The fiction of Catholic writers (and their lapsed Catholic brethren) has been described as “an invitation to mystery, not mastery, to communion, not control.”
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Barry Lopez on the mystery of distant environments
Barry Lopez’s new book describes his experiences at six remote sites around the globe: a rugged cape on the Oregon coast; centuries-old human settlements in the Canadian high Arctic; the complex biome of the Galápagos Islands; early-hominid fossil grounds in northern Kenya; a British imperial penal colony in southeastern Australia; and fields of meteorites on the vast ice of Antarctica.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Jim Forest’s new memoir delves into his ‘unusual conscience’
Jim Forest’s memoir functions as both a personal history and a snapshot of a tumultuous era in American society—the 1960s—when Forest solidified his opposition to unjust war and his faith in active nonviolence.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Thomas Edison’s life of ceaseless action
He is most well known for inventing the light bulb and the phonograph, but Thomas Edison patented 1,093 “machines, systems, processes, and phenomena.” In 1881, Edmund Morris writes, Edison was “executing, on average, one new patent every four days.”
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What maps reveal about our surroundings (and ourselves)
Like language, cartography is a miracle that insists the unique slice of universe we view from the perspective of our own minds and hearts is—against all odds—expressible.
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The novelist who mentored a young Flannery O’Connor
At the start of their correspondence, Flannery O’Connor was the gifted student and Caroline Gordon was the seasoned, exacting teacher.
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How Catholic theology helped me understand Thomas Chatterton Williams’ controversial take on race
Thomas Chatterton Williams, a fierce critic of identity politics, urges readers to move beyond a black-white binary in discussing or thinking about race in the United States.
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What Evelyn Waugh saw in America (An Anglo-American romance)
Noted for his acid tongue, Evelyn Waugh hated the United States and its citizens and let them know it. However, he felt more and more drawn to them on repeated visits.
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Review: How the Weimar Republic paved the way to its own ruin
Benjamin Carter Hett’s ‘The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic’ shows how a flawed but genuine democracy could give way to the vilest regime imaginable.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The infinite perspectives of Colum McCann’s fiction
Colum McCann’s new novel is structured like the wings of a bird, with two narrative arcs constantly moving toward and then away from each other.