On this Feast of Christ the King,
Then the angel said to her, “Do
not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and
bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of
the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his
father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
-Luk
1:30-33
I came across a great interview with Joseph Pearce, the Catholic literary critic and biographer, on the famous convert to Catholicism, priest, and writer, Robert Hugh Benson, in Catholic World Report. The article, published November 13, 2020, is titled, “Robert Hugh Benson, literary converts, and the Church in a dystopian age.”
Joseph Pearce is known as being an English youth who joined a far-right nationalist gang who ultimately straightened out, repudiated his youthful indiscretions, converted to Roman Catholicism, and became a prolific biographer and literary critic.
Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was an English Anglican priest, the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who caused quite a controversy by converting to Roman Catholicism and becoming a Catholic priest. He too was a prolific writer both of non-fiction and fiction. I have read and had a series of posts on two of his books, his confessional memoir, Confessions of a Convert, and his dystopian novel, Lord of the World. Pearce comments on both books.
Let me give you two excerpts from the article.
First
on why Lord of the World is actually more prophetic than the other famous
dystopian novels.
Pearce: I agree that Orwell’s novel remains timely in terms of its cautionary reminder of how things could become once again but there’s no Stalinist or Hitlerite regime à la Big Brother in power at the moment – though that could change. Huxley’s dystopian prophecy remains relevant in terms of the way that the soporific desire for panem et cirenses continues to be a means by which those in power rule over the comfort-addicted hedonistic masses. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is particularly pertinent at the moment in the light of present-day efforts to burn books and bury the knowledge and lessons of the past. I would still state, however, that Benson’s Lord of the World is superior as a work of prophecy because it shows how the prince of lies can preach “peace and understanding” as a pretext for the diabolical imposition of a globalist agenda. This is made manifest in the persona and Machiavellian machinations of Felsenburgh, the liberal secularist demagogue par excellence. Felsenburgh is what George Soros and Bill Gates would like to be.
And
then on the horrid periods in Catholic Church history and how today's fits in.
Pearce: I’m currently writing a history of Catholic England so I would hesitate to agree that the Church is in the biggest crisis ever. I’m currently in the reign of Henry VIII with its destruction of the monasteries and the killing of Catholics, commencing a period of 300 years of state persecution of the Church, the first 150 years of which included the execution of Catholic priests and those who fraternized with them. And beyond England, we’ve had anti-popes, the threat and conquests of Islam, the French Revolution, communism, et cetera. The Church Militant is always in crisis! That’s why it’s militant, i.e. at war! All that we need to do as Catholics in every generation of crisis is keep our eyes on heaven knowing that the gates of hell will not prevail.
There
is plenty more to read. There is even a mention of Thomas More's Utopia which I’ve been reading and also commenting here on my blog. See, you get a
great Catholic literary education here at Ashes
From Burnt Roses.
This is my review of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End that I posted on Goodreads.
I gave it four stars. It took me about six years. I finally reached the end! Was it a labor of love? Not exactly, but it wasn’t a slog either. Parade’s end is a tetralogy, a sequence of four novels. I read one novel each year while skipping a couple of years in between. I did it because my edition of four novels adds up to 906 pages, and I hate to commit to one work for an extended period of time. I don’t recommend that for this work. I think it would be best to read them together. I personally would not consider each of the four novels a standalone. It would be incomplete. A sense of finality is finally arrived at the end of the fourth novel.
Is this a great work? Yes, it’s high modernism, and with that be warned. It can be difficult. Much of the major action is not narrated, except perhaps for one major war scene. Much of the narrative is filtered through the consciousness of the central characters. And yet it is a historical novel, traversing from before the First World War, through the war, and then in the aftermath of the war. At the core of the novel are the psychological shifts of the many characters over the course of that historical span. Through the minds of the characters—and the novel is told in a third person limited narration, shifting in and out of stream of consciousness—one reads the story of a great shift in British history, the transition of prideful, global empire to an exhausted and humbled nation. It is through the summation of individual consciousnesses that one intimates at a psychological history of a time and place.
