Lepanto: The Musical

Well, it's not really a musical.

It is, however, a sung version of G.K. Chesterton's poem Lepanto, performed and put into the public domain by Maureen O'Brien whose audiobook podcast, Maria Lectrix, features public domain works "for people with catholic tastes." As such, she features fantasy, poetry, science fiction, mystery, adventure, prayer, devotion, and early Christian literature. In other words, all the good stuff.

The battle of Lepanto was fought on October 7, 1571 by a fleet of the Holy League against the main fleet of the Ottoman empire. At that time, Islamic forces controlled the Mediterranean and were threatening to attack Venice and Rome which could have led to the collapse of Christian Europe. Despite overwhelming odds, the European forces, led by Don John of Austria, won a decisive victory. The victory was attributed to the intersession of Our Lady, Pope Pius V having called for the recitation of the rosary for that intention, and October 7th became the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, later known as the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Chesterton's poem has a marital, drum-beat rhythm which is enhanced by Maureen O'Brien's recording. (I love Chesterton's poetry, but I sometimes stumble over his meter when I read his poems silently.) A copy of the text can be found here, but if you want to buy a copy, I would suggest the annotated edition published by Ignatius Press which has an introduction by Dale Ahlquist, the president of the American Chesterton Society. Besides notes, the book also includes an essay on the historical background of the battle, an account of the battle itself, an essay on the effect of the battle on world history, a bit of literary criticism, and two essays by Chesterton on related subjects. This book, especially when paired with the above recording, would be a good addition to the high school curriculum of Catholic homeschooling families.

(I don't suppose we ever will see Lepanto as a musical, but what about as a Gilbert & Sullivan style operetta?)

May-Every-Day -- A Month's Worth of Posts

The post for May 5th , "Funny, You Don't Look Catholic," is on my other blog.

For Us, the Living

For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs by Robert A. Heinlein.

This is Heinlein's unpublished first novel, written between 1938 and 1939. It was published in 2004 with an introduction by Spider Robinson and an afterward by Robert James. As a novel, it is simply dreadful. But that's because it isn't actually a novel. It's a lecture about a Henleinesque utopia with only the thinnest veneer of fiction to lubricate its passage down the reader's throat.

Some will say that's an accurate description of most of Heinlein's novels, especially the later ones. To which I would reply, "Yes, but For Us, the Living is even more so."

Here's the set-up. On July 12, 1939, Perry Nelson, an engineer, is forced off the road by an oncoming car. Thrown clear from his car toward the beach below, Perry smacks into a rock and loses consciousness. When he comes to, he finds himself in the middle of a snow storm being rescued by a gorgeous woman in a parka. And it's now January 2086. It sounds like the beginning of a decent story -- I don't really mind that the hero's time travel is accomplished pretty much the same way that John Carter got to Mars. But after that there's really no plot.

When not smoking, eating, or ogling his naked hostess (people in 2086 don't wear clothes indoors), our hero spends his time catching up on 150 years of history either by viewing historical recordings or listening as other characters lecture him about how the world has improved since 1939, thanks to changes in the political and economic system. (The economics is explained in exhaustive detail.) Religion has been pretty much stamped out, and behavior is governed by a code of customs which pretty much boils down to citizens being free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt other citizens. (There is also a strict taboo against breaching personal privacy.)

Naturally, our hero and his hostess, Diana, fall in love and marry, though Perry must first be cured of his primitive sexual jealousy (more lectures!) before they can live happily ever after in a more or less open marriage. Oh, and then he gets to pilot the first rocket launch to orbit the moon and take pictures of its far side. Why? Because it's there. The End.

During the the Golden Age of Science Fiction (which, as we all know, is around 14), I read and enjoyed many of Heinlein's novels. (In fact, I still reread them fondly today.) But they were his early novels, the ones aimed at a largely juvenile audience, in which storytelling was the predominant element and philosophizing was a minor component which, at least to a youngster's mind, added a bit of depth to the author's world-building .

