Je me souviens

"He thought of the war and the English with the same bitterness. How could French-Canadians -- the only real Canadians -- feel loyalty to a people who had conquered and humiliated them, and were Protestant anyway? France herself was no better; she had deserted her Canadians a century and a half ago, had left them in the snow and ice along the Saint Lawrence surrounded by their enemies, had later murdered her anointed king and then turned atheist. Father Beaubien had no fondness for the Germans and no wish for them to win the war; he knew nothing whatever about them. But he certainly knew if a people deserted God they were punished for it, and France was being punished now."

--- from Two Solitudes by Hugh Maclennan (1945)

The book Two Solitudes is apparently a landmark of Canadian literature (I confess my ignorance of all Canadian literature outright - unless you can count Life of Pi). It takes place during and after World War I in Quebec, and follows the soap-opera-esque actions of the aristocratic Tallards - an old French landowning family who practically run the small fictional town of Saint-Marc. Adding depth to the story are a Nova Scotia sea captain who buys land in Saint-Marc, causing a stir amongst the entirely French population; the parish priest who resents Mr Tallard's anticlerical streak; a prominent English banker in Montreal; and Mr Tallard's Irish wife and two sons. 

I remarked a few weeks ago about "the pre-revolution" and how interesting it is to me to see what gives rise to massive social change. In the 1960s, Quebec (and France, but that is a separate issue) went through a massive societal upheaval known as the Quiet Revolution. The Church and the conservative provincial government were swept out of politics and social life. What had been one of the most institutionally vibrant centers of global Catholicism saw all of its influence vanish almost overnight. Of course, the Quebecois still employ church vocabulary as swear-words, even if fewer and fewer of them understand their origin. 

In any event, Two Solitudes paints a rather convincing picture of pre-Quiet Revolution Quebec. The Church was The People and they both resented what they perceived as English intrusion on their land and their way of life. I read somewhere that apart from the various Native American cultures, the French Canadians and the American Confederacy are the only "defeated" peoples of North America. They are the only two groups who have been told that their way of life and their rights to self-determination are wrong. Of course, we can exhaust a lot of time arguing over the merits of each, but I present the comparison as a way of understanding the thinking of the time period. In any event, the Quebecois in the Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Century regarded the English in much the same way that a Southerner might've regarded a Yankee during Reconstruction. The difference, as you may have guessed, was the Quebecois saw their struggle through intensely religious eyes. Not only was their way-of-life being repudiated - their faith was as well.

Thus, it seemed only natural that Church and State would make an alliance to assail what both saw as a common enemy. Yet, not every French-Canadian refused to fight. And, after the war, Canada had begun to develop a cultural cohesion distinct from the rest of the British Empire. World War II sealed the deal, and the post-war economic boom brought prosperity to both English and French in Canada. Thus, what good were the old Church-approved nationalist arguments that hinged on English oppression? Hadn't the period of the Church's usefulness in French-Canadian society run its course? If the national government is going to allow our French schools and our French culture in our French province, why do our institutions still need to be in the hands of the Church?

This is in my mind when I read about people wanting to build "a Catholic culture" that simply stands in opposition to the mainstream. I think the experience of the French Canadians should give us pause to examine our motives. The Gospel is a freeing joy, not a hammer with which to pound away at a perceived grievance. A Catholic culture that rests on the joy of the Gospel - difficult though it may be - will be ten times stronger than one that has its basis in the negation of the current cultural climate. If that climate improves, at least one historical example warns us that the Church will have then have simply been viewed a means to an end.

The skin

"Oh, that's nothing," I said. "Hunger, air raids, shootings, concentration camps are trifles - all trifles, trivialities, ancient history. We've known these things for centuries in Europe. We're used to them by now. These aren't the things that have brought us to our present pass."

"What has brought you to it, then?" said General Guillaume in a slightly hoarse voice.

"Skin."

"Skin? What skin?" said General Guillaume.

