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EDITED BY
2332 North Decatur Rd.
J. ZUBER
Decatur, Georgia
A. M.D. G.
For the greater glory of God
and for the spiritual benefit of
authors, publishers, reviewers
and readers.
THE YOUNG REBEL IN
AMERICAN LITERATURE.
edited by Carl Bode, Praeger,
1959, 170"pp., $1.50.
Reviewed by
Elizabeth Hester
This is a collection of seven
lectures delivered some years
back by as many different men
at the American Embassy in
London. The purpose of the se
ries, in bare-faced terms, was
to take a step toward undoing
the English . prejudice that
America is a land of conform-
> ing materialists. Seven Ameri
can writers supposedly notable
for their spurning of material
istic values and their non
conformity were selected to
show the English misconcep
tion.
The irony of the group is
that none but the editor’s
(Bode’s on Thoreau) is a clean-
cut demonstration of a non-
conforming anti - materialist.
There seems to have been some
hazy inability on the part of
whoever chose the erstwhile
rebels (besides Thoreau, Whit
man, Sinclair Lewis, Scott
Fitzgerald, H. L. Mencken,
Steinbeck, and Faulkner) to
distinguish between immature
fend anti-materialism. It is one
thing to yearn for the best of
all possible worlds, and quite
another to shake off the par
ticular climate of materialism
which has been observed in
our culture. It is not striking
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in most of the “rebels” cited
that they had any special con
cern with such a shake-off.
Though I would readily
agree that most men were non
conformists, it was only in the
cases of Thoreau, Whitman and
Mencken that there was any
self-assured intentional drive
to be so. Lewis and Fitzgerald,
on the other hand, were clear
ly driven to belong — to be
accepted by — a social element
they were unsure they deserv
ed to be among; such rebel
liousness as this type exem
plifies is certainly no argument
for emancipated non-conform
ity. And finally, Steinbeck and
Faulkner would seem to be
non-conformists purely by ac
cident, a comforting fact since
non-conformity, taken by it
self, is a nebulous, dubiously
worthwhile end.
Evaluated independently,
these lectures are modestly in
teresting studies. A stand-out
among them is David Daiches’
beautiful treatment of Whit
man. But the goal aimed at by
the collected whole is wildly
missed, a ludicrous illustration
of what happens when an ef
fort is made to force large
complex material to accommo
date the limits of a small cle
ver idea.
PETER CLAVER, by Angel
Valtierra, S.J., Newman, 1960,
328 pp., $4.75.
Reviewed by
Elizabeth Hester
St. Peter Claver was born
of well-to-do peasant stock in
Catalonia, Spain, in 1580. His
early life appears to have been
a steady preparation for the
priesthood. He became a Jesuit
in 1604, and went as a mission
ary to Cartagena in 1610. He
was not ordained a priest un
til 1613: But from 1610 until
four years prior to his death
in 1654 he worked as a mis
sionary to the Negroes who
throughout this period were
being imported in vast num
bers into the Spanish settle
ments in the Colombian area.
Father Claver styled himself
“a slave of the slaves,” and the
copious testimony that he was
Enjoy that
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THE CRITIC, a Catholic review of Books and the I
Arts, The Thomas More Association, 210 West Madison
Street, Chicago 6, $3.50 per year.
Reviewed by Flannery O'Connor
Since its beginning, the magazine of the Thomas
More Association has gone through a series of changes
which, it is to be hoped, parallel the American Catholic’s
attitude toward books and the arts. The magazine began
in 1942 as Books on Trial, a name which reflected the
Catholic preoccupation for grading and judging books in
accordance with their likelihood of dealing blows to the
reader’s Faith. Books on Trial offered eleven possible
verdicts on the books reviewed; the legal atmosphere
was thick. The magazine eventually dropped the verdicts
and then dropped the name. It is now called The Critic, A
Catholic Review of Books and the Arts. There is in the
designation, Catholic Review of Books and the Arts,
the implied assumption that there is a brand of criticism
special to Catholics rather than that any good criticism
will reflect a Catholic view of reality. The ghost of Books
on Trial is hard to lay.