The central characters of the novel are Christopher Tietjens, aristocrat, soldier, patriot, even saint, and his wife, Sylvia, one of the most distinct characters in all of literature: unfaithful, cruel, stunningly beautiful, aristocratic, and utterly self-confident. If Christopher is near a saint, Sylvia is narcissistic and self-indulgent. Here is one of the early descriptions of Sylvia, from the first of the novels, Some do not…
Sylvia Tietjens rose from her end of the lunch-table and swayed along it, carrying her plate. She still wore her hair in bandeaux and her skirts as long as she possibly could; she didn’t, she said, with her height, intend to be taken for a girl guide. She hadn’t, in complexion, in figure or in the languor of her gestures, aged by a minute. You couldn’t discover in the skin of her face any deadness; in her eyes the shade more of fatigue than she intended to express, but she had purposely increased her air of scornful insolence. That was because she felt that her hold on men increased to the measure of her coldness. Someone, she knew, had once said of a dangerous woman, that when she entered the room every woman kept her husband on the leash. It was Sylvia’s pleasure to think that, before she went out of the room, all the women in it realised with mortification—that they needn’t! For if coolly and distinctly she had said on entering: ‘Nothing doing!’ as barmaids will to the enterprising, she couldn’t more plainly conveyed to the other women that she had no use for their treasured rubbish.
Ha! She couldn’t care less about the “treasured
rubbish” of other women’s husbands. As
you can see the prose is superb. Ford
Madox Ford has to be one of the finest prose stylists of the 20th
century, and this novel (or set of novels, however you wish to think of them)
is his finest achievement. Here is a
passage from the third novel, Parade’s
End, where Christopher, in the middle of battle, saves a young soldier who
is no more than a boy.
Fury entered his
mind. He had been sniped at. Before he had had that pain he had heard, he
realized, an intimate drone under the hellish tumult. There was reason for furious haste. Or, no….They were low. In a wide hole. There was no reason for furious haste. Especially on your hands and knees.
His hands were under the slime, and his forearms. He battled his hands down greasy cloth; under greasy cloth. Slimy, not greasy! He pushed outwards. The boy’s hands and arms appeared. It was going to be easier. His face was not quite close to the boy’s, but it was impossible to hear what he said. Possibly he was unconscious. Tietjens said: ‘Thank God for my enormous physical strength!’ It was the first time that he had ever had to be thankful for great physical strength. He lifted the boy’s arms over his own shoulders so that his hands might clasp themselves behind his neck. They were slimy and disagreeable. He was short in the wind. He heaved back. The boy came up a little. He was certainly fainting. He gave no assistance. The slime was filthy. It was a condemnation of a civilization that he, Teitjens, possessed of enormous strength, should never have needed to use it before. He looked like a collection of mealsacks; but at least he could tear a pack of cards in half. If only his lungs weren’t…
So why only four stars? If it wasn’t a slog? Yes, but I have to say it was difficult to engage. With the action off stage, with the characters vaguely interacting with each other, with the subtly of psychological shifts, which you are never sure if you are comprehending correctly, a reader is left in a sort of limbo state, unsure what the author really intends. I made it worse by reading it over so long a time. Reading Parade’s End is like looking at a complex painting, where the important subject is not in the foreground but in the distant background, where you can’t quite bring it into focus. In the end one is left with an impression, rather than an idea, of a time and place and people. Perhaps this is the modernist aesthetic that Ford intended. If he did, then he crafted a masterpiece.
I want to leave with a brilliant quote from the second novel, No More Parades, that I think sums up the novel and the war and the story.
No more Hope, no more
Glory, no more parades for you and me any more. Nor for the country... nor for
the world, I dare say... None... Gone.
Perhaps someday I will re-read it and give it five stars.
Last Sunday at Mass we had the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Mat 25:1-13) and this Sunday we have the parable of the talents (Mat 25: 14-30). In both cases we are shown examples of wisdom and foolishness. I place this from the Book of Daniel to meditate upon.
And those who are wise shall shine
like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness,
like the stars forever and ever.
- Daniel 12:3
This is the fourth post on Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.
You
can find Post #1 here.
Post
#2 here.
Post
#3 here.
Book
2, Chapter 3
Part
1: Charles returns to London to join an anti-communist defense group to resist
striking unionists. In London he goes to
a party where an American jazz band is playing and he meets up with Boy
Mulcaster and Anthony Blanch. Mulcaster
is an exuberant member of the defense group, and Blanche inform him of what has
happened to Sebastian. Sebastian has
become a complete “sot” and found his way to Fez, Morocco and taken up with a
German who has intentionally shot his foot to get out of the French Foreign
Legion. Julia having heard Charles is in
London summons him to ask him if he can go convince Sebastian to return to see
Lady Marcmain before she dies. Charles
agrees.
Part
2: Charles flies out to Casablanca and takes a bus to Fez and makes his way to
Sebastian’s house. There he finds Kurt,
Sebastian’s German friend, incapacitated because of his foot that won’t heal,
who tells him Sebastian is sick in the hospital. While attending to Sebastian at the hospital,
they receive word that Lady Marchmain has died.