"Skin," I replied in a low voice. "Our skin, this confounded skin. You've no idea what a man will do, what deeds of heroism and infamy he can accomplish, to save his skin. This -- this loathsome skin, do you see? (And as I spoke I grasped the skin on the back of my hand between two fingers, and kept pulling it about.) "Once upon a time men endured hunger, torture, the most terrible sufferings, they killed and were killed, they suffered and made others suffer, to save their souls, to save their own souls and the souls of others. The would rise to every form of greatness and stoop to every form of infamy to save their souls - not only their own souls, but the souls of others too. Today they suffer and make others suffer, they kill and are killed, they do wonderful things and dreadful things, not to save their souls, but to save their skins, and their skins alone. Nothing else counts. Men are heroes for the sake of a very paltry thing today! An ugly thing. The human skin is ugly. Look! It is loathsome! And to think that the world is full of heroes who are ready to sacrifice their lives for such a thing as this!"

--- from The Skin by Curzio Malaparte (1949)

Victor Hugo on the cosmos

I am about 3/4ths through reading Les Miserables (only about 300 pages to go!), and it is proving to be one of my favorite books that I've ever read. It seems to me that Hugo, though certainly quite wordy, moves at just the right pace. The action never gets too far ahead of itself, and the background information on history and geography never (really) overwhelms the plot. In fact, I tend to quite enjoy these background chapters, because it gives the author some space to be a bit philosophical about the story at hand. One portion of such a chapter struck me as quite beautiful and worth transcribing in its entirety:

Nothing is truly small, as anyone knows who has peered into the secrets of Nature. Though philosophy may reach no final conclusion as to original cause or ultimate extent, the contemplative mind is moved to ecstasy by this merging of forces into unity. Everything works upon everything else. The science of mathematics applies to the clouds; the radiance of starlight nourishes the rose; no thinker will dare to say that the scent of hawthorn is valueless to the constellations. Who can predict the course of a molecule? How do we know that the creation of worlds is not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who can measure the action and counter-action between infinitely great and infinitely small, the play of causes in the depths of being, the cataclysms of creation? The cheese-mite has its worth; the smallest is large and the largest is small; everything balances within the laws of necessity, a terrifying vision for the mind. Between living things and objects there is a miraculous relationship; within that inexhaustible compass, from the sun to the grub, there is no room for disdain; each thing needs every other thing. Light does not carry the scents of the earth into the upper air without knowing what it is doing with them; darkness confers the essence of the stars upon the sleeping flowers. Every bird that flies carries a shred of the infinite in its claws. The process of birth is the shedding of a meteorite or the peck of a hatching swallow on the shell of its egg; it is the coming of an earthworm or of Socrates, both equally important to the scheme of things. Where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and which has the wider vision? You may choose. A patch of mould is a galaxy of blossom; a nebula is an antheap of stars. There is the same affinity, if still more inconceivable, between things of the mind and material things. Elements and principles are intermingled; they combine and marry and each increases and completes the other, so that the material and the moral world both are finally manifest. The phenomenon perpetually folds in upon itself. In the vast cosmic changes, universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, borne by the mysterious flow of invisible currents, making use of everything, wasting not a single sleeper's dream, sowing an animalcule here and shattering a star there, swaying and writhing, turning light into a force and thought into an element; disseminated yet indivisible, dissolving all things except that geometrical point, the self; reducing all things to the core which is the soul, and causing all things to flower into God; all activities from the highest to the humblest - harnessing the movements of the earth and the flight of an insect - to the secret workings of an illimitable mechanism; perhaps - who can say? - governing, if only by the universality of the law, the evolution of a comet in the heavens by the circling of infusoria in the drop of water. A machine made of spirit. A huge meshing of gears in which the first motive force is the gnat and the larges wheel the zodiac.

2011 Literary Review

We engaged in a fair bit of reading this past year and I shall endeavor to now pass the savings on to you, giving my humble and near-sighted opinions on what I read. In no particular order, we have:

Orthodoxy (G.K. Chesterton) 
Definitely in the running for one of my favorite books of all time. Truly, as the cover of my version proclaimed, it is "one of the ten indispensable spiritual classics of the past 1,500 years." For those yet unfamiliar with the wit and wisdom of G.K. Chesterton, you are in for a delicious treat. The man brilliantly and cleverly undermines the prevailing pop philosophies of early 20th Century Britain (eerily similar to our current pop philosophies) and provides a clear and ringing defense of Christian orthodoxy. Reading this book was like coming out of a fog into bright sunshine. I exhaustively recommend it, even if you are not particularly religious. At a slim 100 pages or so, you haven't got much to lose.

