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Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 6, 2017 14:25:30 GMT
A couple of my work friends were talking about Donna Tartt today. I've never read her, but I looked her up on the internet and was surprised to see she is a Catholic. Anybody read her?
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Post by assisi on Oct 6, 2017 19:03:03 GMT
A couple of my work friends were talking about Donna Tartt today. I've never read her, but I looked her up on the internet and was surprised to see she is a Catholic. Anybody read her? I've read her most recent novel 'The Goldfinch', but at 600 or so pages it is a long read and, in my opinion, could have been shortened by at least a hundred pages. It is a good enough read and its themes cover the usual modern American 'big' novel, drugs, fragmented and weird families, friendship and, in this case, the Art world. If you fancy reading one of her novels 'The Secret History' is a good page turner and half the size of 'The Goldfinch'. I didn't find any discernable Catholic element in 'The Goldfinch'. If it is there it is well hidden. |
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Post by assisi on Jun 7, 2019 13:37:05 GMT
I find it interesting that a fair few of the conservative writers and commentators that I admire and listen to often have a foundational idea or theme at the core of their work. This seems to give them a certainty and confidence when expressing their views. Sometimes this foundational idea is a recurring theme in their writings, or an epiphany when the final piece of their jigsaw fits in place.
For example GK Chesterton seems to be entranced by the idea of wonder, the world as a place of simplicity yet magical and awe inspiring. Desmond Fennell on the other hand had a type of epiphany where he realised that the starting point for the emerging culture we now witness in the West started when the U.S. dropped the atom bombs in Japan and left behind the Christian European ideal for the liberal consumerist ideal.
Jordan Peterson’s refers constantly to the notion that life is difficult and suffering is never far away. He is keen on the idea of order (logos) to help people cope with life. E. Michael Jones, another commentator who is currently undergoing a bit of a rebirth on the internet, refers to ‘logos’, the word of God, the order of God in the universe, as the central point for a proper life.
It makes me think that some of the best writers, those that have real conviction in the way they communicate and what they see, may have a big idea, often simple, at the heart of their work. Does anyone see this with other writers?
It is also interesting that these ‘foundational’ ideas that I see, can sometimes have a common theme. The idea of Logos seems to be coming to the fore. The idea of ‘wonder’ and ‘awe’ is also found in other writers works I have come across but can’t remember off hand.
I’m not just talking about all recurring themes that one finds in a writer’s work. I’m thinking more of the idea of an epiphany as a launching pad for their work or a foundational idea that inhabits the spirit of their work.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 7, 2019 14:06:18 GMT
I find it interesting that a fair few of the conservative writers and commentators that I admire and listen to often have a foundational idea or theme at the core of their work. This seems to give them a certainty and confidence when expressing their views. Sometimes this foundational idea is a recurring theme in their writings, or an epiphany when the final piece of their jigsaw fits in place. For example GK Chesterton seems to be entranced by the idea of wonder, the world as a place of simplicity yet magical and awe inspiring. Desmond Fennell on the other hand had a type of epiphany where he realised that the starting point for the emerging culture we now witness in the West started when the U.S. dropped the atom bombs in Japan and left behind the Christian European ideal for the liberal consumerist ideal. Jordan Peterson’s refers constantly to the notion that life is difficult and suffering is never far away. He is keen on the idea of order (logos) to help people cope with life. E. Michael Jones, another commentator who is currently undergoing a bit of a rebirth on the internet, refers to ‘logos’, the word of God, the order of God in the universe, as the central point for a proper life. It makes me think that some of the best writers, those that have real conviction in the way they communicate and what they see, may have a big idea, often simple, at the heart of their work. Does anyone see this with other writers? It is also interesting that these ‘foundational’ ideas that I see, can sometimes have a common theme. The idea of Logos seems to be coming to the fore. The idea of ‘wonder’ and ‘awe’ is also found in other writers works I have come across but can’t remember off hand. I’m not just talking about all recurring themes that one finds in a writer’s work. I’m thinking more of the idea of an epiphany as a launching pad for their work or a foundational idea that inhabits the spirit of their work. I think this is a very profound observation. Chesterton in his Autobiography has written on the dangers of being consumed by a single idea: If I had wandered away like Bergson or Bernard Shaw, and made up my own philosophy out of my own precious fragment of truth, merely because I had found it for myself, I should soon have found that truth distorting itself into a falsehood. Even in this one case, there are two ways in which it might have turned on me and rent me. One would have been by encouraging the delusion to which I was most prone; and the other by excusing the falsehood which I thought most inexcusable. First, the very exaggeration of the sense that daylight and dandelions and all early experience are a sort of incredible vision would, if unbalanced by other truths, have become in my case very unbalanced indeed. For that notion of seeing a vision was dangerously near to my old original natural nightmare, which had led me to move about as if I were in a dream; and at one time to lose the sense of reality and with it much of the sense of responsibility. And again, on the side of responsibility, in the more practical and ethical sphere, it might have forced on me a sort of political Quietism, to which I was really as much of a conscientious objector as to Quakerism. For what could I have said, if some tyrant had twisted this idea of transcendental contentment into an excuse for tyranny? Suppose he had quoted at me my verses about the all-sufficiency of elementary existence and the green vision of life, had used them to prove that the poor should be content with anything, and had said, like the old oppressor, "Let them eat grass."
In a word, I had the humble purpose of not being a maniac, but especially of not being a monomaniac; and above all, of not being a monomaniac about a notion merely because it was my own.However, I'm not saying that having one foundational idea or epiphany means that you can't also have balance. |
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