Charles sees Sebastian out of the hospital and back to his home to Kurt
where Sebastian is quite satisfied spending his life taking care of Kurt. Before Chales leaves he arranges Sebastian’s
finances.
Part
3: Back at Brideshead Charles tells Bridey of Sebastian. Charles is informed that Marchmain House is
to be destroyed and is given the commission to paint it, his first commission
as an architectural painter. Cordelia
comes by to watch him and they spend dinner together, and Cordelia tells him
she hopes she has the vocation to become a nun.
Book
3 Chapter 1
Part
1: Charles brings us ten years ahead and relates the events of those ten
years. He has become a celebrated
architectural painter, published several books, becoming world famous. He has just come back from a two year trip to
Mexico and Central America to be re-inspired.
He has come to New York City where his wife, Celia, has come to meet him
for the leg back to England. Charles
learns he has had a daughter in his absence, supposedly attributed to him
before he departed, and we learn Celia has cheated on him before and after he
left for Mexico. The marriage is still strained,
though Celia tries to restart their life together.
Part 2: On board the ship happens to be Julia, who we later learn has come to New York for her own extramarital affair which has not ended well. As the ship travels, a storm and incredibly rough ocean hits and nearly everyone on board is isolated in their cabins with seasickness. Charles and Julia are two of the few passengers who do not get seasick, and over the course of three days of the ship pitching and rolling meet, discuss their sad marriages, and fall in love, culminating with a night sleeping together. When the seas finally return to normal, Charles promises to meet Julia in London.
###
So
what are we to make of Sebastian and Kurt?
I assume this proves Sebastian’s homosexuality. If so, does that then mean that Charles and
Sebastian in those Oxford years were homosexual lovers? I think it puts my earlier thought that they
were friends innocent of sexuality in doubt.
However, it’s not conclusive either way. It’s not even conclusive that Sebastian and Kurt are physical lovers. Kurt has an infected foot that won’t heal and is in constant pain. I would imagine that could make sexual activity difficult. Still Sebastian’s attraction to men and lack of attraction to women confirms his homosexuality.
Why is Evelyn Waugh so reticent about the homosexuality? Does he feel that in 1946 he can’t write openly about it? And yet he is quite clear about Anthony Blanche’s homosexuality. Why is he not constrained there?
Though
I am not as confident about it anymore, I still maintain that Sebastian and
Charles’ relationship in the Oxford years is innocent and boyish.
My
Reply to Frances on Anthony Blanche’s sexual orientation.
You think that makes a
difference as to how open Waugh would be about Sebastian and Charles'
relationship? He doesn't have to be vividly explicit, but he has to make it
clear, especially given that this is in first person narration. Otherwise I do
think this is a failing on the novel. If it were third person, I might be a
little more forgiving. But Charles is quite clear about his adultery. He has to
be as clear on this too, though he doesn't have to be as explicit.
Cara, Lord Marchmain's
mistress calls the Sebastian/Charles relationship innocent, even though she
thinks there was a physical relationship. I have to stand by my comment 30 in
the thread of Book 1, Chpaters 4 & 5. It is "a friendship that innocently
extends to some sort of physical caress but short of cognizant sex." I
have nothing else to go by. What choice do I have as a reader if Waugh doesn't
make it clear? The novel would be flawed otherwise. I would rather think the
novel is not flawed.
Irene
Commented on the subject:
I am not trying to be
provocative, but I am wondering why the question about any sexual interaction
between Charles and Sebastian is important. We know that all these characters
are flawed. We know that Sebastian has caused his family great pain by his
abuse of alcohol. We know that Charles is not chased. We certainly do not know
all the sins of every character. Charles does not narrate every event of his
life, only those that will advance the story. So, how would knowing that
Sebastian and Charles did or did not engage in some physical sexual behavior
change the story? Would knowing that Sebastian was or was not homosexual alter
our understanding of him as a character or our understanding of the novel?
My
Reply to Irene:
You're not being
provocative at all Irene. Those are very good questions. Here's my attempt at
it on what I can think of now.
(1) From an aesthetic
point of view, if a first person narrator is not being forthright, then there
are implications. A first person novel is a creation of a world inside the
narrator's head. Unless the author has an artistic reason for being
disingenuous (I'm thinking of Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier) then the
creation of that world is suspect, the artistry marred, and the reader left
with a sense of being cheated. It would be an artistic failing.
