Friday Links
January 13, 2023
Feast of St. Hilary of Poitiers
Joshua Hren reviews Cormac McCarthy’s two new novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris
Josh Nadeau on the Makers & Mystics podcast
Sarah Cortez interviews Phil Klay
Jenn Frey and Dana Gioia discuss Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal
A new play from J.C. Scharl
Joshua Hren reviews Cormac McCarthy’s two new novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris
It’s been 16 years since Cormac McCarthy’s last novel, The Road, came out. For our patience, he’s given us two novels at once. Joshua Hren reviews both at Englewood Review of Books. These novels, as Hren writes, “reframe the final frontier of the “Western” genre as manifest interiority rather than Manifest Destiny.” The father of the novels’ protagonists, Alicia and Bobby Western, was a nuclear physicist who worked with Oppenheimer. Alicia and Bobby live their damaged lives in the aftermath of the destruction wrought by their father’s work. “So much of what McCarthy has given us,” Hren notes, “reads like a dramatic dialogue between the tragedy of Athens and the cross of Jerusalem, but the “desolate emptiness” of formlessness asserts itself over any “Spirit of God . . . hovering over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).”
"Beauty will take you back to the source" Josh Nadeau on the Makers & Mystics podcast
In this episode of the Makers & Mystics podcast, Josh Nadeau and Stephen Roach discuss the role of suffering in our lives and in the creative process. Josh shares the story of the intense suffering he endured this past summer. In that experience, Josh found Christ there with him in the suffering and “darkness and terror” of that illness. Josh and Stephen go on to talk about the artistic process, faith, and embodiment (and so much more). "If I am what I do,” says Josh, “that has to find a source.” It’s a really beautiful conversation. I hope you enjoy it.
Sarah Cortez speaks with Phil Klay BXVI Institute
Over at the Benedict XVI Institute’s Catholic Arts Today, Sarah Cortez interviews Phil Klay about his vision as an artist, the role his Catholic faith plays in his writing, Andre Dubus, and more. Klay’s fiction does not shy away from human ugliness and sin, from the mess we often make of our lives, but he goes deeper than that sin and ugliness to explore the fullness of our humanity. It “was not a set of intellectual propositions, but rather more of a sense that a world view that is informed by Catholic sensibility is richer and truer to the beauty of reality and to real evil” that drew Klay back to the faith. This sensibility, this depth of vision, is what makes his work so compelling. Please do read this thoughtful interview.
Jennifer Frey and Dana Gioia in conversation about Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal.
Jenn Frey brought her fantastic Sacred and Profane Love Podcast to the 2022 Catholic Imagination Conference at the University of Dallas this past fall for a conversation with Dana Gioia (a national treasure, as Jenn says) to discuss Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, or The Flowers of Evil. Gioia and Frey “tackle some big questions in this episode, such as whether and how evil can be beautiful, the nature of Catholic art and poetry, original sin, and the poet as a damned figure.” Frey’s podcast is always worth listening to, but this episode was especially interesting. Please give it a listen. And here’s some bonus content: Nick Ripatrazone has a new must-read poetry quarterly column at The Millions. Apparently, the recent NYT’s obituary lamenting the death of poetry was premature and, Deo gratias, poetry is still alive, which is great news for us poets. In this column, Ripatrazone recommends some of the best new poetry collections, including Dana Gioia’s latest, Meet Me at the Lighthouse.
A new play from J.C. Scharl
J.C. Scharl has a new play, Sonnez Les Matines. The action takes place on Mardi Gras night in 1520s Paris, when “college students Jean Calvin (founder of Calvinism and autocratic ruler of Geneva), Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Counter-Reformation Catholic religious order, the Jesuits), and their bawdy friend Francois Rabelais (the humanist novelist) find themselves mixed up in a gruesome murder—and any one of them might be guilty. The ensuing investigation sparks a battle of wits and weapons, plunging them into questions of justice and mercy, grace and sin, innocence, guilt, love, and contempt. Before the bells ring in the start of Lent, they must confront the darkest parts of their souls and find the courage to pursue truth in a world that seems intent on obscuring it.” This wonderful play will premiere in NYC on Feb 21. Copies are available for pre-order from Wiseblood Books.
