.
"Who are you angry with?"
"Not God
"No? Who else is there? Is this the devil's work?
"It must be, you think, but uncertainly."
Eder concludes with, "It is the problem of belief: how to reconcile God with evil. O'Nan carries it further. In Jacob he has the believer, torn. He has God, as well: struggling in despair with the same problem."
I know that a book discussion forum is too limiting a place for a full expose on the problem of God and evil, but what does O'Nan say about this problem in A Prayer for the Dying?
A) I really can't answer this age-old question any better than what Philip Yancy has done in his book Disappointment with God. I would only add, for space sake, that trying to reason out the unreasonable makes us lose our mind. Not to put it too bluntly.
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Q) In the first chapter we find this bit of dialogue:
"In Heaven you forget everything," she says. "In Hell they make you remember."
No, you think, it's the other way around. "Maybe so," you say.
Which do you think it is, if either?
A) Though it sounds more poetic for Jacob to disagree, I do agree with the statement that in Heaven you forget. How could Heaven be joyful if we remember all those not there? Our memories of pain and hurt? I'm not sure how that fits in with Emily Dickinson's quote that "parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell", but for some reason that popped into my head.
Summary: I did like the book. I was disturbed by the gradual descent into madness which seemed, as it was narrarated in Jacob's head in language and thoughts I've heard in my own head, natural and sane. I don't know what this says about me, though it would seem not to bode well.
On the other hand, it's just a work of fiction.
Labels: book reviews, reading group, recommended reading
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 2/11/2007 10:08:00 PM
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The Librarium: Canticle for Leibowitz.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this postThe October 2006 book selection over at The Librarium is Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz.
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THE LIBRARIUM -- A Canticle for Leibowitz, the 1959 award-winning sci-fi book by Walter M. Miller, Jr., is the first selection for The Librarium book blog. It might seem a bit of a leap for an introductory selection, but the book, broken into three parts, strikes that odd and perfect balance of humor with an undercurrent of darkness. The edition of the book I use later in my reference to quotes with specific page numbers is this one.
First off, don't let the classification of science fiction turn you away from the book, nor the seemingly slow beginning. What Miller manages to do with this story that spans several hundred years of post-nuclear war civilization in Southwestern United States is use symbolism and imagery to make a broad statement about the unfortunate cyclical nature of humanity. He touches on faith, government, the pursuit of knowledge and the locked nature of human nature.
I have a few questions and quotes that I wrote down while reading the book myself that I will include here as a kind of jumping-off point. There are also links to outside sources that you might want to consider. After you have read the book, please join us for discussion in the comments section of this post. Feel free to note quotes and excerpts, as well as additional questions, that you think important to include in the discussion.
Discussion questions:
- What is this book saying about faith? Is it easily misplaced? Or, even if it is, is it a necessary force against both barbarism and over-ambitious human intellectual endeavors?
- Are humans truly locked in inevitable destructive cycles? Is this the true price of sin, if you have such beliefs?
- Is the preservation of knowledge truly capable of stopping history from repeating itself? Can anything stop history from repeating itself?
- Is the pursuit of knowledge amoral and/or apolitical? Is it a consequence of free pursuit? (page 220-221)
- Who is the "Lazarus" beggar character? What/who does he represent and what is his purpose in the story? Is he merely a foil?
- What is the purpose of the frequent use of buzzards in the story? What do they represent? Why does Miller use them so much?
- (p 221-222) "If you save wisdom until the world is wise, the world will never have it."
- (p 228-229) The discussion on how each new age has an "intelligent" explanation for the origins of the world that "clearly" show the silliness of religion is very pointed and accurate in its perception of how foolishly wise humans think themselves to be.
- (p 234) "But why must it all be acted again? The answer was near at hand; there was still the serpent whispering." (I found the use of the serpent, not a serpent, to be interesting.)
- (p 297) "Pain's the only evil I know about. [...] society is the only thing which determines whether an act is wrong or not." [...] "How did those two heresies get back into the world after all this time? Hell has limited imaginations down there."
- (p 298) "Sincere -- that was the hell of it. [...] Perhaps Satan was the sincerest of the lot."
- (p 213) The description of the "Jesus" statue is particularly startling.
- (p 326) "To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law -- a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security."
Outside Links: Discussion
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Labels: reading group, recommended reading
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 10/14/2006 05:08:00 PM
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