The Critic has in each issue three or four articles on
cultural subjects and about fifty short reviews of current
books, fiction and non-fiction. The articles on music and
the arts are usually better than the articles on literature,
which too frequently are about minor Catholic liturgy
figures, or when about non-Catholic writers tend to show
that these are Catholic in spite of themselves and there
fore acceptable. The reviews of books on social thought,
history and religion are better than the fiction reviews.
Fiction is considered by most Catholic readers to be a
waste of time, and The Critic, which recently began pub
lishing a story or two an issue, has taken a step which
may prove dangerous to its circulation. Already letters
have appeared in the letters column expressing dis
pleasure that this space should be, in effect, wasted.
This may well be true since one feels that the fiction
which the majority of Catholics will put up with will be,
while not commercial fiction, still an innocuous variety
that could as well be done without. The Critic also oc
casionally devotes space to poetry and recently published
a large selection of the verse of living American Catholic
poets. The poetry will probably be tolerated, though not
read, and the fiction read but not tolerated.
The metamorphosis of The Critic, however, is not yet
complete. Beginning in the fall the magazine will publish
nine or ten articles in each issue, there will be fewer
but longer and more thorough reviews, and the subtitle
will be changed from “A Catholic Review of Books and
the Arts” to “A Magazine of Christian Culture.” All
these changes promise a better magazine, one which will
be less parochial and which will lead as well as reflect
the American Catholic’s growing appetite for the arts.
The Critic is well worth the price of a subscription.
literally this is incontroverti
ble.
Father Valtierra, a Colom
bian himself, has written a
conscientiously detailed work
which obviously involved a
great labor in research. He has
made a commendable attempt
to weed out or to discount the
many pious fabrications that
have sprung up in association
with Claver. The form of this
biography is roughly chrono
logical, though after he has
brought Claver to his death,
Valtierra adds a number of
specialized chapters in which
he discusses Claver as a psy
chological type, his personal
relations with others, etc.
Unfortunately, there does not
appear to have been enough
direct information available to
give these discussions the de
cisive clarity Father Valtierra
apparently aimed toward.
There are a number of general
redundancies in the work
which become tedious, but for
those interested particularly
in Peter Claver this will be a
welcome treatment.
STOP PUSHING, Dan Herr,
Hanover House, New York, 192
pp., $3.50.
Reviewed by
Flannery O'Connor
Mr. Dan Herr’s chief talent
is for the pursuit and exposure
of idiotic printed matter. He is
at his best when bringing to
public attention the advertis
ing in the Catholic press (al
though this entails no more
than copying it out word for
word) or when he sets up a
mirror before the lady’s mag
azines, the horror of which is
that it is in no measure a dis
torting mirror. When he con
fines himself to such public
services, Mr. Herr is at least
endurable, sometimes enjoy
able, and always valuable.
Columnists in general, how
ever, and those with preten
sions to humor in particular,
would be well advised to let
the impact of their talents
come to the public in well-
regulated dribbles, to scatter
rather than to collect their
pieces. Embedded in the gen
eral earnestness of The Cri
tic. These columns manage to
thrust themselves forward with
a certain vitriolic verve, which
when collected, by some ob
scure law of accumulation, be
comes bluster. The humorist
cannot allow himself to see
two sides of any question un
less he is a very complicated
humorist. Mr. Herr does not
sport an ounce of complica
tion and he depends for his ef
fects 95% of the time on ex
aggeration alone. While his
opinions are in general sound
—witness his disaffection for
the teen-ager—there is a same
ness about their presentation
that makes it advisable to let
a long period of time elapse
between reading one piece and
the next; anytime from two
months to a year.
LEE'S LAST CAMPAIGN,
by Clifford Dowdey, Little,
Brown & Co., 1960, 415 pp.,
maps, $6.00.
Reviewed by
Msgr. George J. Flanigen
This hook’s subtitle is “The
Story of Lee and his Men
against Grant — 1864” but ac
tually it covers only the six
v/eeks of Lee’s last maneuver
from the Wilderness to Peters
burg, the penultimate struggle
of the Confederacy. But read
ers who expect a heavy, de
tailed, dry-as-dust account of
the military maneuvers will
b e pleasantly disappointed.
Clifford Dowdey, an outstand
ing writer on the Confederacy,
has brought the novelist’s in
terpretive mind to his task
and the volume is an intensely
human, readable story.
