Nuance and the Invisible Bandolier: Spy Novels

Recently, Elinor Dashwood discussed "bodice rippers," a type of fantasy fiction for women, and "bandolier rippers," a term she coined to describe W.E.B. Griffin's novels of derring-do for men.

I've never read any bodice rippers (also called "romances") because (1) my mother wouldn't allow them in the house and (2) I learned intuitively that English majors don't waste their time and self-respect reading them. I have read some supermarket murder mysteries that may have come close, but they were pretty forgetable.

BUT as reading material where you might find things out while you're having fun, the Griffin books, mentioned as favorites of Cacciaguida, aren't bad. In addition to tales of lead characters who continue having U.S. Marine adventures from novel to novel, Griffin's oeuvre includes adventures of members of the Philadelphia police department and a series that takes place in England during World War II.

I got into the Griffin mode one recent summer, after I received a packet of letters my father had written from the European Theatre front before he died in action during the cleanup surrounding the crossing of the Rhine River in March 1945. (That summer and since I have read everything I can get hold of about The War, fiction and nonfiction, as well as novels and historical accounts of the Cold War (often referred to as World War III).

I have a recommendation for all of you who like good writing, well-drawn characters, and an adventure to keep you from turning on the tv--or getting to the store--or getting to bed--or booting up the computer. Len Deighton's Bernard Samson series about Berlin will remind you of a more accessible LeCarre. He takes you from Berlin to London and back by putting you there through the eyes of the characters, and I like that. The series begins with Berlin Game and ends with Charity, and God is there--mostly in the bleakness of His absence--for those who choose to search. It's very British. Deighton was still writing great stuff in the early '90s, but I haven't seen anything for the last several years. Another espionage/sabotage series is by Alan Furst, an American whose work is compared to that of Graham Greene. Furst gives words to the horrors of a slow-moving tidal wave of evil.

Sometimes we need some frightening fiction that resolves itself between the covers of a book to serve as a respite from the real-world terrors and sadnesses that only faith can give meaning to and hope can keep the human spirit from giving in to despair about. Love, courage, sacrifice, and a sense of humor can appear unexpectedly in good spy stuff to bring God into fiction whether the author intends it or not.

At the Beginning of 2005, Part III

We have a new bishop, Auxiliary Bishop Jerome E. Listecki of Chicago, for the La Crosse diocese. Hope he's a proactive good guy, although Sacred Heart-St. Patrick's seems to be doing pretty well with a pastor who often gives (as my daughter calls them) courageous homilies to us poor slugs in the pews. Forty years ago did anyone have to call homilies courageous? Dull, maybe, but courageous? Maybe Eau Claire will get an indult--or at least encouragement to use Latin and Gregorian Chant in the Novus Ordo masses. Altoona (to Eau Claire as Saint Paul is to Minneapolis and Ypsilanti is to Ann Arbor) has a Tridentine Mass every Sunday but I haven't had a chance to attend. Midnight Mass alerted me to the fact that mass-goers can handle good music.

Eau Claire also has a local network affiliation with Relevant Radio (the orthodox Catholic network) to offset, and pretty well, a couple of NPR formats (talk and music/talk), the talk show formats that range from early morning liberal talk/rant to late morning-afternoon conservative talk/rant to evening sports rant. (And rock/country, not that there's anything wrong with that.) What else is going on in Eau Claire? A methamphetamine problem that's getting a lot of air time. Breakins, where families are held at gunpoint, have come to the hinterlands. Also gangs coming up from Chicago and over from the Twin Cities are recruiting some of the local kids. Drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll in Eau Claire. God help your people.

What does western Wisconsin have? At the moment not a lot of snow, but a lot of tabloid-redneck-bigotry in the face of one heinous crime by one man (a Laotian/Hmong) refugee who trespassed on private land to shoot deer and allegedly shot eight hunters who accosted him, killing six of them. He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial, his fellow refugees in this area are being threatened by relatives and friends of the victims. It's a mess. Also, but I know very little about it, is the mystery of a parish priest found hanged up north and the murdered funeral home operators he was acquainted with. God have mercy on those who have died in terrible circumstances right here in the middle of the Upper Midwest.

At the Beginning of 2005, Part II

(If you've read Part I, you'll know I'm in flyover country.) I leave South Dakota with a question: Who will replace Bishop Carlson, and when?

On to Minnesota (mostly the Twin Cities). If possible, catch the syndicated radio show originating on KSTP radio, am 1500 in St. Paul, 3 to 6, M-F. It pretty much tells it like it is and should be--day to day in the Twin Cities, the state, and elsewhere--but it's not your everyday talk show, it's just too funny. There's a hint of the point of view of the Saint Paul cradle catholic contingent, sometimes conservative, sometimes not. The premise of the show appears kind of weird, so give it a chance for a week or two. It'll grow on you. The website is linked in the title here, if you'd like more information. Minnesota is a state of extremes--from the worship of Garrison Keillor, the late Paul Wellstone, and the Cathedral for its architecture, to the activities of the faithful who fill St. Agnes church every Sunday. The archbishop is a controversial figure in an area of gay-friendly parishes that sometimes send groups of rainbow sash wearers to the cathedral. "The Cities," located way up there in flyover country, is trying so hard to be taken-for-granted as sophisticated and cosmopolitan. They've put in a monorail, they've got Mall of America, and the jazz is great. Sponsored immigrants from Laos (the Hmong) are looked on with suspicion as they settle in by people who haven't had a lot of real challenges to overcome. (Part III is Wisconsin. Stay tuned.)