(2) The arc of the novel
moves from a sense of innocence and joy to worldliness, malignancy, and
squalor. Remember how Julia's plans for a wonderful wedding degenerates into
what she calls "squalid." Every major character except Cordelia goes
from joyous and happy to squalid as the novel progresses. Happy drink turns to
alcoholism, happy marriages go to adulterous affairs and still born children,
and so on. It is important to understand the theme to understand the nature of
that innocence. We have to understand "the before" as well as
"the after."
(3) So much of the novel
depends on what is the root cause of Sebastian's unhappiness, or at least his
need to be drunk.
Sebastian serves as the
model of humanity which is reflected in the other characters. He is the mystery
of which Waugh's understanding of human nature rests and is reflected in the
other characters. If we knew that Sebastian was an alcoholic because of his
homosexual urges in conflict with Catholicism, then our understanding of the
novel is altered. Given that Catholicism is of such importance to the novel,
this would have to be known. Does he drink because he's Catholic and
homosexual? People could draw that conclusion.
Irene
Replied:
Are we sure that Waugh is
writing a psychological character study and not a spiritual study? In other
words, are we sure that Waugh wants the reader to focus on the psychological
cause of Sebastian's alcoholism, of julia's failed romances, of Charles's
discontent? Or does Waugh want the reader to focus on gracious moments in the
lives of these undeserving characters? Does it matter if Sebastian abuses
alcohol because he has failed to reconcile his sexuality with his moral
upbringing, or because he has unresolved animosity toward a father that
abandoned the family or a mother who he can't please, or because his brain
chemistry makes him susceptible to addictive patterns or....? Or is it enough
to see a young man who, despite so many advantages, spiraled down to squallor,
but can still care for an ailing friend, can still be drawn to the spiritual in
a monastery, can still encounter God and point others to God despite himself
because God is so incredibly greater than the wounds we carry or inflict, is
present even in the greatest depths of our despair, brokenness, sin?
My
Reply to Irene:
You know Irene, I think
that's right. I'm so conditioned for novels to develop psychological insights
to the characters that it was blinding me to the larger theme. Perhaps that's
what Mark in earlier comments was trying to say. I was slowly getting there
with the unsolved mystery of Sebastian's personality.
You also said:
"Does it matter if
Sebastian abuses alcohol because he has failed to reconcile his sexuality with
his moral upbringing, or because he has unresolved animosity toward a father
that abandoned the family or a mother who he can't please, or because his brain
chemistry makes him susceptible to addictive patterns or....? Or is it enough
to see a young man who, despite so many advantages, spiraled down to squallor,
but can still care for an ailling friend, can still be drawn to the spiritual
in a monastery, can still encounter God and point others to God despite himself
because God is so incredibly greater than the wounds we carry or inflict, is present
even in the greatest depths of our despair, brokeness,sin?"
Excellent! I think that
is the theme to the novel.
This does bring up an
interesting question on the artistry of novels. Can a novel bring up the
psychological dysfunctions of a major character, beg the reader to try to
understand the character, and leave them unexplained? I guess it can. Waugh
seems to have here.
OK, you have answered the
psychology part of the novel. But what about that state of innocence? Is Waugh
including sexual activity (homosexual or not) as part of that state of
innocence? One still needs to know.
And what about the reliability of Charles as a narrator? That too would be an open question.
My
Reply to a lot of comments:
There's a lot here to
respond. First off, if you do a search homosexuality and alcoholism, you will
find homosexuals do have a higher rate of alcoholism and other addictions as
well as a higher suicide rate. That's a reality. But I'm not talking about the
reality. The psychology in a novel does not have to be clinically true. It has
to have the sense of verisimilitude. The question is, what does Waugh intend.
It is credible for a character in a novel to have a dysfunction due to a root
cause. Is the tension between Sebastian's Catholicism and his homosexuality the
root cause of his inability to cope? Is that why he takes flight (pun on his
name intended) away from his family? I don't know. Waugh lays out other
credible root causes. I think I listed five last week in an earlier comment. Is
Waugh's intent to show that all of those potential causes are the reason, or to
show that none of them, and that the problem is spiritual as Irene insightfully
said above?
But then that raises
another question. What is his spiritual problem? Obviously we are given a very
dysfunctional person. As I see it, either we the reader are called to figure it
out like a mystery or we are called to accept the unfathomable nature of
another human being.