With only the ghost of the
once great Army of Northern
Virginia, Lee is caught be
tween the overwhelming might
of the enemy and the crippling
restrictions of his own govern
ment. He was therefore fight
ing a war on two fronts:
Grant before him and Davis
in his rear. For the student of
the Civil War, Lee's Last Cam
paign offers new appraisals
and fresh interpretations; for
the general reader it is a good
introduction to the generals
and other individuals who
composed the fighting force of
the Lost Cause.
APOSTLE IN A TOP HAT,
by James Patrick Derum,
Doubleday, 1960, 240 pp., $3.95.
Reviewed by
Elizabeth Hester
Called by its author a “nov
elized biography,” this book is
about Frederic Ozanam, an up-
perclass Frenchman who
founded the Society of St. Vin
cent de Paul. The son of a
Lyons physician, Ozanam was
a brilliant student who origi
nally went into law, though
when still in his twenties he
abandoned it to become a
Sorbonne professor of literal
ture. The drama of his life lay
in his literary efforts to dispel
the devastating effects of the
Enlightenment on French
Catholic culture, his fight to
give attention to the poor, and,
in the last eight years of his
life (he died when only forty),
his struggle against tubercu
losis. He appears never to have
been affected by any very
great inner tensions, and, un
fortunately for the tempo of
Mr. Derum’s book, even his
objective battles were too mo
notonously successful to pro
vide lively reading. At one
point in his life, his sympathy
for the economic plight of the
lower classes caused him to
range himself on the side of
revolutionists against the
kingship of Louis Philippe. On
this one occasion he stood in
the truly dramatic position of
being an ardent Catholic es
pousing a cause which most
influential French Catholics
regarded as anathema. In the
hands of some writers this one
phase of Ozanam’s life might
easily have been turned into
fine reading, but either Oza
nam’s action was abortive or
Mr. Derum failed badly in see
ing his one opportunity to give
his hero more than puppet sta
ture. The book as a whole is a
dull gray work, badly imped
ed by wooden speeches and
sentiments which, however
good, are wearisomely trite.
THE THEOLOGY OF SAL
VATION, by Maurice Emin-
yan, S.J., Daughters of St.
Paul, 233 pp., cloth $4.00, pa
per, $3.00.
Reviewed by
W. L. Schmidt
Pagans and infidels existed
by the millions before Christ,
and by the hundreds of mil
lions since. They never heard
of the Messiah. Millions even
today have not heard about
Christ. Since Christ died for
the salvation of all men, how
were they, and how are they
now saved not knowing Him?
This question has been probed
by theologians of the Church
for 1900 years.
St. Paul write that, since the
beginning, God’s invisible at
tributes were plainly observ
able through created things.
Based on this, the early fa
thers taught there was no ex
cuse for the loss of anyone’s
soul. Since the time of Christ
it has been taught, too, that
baptism is necessary for sal
vation. Then, what about those
who haven’t been baptized?
Again, teaching came forward
that one can have the desire
for baptism in case of impossi
bility or invincible ignorance.
The past two decades, par
ticularly since the encyclical,
“Mystici Corporis” of Pius
XII, have brought out much lit
erature and discussion on the
subject of salvation among
non-believers, or infidels. Fa
ther Eminyan limits his study
of the problem to the writings
of this period. Rather than
drawing definitive conclus
ions, he presents a synthesis
of the writings by eminent
scholars on the subject.
Of particular interest, and
very relevant to- the subject, is
Father Eminyan’s examina
tion of what happens at the
moment of death. When bodily
function are at their most in
active state, the soul is at that
moment most fee to act. And
it passes with all the free will
it has on all its actions during
life, and freely leaves the
body.
This book is much like the
book of the scientist who com
piles all known facts about a
definite scientific subject. It
is a happy reminder that the
Church also has its spiritual
“scientists” and investigators.
It is constantly seeking an
swers to questions, and grow
ing with knowledge.
The Theology of Salvaiion
is well documented. It is in
teresting and fascinating read
ing. The serious layman and
student of Catholic teachings
and investigatory studies will
find it well worth the effort in
thought required to read it.
Keep your foot off the accel
erator and poised on the brake
pedal as you approach all in
tersections, says the Allstate
Safety Crusade. Being prepar
ed and able to stop will avoid
most accidents.
THE BULLETIN, June 10, 1961—PAGE 7
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