Miracle Fiction?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've decided to have a go at The Song of Bernadette. It's another one of those books that I've always heard of but have never actually read. Since I'm on a tight budget, I borrowed a copy from the public library. They had the 1989 edition from St. Martin's Press. According to the introduction, it was the first book to be published in their new "Religious Miracle Fiction Series."

Naturally I was intrigued. Most of what passes for religious fiction is very badly done. But I'm always on the look-out for the rare exception. This series was to consist of "reissued classic books that bring back the well-known works of popular religious writers of the twentieth century." So what other novels had they published under this imprint? Possibly none -- since both Amazon and Google searches turned up no references except to Song of Bernadette. (If anyone does know of further books in the series, please let me know.)

Why did they attempt this series?

According to the editor, the approach of the new millennium would see both a revived belief in eschatology and "a fervent faith in the arrival and occurrence of religious miracles" which he defines as "often totally inexplicable events, that will be interpreted as saving us from our rational, destructive selves." Huh? Our rational selves are destructive? I thought that was the job of our irrational selves. He also seems to be buying into the assumption that religion and reason have nothing in common. Okay, Mr. Editor, I can tell right now that we are not simpatico.

I'm in the same camp with G.K. Chesterton who says, in the person of Father Brown in "The Blue Cross, "I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is just the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason." That's how Father Brown unmasks the thief Flambeau who has been masquerading as a priest. "'You attacked reason, ' said Father Brown. 'It's bad theolgy.'"

Not counting the brief Y2K frenzy, did either of the editor's predicitons of emerging religious themes come true? I don't think so.

Oh, wait a minute. Didn't those Left Behind novels come out around 1995? Shoot! Not that I ever read them. I tried to read the first chapter of one while standing in front of the book display in Costco, but I just couldn't manage it. It was soooo badly written. (And not my cuppa theology, either.) Their popularity boggles the mind. But I suppose that if you really like a novel's message, you'll forgive a lot in the way of bad writing.* Which is probably, as I said earlier, why most religious fiction is so badly done.

I'm two thirds of the way through Song of Bernadette. So far my response to it is fairly positive -- with one major reservation. More details when I'm finished.

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*Is that why Da Vinci Code did so well?

Just to Let You Know I'm Not Dead Yet

Well, I had rather expected to do a lot of posting during the 12 Days of Christmas, chatting about some of our favorite books which we enjoy reading aloud at this time of year. Alas, it was not to be. Although our holidays are very quiet ones without the frantic stress which so many people experience at Christmas time, this year I got caught up in a special project. I'd decided to sew Christmas dresses for two of my little granddaughters, and I was determined that, contrary to my well established family reputation, this project would be finished, and finished on time!

Well, I achieved my goal, but only just. In fact, I'd already phoned Fillius Major to warn him that the dresses could not possibly arrive in time. Nevertheless, I kept on sewing and finally finished them at around 4:00 p.m. on Saturday. Not knowing what time the post office was scheduled to close, I shoved the dresses into Priority Mail cartons and drove to the post office. My heart sank when I saw that the parking lot was empty. The post office had closed at 3:00 p.m. With little hope I trundled across town to the postal annex which is hidden in the back of a Hallmark shop. Mirabile dictu -- it was open till 6:00! I mailed my packages and the dresses reached their destination on Christmas Eve.

Of course, my house was a mess having been neglected for several days. Not only were dishes piled in the sink, but many of the moving boxes shown in my first blog posts were still cluttering the living room. Most of them were piled in front of the fire place where I'd hoped to display my Nativity set. And I still needed to shop for Christmas dinner (to which I'd invited two guests).

All was accomplished though it left no time for blogging. Since Christmas I've been busy with recuperation and neglected but necessary errands. Also, um, a new sewing project about which more later. For now, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow I plan to go back to talking about books and reading. Until then . . .

Merry Christmas

Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete!

Deus homo factus est, natura mirante;
Mundus renovatus est a Christo regnante.

Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete!

(Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary.

God is made man; nature marvels.
The world is renewed by Christ the King.

Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary.)

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I've always loved this song. I particularly like the rendition done by Broceliande on Sir Christèmas: Songs of the Season. You can hear a very tiny snippet here. (I heard this group sing at Mythcon last summer and bought a couple of their CDs after the performance.)

Biblio-evidence

"Hmm! Books, you know, Charles, are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development."

--Lord Peter Whimsey in The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers

A Bibliophagist's Nightmare

If a bibliophagist is "a devourer of books," Then this must be a bibliophagist's worst nightmare.

Almost As Good As Chocolate

Catholic Bibliophagist not only loves reading, she loves languages. That's one of the reasons I fell so in love with The Lord of the Rings. For me, it was the philological groundwork in Tolkien's writing that gave such reality to the mythology of Middle Earth. I suppose that's why no other fantasy "in the tradition off J.R.R. Tolkien" ever seems to have the same depth and resonance.

I never had the opportunity to formally study linguistics, but I love catching glimpses of the connections between the different branches of the tree of language.

In honor of yesterday's Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Zero Summer has posted a link to a site which offers the text of the Hail Mary* in dozens of languages from Afrikaans to Zurituutsch.

By chance, I found myself looking at the Norwegian translation, trying to puzzle out possible links with English:

Hill deg, Maria, full av nåde, Herren er med deg, velsignet er du iblant kvinnene, og velsignet er ditt livs frukt, Jesus. Hellige Maria, Guds Mor, bed for oss syndere, nå og i vår dødstime. Amen.

Okay, maybe I'm jumping on a lot of false cognates, but I'm betting that "Hill" is the equivalent of "hail," and "full av" reminds me of "full of" in the phrase "full of grace." Could "kvinnene" be related to our word "women"? Hmm, would "frukt" be related to the English "fruit"? The Latin is "fructus" Did Norwegian do any borrowing from Latin?

"Hellige Maria" has got to be "Holy Mary" just from the position, "Guds Mor" -- "God's mother," obviously. "Bed for oss" must be pray for us since "bede" is a very old word for "pray" in English. "Syndere" must be "sinners" from its position, and now we notice that both words begin similarly. Looking at "nå og i vår dødstime" I'm guessing that "nå" means "now" just because I know what the prayer is supposed to say at that point. Since I can't pronounce Norwegian I have no idea how much it sounds like the English word. But look at the last word, "dødstime" -- doesn't it look like "deathtime"? The English at this point is "hour of our death."

That was fun! (Okay, not as good as chocolate, but what is?)
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*English text here if you aren't familiar with it.

The Song of Bernadette

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, another one of those festal days sprinkled throughout Advent, the celebration of which helps to remind us that we are the party-church. Since we were homeschoolers, I always gave my kids a day off on December 8th, and of course we went to Mass. And we probably had a special dessert. (Someday I'll write a book called The Role of the Stomach in the Assimilation of Catholic Culture.) But unlike the Feast of St. Nicholas, we never had a special book which we always read in honor of the day.

I was thinking about this today when it occurred to me that I had never read The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel. The author of this fictionalized account of St. Bernadette was neither a Catholic nor a Christian. He was a Jewish playwright whose satirical plays lampooning the Nazi regime were a hit in Vienna, so he had to flee to France when Germany annexed Austria in 1938. He found refuge in the town of Lourdes where various families took turns sheltering him and his wife. It was there that he heard the story of Bernadette Soubirous and her visions of a Lady who identified herself only as "the Immaculate Conception." In gratitude, he vowed that if he and his wife escaped to safety he would write Bernadette's story as a novel. The book was hot stuff when it was published in 1942. It was on the New York Times Best Seller list for over a year and was made into a movie in 1943.

It's one of those books I've always heard of, but have never actually read. So just to be seasonal, I think I'll give it a try and will let you know what I think.

In the mean time, have a blessed Advent and "Party on, dudes!"