My
Reply to Frances
Frances
wrote: "Joseph Pearce in his excellent Literature: What Every Catholic
Should Know, says: “It is evident that there is much of Waugh’s own
pre-conversion self in the characterization of Charles Ryder . . . It is hard
to see Ryder without seeing a shadow of Waugh, musing on his own loss of faith
as a youth and his years as a hedonistic agnostic at Oxford . . . Ryder’s
account of undergraduate decadence and debauchery reflects Waugh’s own riotous
hedonism at Oxford . . . “
(Joseph
Pearce, Literature, page 172).."
Yes, that is right. You cannot avoid connecting Ryder with Waugh, and as I pointed out last week (I think it was) it is well known and documented that Waugh had homosexual affairs when in Oxford. The person Sebastian is to have been modeled on was homosexual. Perhaps Pierce doesn't want to glamorize homosexuality in a Catholic book, but the homosexuality is there. The question is whether it's in Sebastian and Charles' relationship, of which I'm skeptical but it's possible. I also don't think there is any question that once we get to the Sebastian and Kurt relationship, that Sebastian is homosexual.
My
Comment:
Of those who say
Sebastian's sexuality doesn't matter, then does the adultery in the novel not
matter? The novel is set in a Catholic worldview. Of course it matters. Every
character (except Cordelia) has a moral failing.
When Julia rejects
divorce as we will see (sorry for the spoiler) does not her Catholic worldview
play into her decision? When Lord Marchmain returns to the Church, has he not
rejected his life of living in sin? If Sebastian turns away from his
homosexuality - I don't know if he does, I'm guessing here since I haven't
finished the novel - will that be a return to grace?
If Catholicism is the
novel's worldview, then the underpinnings of Catholicism control the novel's
morality. And how could homosexuality not be important in a Catholic worldview,
especially in the mid 20th century?
My
Reply to Kerstin:
Kerstin
wrote: "To me the larger issue here is immaturity vs. maturity. Sexuality
is only a symptom. Lets look at infidelity and promiscuity in the upper
classes. Marriages are often entered into not because of mutual affection but
material security. The emotional needs of the spouses are secondary so they
escape into extra-marital affairs and other pleasures. Being emotionally
distant even to your family members is often the norm. This sort of thing seems
to be taken very much for granted, and is ultimately very immature. The
emotional investment and the recognition that your spouse, children, and other
family members are human beings made in the image of God asks of us to make
sacrifices for the good of the other. Only then can mature relationships develop.
Who in this novel is making actual sacrifices for the good of others safe for
Lady Marchmain and Cordelia? Even Charles is inconsistent. Yet all of them
display some recognition that something very fundamental is missing.."
Yes, I agree Kerstin.
This is akin to when I said that that Sebastian's problem is his inability to
be responsible, to grow up. Sebastian is unfavorably compared to Lady
Marchmain's brother Ned, who sacrificed his life in WWI by being responsible.
And now we see that all the major characters are in some way irresponsible, or
as you say immature.
Your last sentence is I
think very important: "Yet all of them display some recognition that
something very fundamental is missing." Now recall what Julia says about
Rex.
He simply wasn’t all
there. He wasn’t a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one,
unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a
laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something
absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A
tiny bit of a man pretending he was the whole. (p. 231)
A man who is not whole.
Perhaps Rex is the most distinct of the characters to show his fragmentation,
but couldn't we say that about all the characters (except Codelia)? Isn't
Sebastian not a whole man? Isn't Julia herself not a whole woman? Isn't Ryder
not a whole man? He says so himself about himself, just after spending two
years in Central America:
But despite this
isolation and this long sojourn in a strange world, I remained unchanged, still
a small part of myself pretending to be whole. (p. 262)
The modern world has
created fragments of our humanity. That is one of the novel's central themes.
This is at the heart of modernist literature, the fragmentation of man. This is
right out of TS Eliot's poetry. Here is the first stanza of Eliot's "The
Hollow Men."
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with
straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken
glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade
without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture
without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to
death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not
as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
So much of Eliot's poetry
echoes in this novel. You can read that entire poem here:
Only by rejecting the
outside world and accepting God's grace can we achieve wholeness. Only in
Christ can we be whole because He is the only man that is completely whole.
My
Reply to Irene:
Irene
wrote: "I think it is fascinating how each of us are approaching this same
novel from a slightly different angle and therefore asking different questions
of the text. I love to listen to the conversation b..."
I don't think we're
seeing it all that different. Yes, the grace is key but you can't just
disregard or minimize everything else. Waugh brings us through a process of
each character's brokenness. That's the bulk of the novel actually. You can't
just discard it (I'm exaggerating) and just focus on the grace. There are
reasons for the brokenness and that too is central. Now I agree I don't think
the homosexuality is a big part of the novel even though Anthony Blanche does
keep popping up. I didn't bring it up until mid way in our read. I don't even
think it's there in Book 1, except perhaps in some germ which will flower
later. Once you see Sebastian settled in a relationship with Kurt, however, it
cannot be ignored.