East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
Another text which would be required reading at any future Schmalzel Institute of Things You Should Know would be this American classic written by one of this nation's preeminent literary figures. East of Eden ambitiously reinterprets the story of Cain and Abel over succeeding generations of the Trask family, who moved from Connecticut to California in the early 20th Century. East of Eden, like all of Steinbeck's works, is a telling portrayal of life, sparing no unpleasantries. The characters are full of life and flaws, just like the rest of us, which makes the story so compelling. Underlaying the biblical allusions is a sustained investigation of free will and its effect on the lives of the main characters. A must-read.

Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)
This is quite simply a depressing book. Hardy details the unfortunate life of Jude Fawley in late 19th Century Britain. He marries and divorces and falls in love again, with his cousin, which leads to disastrous consequences, especially when his first wife returns. It is tragic novel, in the tradition of the ancient Greek tragedies - though there is a question of whether there is truly catharsis at the end. The true tragedy resides in Jude's (and the other characters) inability to conform with society's demands and the demands of his social class.

Basilica (R.A. Scotti)
Basilica is a fast-paced narrative of the construction of St. Peter's in Rome. This book was a treasure-trove of insight, both architectural and historical. To see such a monument constructed required the dedication of eight different architects, the power of at least twenty popes, and the timespan of about 150 years. How the building we see today ever got built is as much chance as anything else. Personalities such as Pope Julius II and Bernini were very interesting to learn more about, especially in a less "academic" sense. These character were real people who had real interactions with each other - which were often quite tumultuous. Recommended to any with an interest in history, the church, or architecture (or all three, like me!).

The Lives of a Cell (Lewis Thomas)
This slim volume is a collection of essays by esteemed biologist Lewis Thomas. Please, hold your yawns, this one gets interesting. Rather than focusing on science in a scientific way, Thomas discusses wide ranging subjects - death, music, New York City - in biological terms. It is at once poetic and deeply thought provoking to read his work. And, at approximately three pages apiece, he doesn't demand too much from the reader for each essay. Originally, I had to read this book for my AP Biology class in high school, but I felt it tugging me back for another look this summer. It's that interesting. Highly recommended to anybody who's curious about the world and their biological selves.

Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
All I can say is thank goodness this book was as short as it was. Essentially, this novel is a very extended metaphor about colonialism's negative impacts on native societies couched in a story about hunting for ivory. I admit it is a well-constructed extended metaphor, but it gets a bit tiresome.

One for the Road (Tony Horwitz)
Subtitled "An Outback Adventure," this travelogue is an account of the author's hitchhiking romp around Australia. Leaving behind his journalistic post in Sydney, the author travels around the colorful interior of the continent and meets a host of similarly colorful people. This was an easy and entertaining read and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in Australia - especially any who have been there or plan to go. Can't wait to see if Mr. Horwitz's observations come to bear on my journeys around that country.

Jesus of Nazareth (Pope Benedict XVI)
Well, I'm not quite finished with this one yet, but I still feel confident to discuss its contents. In a word, the book is brilliant. This, the first installment of what will eventually be a trio of books on the life of Our Lord, covers the events that transpire between the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and the Transfiguration. The pope takes the Gospels as his basis and adds a host of supplemental information to reconstruct a portrait of Christ as he actually was, rather than what we sometimes wish him to be. This book is simply packed with insights on each page, which is why it's taking me so long to get through. It's a book that you read for five minutes and then set down and stare into space for five minutes thinking about. Highly recommended, even to my non-Catholic friends, as it is not divisively written.

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
The most recently finished book on the list is F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz-age classic. I seem to have been one of the only people who had made it through high school without having to read this book, and I couldn't stand having been left out. I'm glad I made the effort, because this is truly a classic of American literature. It's hard to say a lot without revealing too much, so I'll simply say its a tragedy with a heart we can all relate to.

That's all for now, folks! I'll be reading in the new year as well, with The Fountainhead, Brideshead Revisited, In a Sunburned Country, and The Sun Also Rises beginning the list.