Friday Links
Artwork from Gina DiGiovanni, wife of poet Alfred Nicol.
“Arraignments” by A.M. Juster
Paul Kingsnorth: “Against Christian Civilization”
Tyson Duffy on Reclaiming Ted Hughes
Book gifts for kids for this Christmas season from Dixie Dillon Lane
‘Bonhoeffer’ Bears Little Resemblance to Reality
Mark Bauerlein: Science Says God is Real
The Really Real and the Liturgy
“Arraignments” by A. M. Juster
A new poem from A.M. Juster in National Review. Here’s the first stanza:
Men stand before the magistrates,
so dressed by lawyers they could pass
for actuaries out on dates.
Paul Kingsnorth: “Against Christian Civilization”
“We will only get back any culture worth having if we tune those radio dials to humility . . . The work isn’t to defend the West. The work is repentance, which means transformation . . .”
Tyson Duffy on Reclaiming Ted Hughes
Before preparing this essay, I began where many Americans seem hesitant to tread: with the poetry. I read and reread every poem I could find by Ted Hughes, as well as the slender oeuvre of Sylvia Plath, taking notes and contemplating both deeply. I recommend the experience. The two are so utterly brilliant, and so different, that imbibing their work together delivers a kind of psychic blow, breaking open a tectonic fault in the soul in the shape of the rupture that must have attended their harrowing romance. He, the manly midland mystic with his animist longings and strange bloodstained verse; she, the sturdy Cape Cod rhapsodist with her alluring shouts of aesthetic terror. What a thing it is when geniuses collide.
Book gifts for kids for this Christmas season from Dixie Dillon Lane
Here’s a thoughtful book giving guide for the kids in your life:
In case you are looking for books to give to the kids in your life sometime soon, whether for Christmas or St. Nick’s or just because, here are some recommendations of books that kids really seem to love. Some of these are the right size to be shoved into stockings, and others can be leaned up against shoes on December 6 or can be wrapped and put under the tree—or you might ship them off to faraway friends or relatives via reindeer (or USPS). I’ve tried not to repeat recommendations that I’ve made at the Arena before, and I’ve also done my best to leave out obvious choices. Enjoy!
‘Bonhoeffer’ Bears Little Resemblance to Reality
Well, this is disappointing, if accurate:
This is the trap into which the new film Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. falls. In the latest offering from Angel Studios, the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an empty container into which our own desires—in this case, desires for a faith that serves political ends—are poured.
Mark Bauerlein: Science Says God is Real
The latest installment of First Things magazine’s interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein. José Carlos González-Hurtado, joins in to discuss his new book, New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God.
The Really Real and the Liturgy
David Fagelberg considers Catholic education:
I admit these are also true descriptions of education, but for now I am going to entertain the hypothesis that behind all these other goals is the question “what is real?” Education is a bridge between the world and the mind, and what is real in the world traverses that bridge to the mind. I remember a time when this bridge had significant traffic. It was during a stage when our children were young, and a stage probably common to most other children. Our kids could not get enough about animals then. They were fascinated with knowing about animals. For a year, it seemed, my wife and I did not read about Jack and his Beanstalk, or about Lowly Worm’s adventures in Busytown, but from a two-volume children’s encyclopedia about mammals.