Christine
in BoMass, USA wrote: "I think that Charles and Sebastian were 'in love'.
As I indicated before, young adults can fall in love with each other with no
sexuality being involved at any level.
To
your question Irene, I wonder if their 'love' only added to Sebastian's hurt. I
do not think that Charles was gay. They might have participated in some 'if you
show me yours, I will show you mine', however not much else. I wonder, because
it did not blossom into a full blown love affair, that added to Charles' hurt.
He did warn Charles that he would leave him for his family.
This
would be the only reason I can see why the terms relationship has any real
bearing on the story."
I do see the relationship
between Charles and Sebastian in the same way. It's a platonic friendship of
close boys. I don't know about the 'if you show me yours, I will show you mine'
(LOL, what?), they are 20 years old after all; they are not little boys. But as
I pointed out in an earlier comment, Cara says that this happens late with the
English.
As I finished the novel,
I realize that there is an underlying thread of sexuality throughout the novel.
I'm reminded of when Charles first meets Julia and Waugh gives us that great
line about Charles hearing "a thin bat’s squeak of sexuality" in
Julia's voice. After Book 1, which I've said is the idyllic Eden, the narrative
turns to finding spouses and soul mates as a key narrative drive. It turns to
sex.
I have to believe the
Sebastian/Kurt relationship is homosexual. Just as Charles matures to a
heterosexual, the implication from the parallel construction is that Sebastian
matures to being gay. His soul mate becomes Kurt. I don't find any idyllic or
sense of innocence in this relationship.
I'm not sure I understand
your last sentence. Are you unsure why Sebastian and Charles relationship has
any bearing on the story?
My
Reply to Christine:
Christine
in BoMass, USA wrote: "Where is the grace? I do not see any grace? I must
be blind as a few people have mentioned it already.
Grace
would be if Sebastian finds some solace and re-establishes some relationship
with his family.
Grace
would be if Charles and Juila stay connected in a meaningful way.
I
do see Grace in Julia returning to the Church.
Looking
forward to being enlightened to the grace."
Certainly this is the
central theme of the novel and requires some thought. Let me attempt to give a
quick explanation using Sebastian's life to outline it.
Sebastian is an
alcoholic. Being drunk is actually a sin. That is not a grace. But God can take
that sin and bring graces from it. The alcohol brings Charles and Sebastian
together. The friendship manifested in love that comes from it is a grace. Sebastian
has some sort of psychological problem, which is not a grace. But the
psychological problem contributes Sebastian's sense of charm, which brings
friends together and spreads a certain love. This is a grace. He meets Kurt and
the two bond in a homosexual bonding. Homosexuality is a sin, and that is not a
grace, but the love that comes from it is a grace. It manifests itself into
Sebastian's sacrificial love for Kurt. When Kurt dies and Sebastian is left
alone, his alcoholism and his psychological problems (again not graces) lead
him to a monastery, and the monks take him in. God turns the evil (Sebastian is
not evil but the demons within are evil) into graces of love. The monks love
him and care for him, and he now absent of the homosexuality and in full
communion with the church can die in a state of grace. Much like his father
returns to a state of grace before he dies, so too we are to assume happens to
Sebastian. There are a lot of parallel constructions going on. We can probably
dissect the other character's lives to find the graces that act upon them.
At least this is how I
see it. Love to hear other's thoughts on this.
A number of Catholic outlets have noted Dion DiMucci’s new music album, Blues with Friends. You may know Dion from the 1950s! He was the lead singer of Dion and the Belmonts, players of Doo-Wop style of rock-n-roll. Well, if you’ve kept up with his music career, it didn’t end in the 50’s with “Runaround Sue.” He’s made other music as you can read in his Wikipedia entry, some of it popular. What you may not have known is that throughout his 57 year career he has been a believing Catholic and at some point a devout Catholic. He has actually written songs with the well-known Catholic historian, Mike Aquilina.
Dion’s new album has gotten a bit of air play because each song features a different virtuoso, usually well known. Given that I love the blues, given that I love Dion, given that I love many of the virtuosos featured, I had to get the album. Before I feature some of the songs let me provide a few excerpts of articles from Catholic outlets.
First about the record, let’s turn to the National Catholic Register’s article, “The Wanderer Sings the Blues: Rock ‘n’ roll legend Dion chats about music andfaith.”