Not so, the later novels, not so! I will always regret that I read Stranger in a Strange Land all the way through. I kept hoping that somehow it would all come right in the end and that the final payoff would make everything else worthwhile. I never made that mistake again. Though I sampled some of his later novels, I never felt obliged to finish them and promptly bailed out at the first sign of heavy-handedness and structural ineptitude.

So why did I read For Us, the Living? Well, I was interested in it as an historical artifact, a sort of archaeological dig into the prehistory of the Heinlein universe. It was fun to see how many elements in this early work turned up in his later novels and short stories: rolling roads; self-lighting cigarettes; alternate forms of marriage; a strong individualism; banishing lawbreakers to "Coventry;" gorgeous, intelligent females who nonetheless obligingly fall for the not overly bright hero; and the wise old man who pontificates on how the universe really works, to name a few.

I had always assumed that the things I disliked about the later novels (such as long didactic screeds on government, religion, philosophy, and sex) were a later development resulting from the author's downhill slide into ill health and a subsequent loss of writing ability. But it seems that Heinlein had them in mind from the beginning, and I assume that they simply didn't make it into his earlier works (especially the juveniles) because of editorial restrictions from his publishers.

So, worth a read if you've read Heinlein in the past and are interested in roots and origins. Otherwise, give it a miss.

May-Every-Day -- A Month's Worth of Posts

The posts for May 2nd & May 3rd are at my other blog.

May-Every-Day -- A Month's Worth of Posts

I've decided to imitate Rebekah at St. Gemma's Art & Needlework: I have recklessly resolved to post every day in May. In her April 30th post Rebekah writes,

So far I've been one spontaneous blogger, posting maybe once or twice a week. Finding things to post about has never been a problem for me; searching and finding the time is where the trouble lies. But I am going to give it my best shot anyway and I have a long list of topics I will be covering.

I wish I could say that I'd been only posting once or twice a week -- or that I had a long list of topics to write about. As my blogging has become more and more sporadic, that portion of my brain that governs writing has become increasingly wizened. I think I need to exercise that mental muscle before it becomes completely atrophied.

The Rules:

1) Because I have two blogs, I'm allowing a post to either one of them to "count" as my post for the day. If you have never visited it, Quilting Bibliophagist is where I write about quilting and other sewing projects.

2) Because I've started a couple of days late, I'm allowing myself to play catch-up. (So I'm actually posting this May 1st post on the 2nd.) But I'm not going to beat myself up if I miss a couple of posts this weekend because I'm flying east this weekend for a granddaughter's First Communion.

An Easter Carol

Cheer up, friends and neighbors,

Now it's Eastertide.

Stop from endless labours,

Worries put aside:

Men should rise from sadness,

Evil, folly, strife,

When God's mighty gladness

Brings the earth to life.

Out from snow drifts chilly,

Roused from drowsy hours,

Bluebell wakes, and lily:

God calls up the flowers!

Into life he raises

All the sleeping buds;

Meadows weave his praises,

And the spangled woods.

All his truth and beauty,

All his righteousness,

Are our joy and duty,

Bearing his impress:

Look! the earth waits breathless

After winter's strife:

Easter shows man deathless,

Spring leads death to life.

Ours the more and less is;

But changeless all the days,

God revives and blesses,

Like the sunlight rays.

'All mankind is risen,'

The Easter bells do ring,

While from out their prison

Creep the flowers of spring!

--#147 from the Oxford Book of Carols

This particular song took the children's fancy when they were quite small. They dug it out of the Oxford Book of Carols and, being unable to read music, sang it to the tune of a Christmas carol. In the last line of the second verse, in order to preserve the rhyme, they used to pronounce "splangled wood" as "spangléd wud," a usage which passed into family vocabulary. Fillius gave me a rousing rendition of it as we drove home from Mass this morning, bringing a nostalgic tear to his mother's eye.

Start 'Em Young

Whether you work in a bookstore, a library, or are simply a parent of small children, if you are familiar with children's literature, you'll be chortling when you read Five Sci-Fi Children's Books by Caldwell Tanner.