At the Beginning of 2005, Part I

With apologies to Gen X Revert and with the caveat that I read and surf a lot but my lack of a car (x!!//@@##) prevents a lot of face-to-face, facing down, in-your-face experience (like my "nice lady" personality would lend itself to such adventure):

CHURCH

The Pope continues to frustrate the heterodox by living on and to inspire the faithful by living on. Most of what originates in Rome still has a hard time getting across the ocean, past the bishops, past the priests, and into the ways in which laypeople are Catholic; forty years of this is getting a little old. With exceptions in a few dioceses, vocations and church attendance are in freefall. It appears that the majority of bishops are actively or passively obstructionist. Some are sold on modernity or rationalization of their own or others' weakness; some suffer a kind of old-boys network malaise and go alone to get along. Some are not deliberately obstructionist: they're simply trying to avoid media attention as they do their best to keep their priests and parishioners faithful and their dioceses solvent. A courageous minority of bishops--some of whom had their mettle tested when they were forced into the spotlight--continue to face the challenges of teaching God's will to badly catechized priests and laity who "respectfully disagree" with hard truths. Believers, including faithful Catholics, became activists in overcoming the ambitions of a death culture Catholic who would be President. We really ducked one there! Now we get to watch Bush. It wasn't much of a choice, but if it saves one helpless life and saves marriage, it was the right one.

FLYOVER COUNTRY

As negative, so-so, and positive things happen worldwide, so they happen around here. First, to the west: Tom Daschle "respectfully disagreed" with Bishop Carlson of the Sioux Falls diocese about the destruction of human life and lost his senate seat and leadership to Republican prolifer John Thune. Don't know the extent of a causal factor here; Daschle had a lot of additional campaign problems. Bishop Carlson, a no-nonsense man when it comes to moral and liturgical heterodoxy (and more, I'm sure, but these are the ones I know about) promptly got reassigned to the Saginaw, Michigan diocese where in-your-face silliness and scandal will test his sense of humor big time.

---Better continue this in the next post. Think I may have run out of room (snork)

Bishop Carlson's Challenge

Check out Dale Price's blog for an extensive look at the Saginaw diocese as it lunges along right now. I have a special interest in liturgy, and Dale's post held a horrid fascination, sentence after sentence. The good bishop needs our prayers.

January Crisis and My Beloved Alma Mater

The latest Crisis arrived a few days ago. (Main article is on the horrors of embryonic stem-cell research--and on promising and life-affirming adult stem-cell work.) Another article, not yet online, is "Class Clowns: Catholic Colleges and the Political Left." There it was, a paragraph on the College of St. Catherine:

On October 21, Artists for Kerry hosted a fundraising event at the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota. Event organizers said it was meant to "inspire and mobilize Minnesotans to get out the vote on November 2 and elect John Kerry president."

I keep thinking maybe St. Kate's, despite their dancing nuns in Birkenstocks waving streamers as they pirouette up the aisle of Our Lady of Victory chapel, is ultimately faithful to the Magisterium. Guess not. They keep sending fundraising letters and brochures--the most recent with a "personal note" from an old classmate/friend inviting me to an alumnae anniversary do in June. . .written with electronic pen. Sick.

Two Essays You Might Even Want to Pay For

David Brooks' first annual "Hookie Awards" were presented on Christmas Day in the New York Times. These are notable and provocative essays from many 2004 sources, and they now languish in the Times archives where it'll cost you if you want to read them.

Two (at least) might be worth it to you: I liked especially something called "The Other Sixties" by Bruce Bawer, which appeared originally in The Wilson Quarterly. Someone I ran across on the net (sorry, I don't remember who or exactly when) called the essay an overrated view of the "pragmatic" early 1960s, but for anyone who lived through the era, it brings up a number of forgotten memories and offers intriguing threads, causal, coincidental, or chronological, to the later 60s and early 70s, as well as comparisons to the culture we're blessed with/stuck with at this point.

The other essay is titled, "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win," by Norman Podhoretz in Commentary. It's thorough, thoughtful, and troubling.

My apologies for putting things off until after the Brooks article was archived--with no real excuse. (Amy Welborn managed a timely post on the "Hookies" as she held her new baby on her lap; I just checked back and the link is now archived there, too. Well anyway.)

Happy Epiphany, Part Two

My son was on the road by 6:30 a.m. for the drive back to Ann Arbor on December 26. After Mass I returned to an empty apartment except for a few cookies and pieces of fudge--and the unspeakable horror of earthquake-tsunami, which through today has become ever more terrible with the inevitability of miraculous survival and great sadness. Interaction.org (linked in the title) has a list of trustworthy charities, including Catholic Relief Services, if you want to contribute and haven't yet.

The Magi have arrived with their gifts, the tree has come down, and the gew-gaws have been put away. Onward, with eyes wide open and chin jutted out, to the rest of the Cradle Catholic holiday season (through Superbowl Sunday) and the adventures of 2005. Little by little the sun, hidden or not, warms us more each day.