Dion tells us about the making of the
record.
“You don’t know how much
fun it was to make this album,” Dion told the Register. “This album was like
riding a cloud — no stress involved at all. It was amazing because sometimes
making an album can be excruciating. … [This time] the songs came. I wasn’t
under pressure. I was writing them as they came to me. I decided to record
them. I went into the studio and knocked these tracks out in three days. I just
sat down with the guitar and sang maybe six songs one day, six the next, two
the next. A lot of them are just one take.
“One take — that way the
songs are full of light, full of expression,” he continued. “You might not get
it perfect, but its full of expression. I’m full of expression. I’m not a
draughtsman. I express my art.”
Next in an article titled “Blues with friends, life with God: A conversation with Dion and Mike Aquilina,” from the Catholic World Report we get a one paragraph summary of the work:
Dion’s latest album,
Blues With Friends, has spent months on the Billboard “Blues Album” charts,
much of that time in the #1 slot. Featuring guest appearances by such rock
legends as Jeff Beck, Paul Simon, Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top), Van Morrison,
Bruce Springsteen, and more, the album is another triumph from the man whose career
began with Dion and the Belmonts, and has lasted another 60 years beyond – and
counting.
Perhaps
the most obvious question a Catholic journalist would ask is the first he asks:
Catholic
World Report: Let’s talk about your Catholic faith,
and how that influences your music.
Dion
DiMucci: Well, my Catholic faith influences everything. That’s
at the center of my being, of my mind. If you would unzip my mind and look
inside my brain, you’d find a very orderly place, and that’s because of having
a personal relationship with God. I came into a 12-step spiritual program 52
years ago and it was gleaned from St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Disciplines. It’s
designed to lead you into union with God. And that’s a very peaceful place! A
place of wisdom, a place of power, of serenity; it’s home. I’m home, and I’m
not living in a chaotic world, because I’m living in God’s presence – or trying
to, a day at a time.
That influences
everything. It frees you up to write about beauty, and truth, and goodness, and
relationships. I think it helps you be creative. I’ve had a lot of people say
to me, “At your age, you sound like a young guy! Your voice is incredibly
vital.” That’s God. Without God I’d probably be drinking and drugging, sounding
husky – I probably wouldn’t even be alive. If he wasn’t the center, I think I’d
be in trouble in some way. I think I’d be living in a chaotic state. I’d
probably be grasping for position and power and money and pleasure and honor,
fighting everybody, trying to be better, trying to win, all of that. Instead of
just being content in all things.
CWR:
Can you briefly recount how you and Mike Aquilina got to know each other, and
how you came to write songs together?
Dion:
We found ourselves in Rome together, in 2000. We were on the bus, and we
stopped and there was a statue of St. Jerome. I remembered a quote that I read
in the back of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in the Bronx that said, “Ignorance of
Scripture is ignorance of Christ,” and that’s St. Jerome. So I said that to
Mike, and he says to me “The Thunderer!” I said “’The Thunderer’? What’s that?”
And he said, “Well, St. Jerome – he gave ‘ignorance of Scripture’ new meaning.
He was from what we now call Croatia, the brightest of the bright, so he was
sent to Rome. The pope saw how bright he was and had him translate the Bible
from Greek to Latin – the Vulgate. And he was an intolerant guy – he didn’t
like Italian women and Greek women, the way they combed their hair, the way
they did their eye makeup. People got on his nerves.” I said, “People got on
his nerves? How could he be a saint?” He said, “Well, it takes all kinds to
make it to heaven. He had great qualities. He moved to Israel; he made friends
with a rabbi, and he learned how to speak Hebrew, and he translated the Bible
again, from Hebrew to Latin! So he gives ‘ignorance of Scripture’ new meaning.”
I said, “I’ve got to write a song about this guy!” And we ended up writing a
song called “The Thunderer” about St. Jerome. That was the beginning, that’s
how we met.
CWR:
Coming to your new album: in the liner notes, you talk about how the album’s
genesis was in an interaction you had with Joe Bonamassa. How did the album
come to fruition? How did you come to choose the “friends” on the album – Paul
Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Jeff Beck, etc.?
Dion:
Well, you’re right, Joe Bonamassa was the catalyst for the album. Mike and I
had written all these songs. To be honest with you, Mike kept calling me saying
“Hey, got any plans to record those songs? They’re real good, and keep running
around my head!” I think this is the best batch of songs we ever put together.
They’re memorable, they’re great stories, they’re worthy to be told.
I went in and cut all of
the songs in three days. Bonamassa heard them at my house and said he wanted to
play on “Blues Comin’ On”. And that was it. That really sparked something in
me. It sparked the idea that I could cast characters, like each of these songs
is a mini movie and I could cast a character to infuse their personality onto
my song. It worked so well with Bonamassa, maybe it will work well with Billy
Gibbons – and it did! So I sent one to Brian Setzer – and it did! So I decided
to send one to Jeff Beck – and it worked again! When he said yes, that was the
gold standard, because he has magic in his hands.
After that it was just
like dominos, like riding a wave. It was crazy fun, because I never gave
anybody an idea of what to play – I just gave them the song, a finished track,
and they would just add their own thing to it. When these artists do something,
it really puts a smile on your face.
There’s a lot more good stuff in both those articles, and well worth reading. But now let me turn to the music. Here is the entire playlist with the featured artist of each song.
Playlist:
Blues Comin’ On Featured
Artist: Joe Bonamassa
Kickin’ Child Featured artist: Joe Menza
Uptown Number 7 Featured
artist: Brian Setzer
Can’t Start Over
Again Featured artist: Jeff Beck
My Baby Loves To Boogie Featured artist: John Hammond
I Got Nothin’ Featured
artists: Van Morrison, Joe Louis Walker
Stumbling Blues Featured
artists: Jimmy Vivino, Jerry Vivino
Bam Bang Boom Featured
artist: Billy Gibbons
I Got The Cure Featured
artist: Sonny Landreth
Song For Sam Cooke (Here
In America) Featured artist: Paul
Simon
What If I Told You Featured
artist: Samantha Fish
Told You Once In August Featured artists: John Hammond, Rory Block
Way Down (I Won’t Cry No
More) Featured artist: Stevie Van Zandt
Hymn To Him Featured
Artists: Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen
Whoa, those are some heavyweights. Dion should record with some of his friends more often.
So let’s start with the song that inspired the album, “Blues Comin’ On.”
Joe Bonamassa is a blues guitarists, a really good one. Dion’s vocals really intertwine nicely with Bonamassa’s guitar licks.
You will just love the rhythmic beauty of “Kickin’ Child” with Joe Menza, who I am not familiar with, on guitar.
This one has a religious message with “Uptown Number 7,” featuring Brian Setzer from the Stray Cats.
I can’t embed all songs, and I’m having a hard time cutting back. “I Got The Cure” with Sonny Landreth on slide guitar is superb blues.
Perhaps the highlight of the album has to be Dion’s tribute to his departed friend, Sam Cooke with “Song For Sam Cooke (Here In America)” featuring Paul Simon on backup vocals. Here’s a clip where Dion explains the song at the end.
I just love that melody. And the lyrics are beautiful. I’ll skip quoting the chorus, but here are the verses from the song.
We traveled this land
back in nineteen sixty-two
We played the places that
were home to me and you
We drove to Memphis,
rocked a set
We walked the streets at
night and smoked a cigarette
Down the block I saw the
people stop and stare
You did your best to make
a Yankee boy aware
I never thought about the
color of your skin
I never worried 'bout the
hotel I was in
You were the man who
earned the glory and the fame
But cowards felt that
they could call you any name
You were the star,
standing in the light
That won you nothing on a
city street at night
You stayed more steady
than a backbeat on a drum
You told me you believed
a change was gonna come
You sang for freedom but
lived life free
I saw it in your smile
and in your dignity
You were a star when you
were standing on a stage
I look back on it, I feel
a burning rage
You sang "You Send
Me", I sang "I Wonder Why"
I still wonder, you were
way too young to die
That’s one of the best tributes to another singer I have ever heard.
I do have to highlight Samatha Fish’s lead guitar on “What If I Told You.”
Wow, she can play. Great blues song too.
Around and round like an
old top
You spin my mind and then
it won't stop
Down and down you let a
name drop
Say you love me then you
flip flop
Finally I have to include with the most religious song on the album, “Hymn to Him,” featuring the husband and wife team of Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa.
He's the light of
salvation
He's the head that's
never bowed
He's the first step of
wisdom
He's the sun through the
clouds
That’s very moving and a great devotional. Another interesting note. The linear notes of the CD were written by a Robert Zimmerman. Hey, that’s Bob Dylan!
“Dion knows how to sing, and he knows just the right way to craft these songs, these blues songs. He’s got some friends here to help him out, some true luminaries. But in the end, it’s Dion by himself alone, and that masterful voice of his that will keep you returning to share these Blues songs with him.” - Excerpt from Bob Dylan’s liner notes for Blues With Friends
This
album is great.
