Book Reviews
“Abbé Pierre”, by Jay William Hudson, is altogether a delightful and charming book. It may not be called very subtle, nor humorous, nor dramatic, nor sordid—qualities which most modern novels seem to imbibe; but that it is delightful and charming no one may deny.
In one respect the book is a picture of a Gascon village—its customs and its traditions, its thoughts and its dreams. These walks with Abbé Pierre along the dusty roads of Gascony, these glimpses of its hills and valleys, these insights into its daily life are most interesting and picturesque. Furthermore, such a background is ideal for the unfolding of the romance of Germaine Sance and the young American, David Ware.
In another respect the book is a picture of life viewed broadly and sympathetically. Abbé Pierre left his little Gascon village when he was quite young; he has given the best of his years and strength to the world; and now he returns to spend his last days in this place that he loves above all else. Here he sits in his garden house and writes down some thoughts and ideas about life born of many years of living. And these thoughts of his give the book, along with its beauty of description, its beauty of spirit.
I wish that all of us who aimlessly rush about this world with no time to read anything but an “exciting” novel would pause and read this book. I suppose my wish is ludicrous, for does not Abbé Pierre himself say that “Americans always seem to think that unless one is bustling about all the time one is doing nothing”? And then he immediately adds: “Some of the best deeds that I have ever done have been the thoughts I have lived through in this same old garden by the white road, where wooden shoes go up and down”. He who can appreciate such a philosophy will read “Abbé Pierre” with much interest and delight.
W. E. H., JR.
We are all, being students, in a period when our opinions are forming rapidly according to our characters and interests. For those who feel that a religious philosophy is an essential basis from which other values must be derived, or for those whose religion is an untouched field of inherited beliefs and inhibitions, the time and the subject-matter of “Confessions of an Old Priest” are ripe. The Rev. Mr. McConnell remains in the end as devout a Christian as he was fifty years ago, when he entered the Church convinced that “it owed its origin to Jesus Christ, and that He was the unique Son of God”. But he is no longer a worshipper of Jesus; he has taken the very cornerstone out of Christian doctrine and cast it away—and the edifice still shelters him as efficaciously as before.
The volume is devoted to his explanation of this paradox: how he finds himself a faithful Christian still, while the result of his historical research has disproved for him the divinity of Jesus. For Jesus, he declares, was not the original Christ;Christus, a Greek word, was applied to the heroes of a number of Mystery religions during the century before the obscure Hebrew province of Gallilee had any intimations that the “Messiah” was born.
And the most startling attack upon traditional dogma is his analysis of “the trouble with Christianity”. “It is,” he says, “not an unworthy Christianity, but an unworthy Christ.” When the reader has swallowed hard for a moment over that declaration, he reads on to discover what this astounding pastor means, and finds a wealth of plausible argument to support his extravagance of phrase. Jesus himself preached a “workless” doctrine, a “toil not, nor spin” existence, a “turn the other cheek” attitude, and it is his biographers, together with such followers as Paul, who have incorporated Him into the practical philosophy and morality of the Church, to make Him the greatest exemplar in history of life as it should be lived. Jesus, and “Christlike” people are delightful, adorable characters, according to this book, but they are a care to the community, and should their ethics be generally adopted, civilization would go immediately more or less to smash.
The Rev. Mr. McConnell’s conclusions are so wholesale and so radical that I am not sure we can all accept them without commentor refutation. I cannot agree with his method of discriminating between true history and apostolic imagination in the “synoptic” gospels. But I do think every Christian should read this work as a test for his present beliefs and an introduction to new areas of religious thought. And it is quite possible that here is the way to a new religion and a satisfactory one in this time of restlessness and agnosticism.
D. G. C.
After reading Mr. G. K. Chesterton’s account of his recent travels in this country, we recalled to mind a certain cartoon which appeared some time ago in a London periodical, which depicted the author as an immense Zeppelin floating over the city. From his mouth came great clouds of vapor and below were written the words: “G. K. C. spreading paradoxygen over London”. A similar caricature might be made in the present instance, for the gentleman in question has, in this book, tinged his treatment of America and American life with a shade of paradox.
It would seem to us as if this most interesting and penetrating series of essays should prove to be of greater interest to American than to English readers. Mr. Chesterton came, saw, and pondered, and the results of his meditations are a series of enlightening essays dealing with everything in America and American life from a discussion of what America is, and what manner of men Americans are, to Prohibition and the Irish question.
The author never comments on any subject as you would expect him to. His impressions of the material and the abstract, of which we have formed no very definite opinion because of what might be called that contempt bred of familiarity, come to us as truths which are as worthy of our consideration as they merit the laughter of the foreigner.
When he tells you that he is not sure that the outcome of the Civil War may not have been for the best and that he believes that Walt Whitman was the greatest American poet, you may be inclined to disagree, but you will be forced to admit that, as he himself would say, his reasons are reasonable. Nor does thisEnglishman spare his own country in many of his comparisons. The book is not one to be read through in a sitting; it is something to be picked up and read one part at a time. There is none of the parts but will bear a second and even a third reading, for many of its truths are buried deep. It is a text-book in the art of the appreciation of foreign lands, and its teachings, if followed, would bring more lasting harmony among all peoples than the League of Nations it condemns.
M. T.
Mr. Lawrence is undoubtedly the most consistent of the so-called moderns on either side of the Atlantic. His novels, thus far, have set an average standard far above that of his closest rival, Mr. James Joyce. Mr. Lawrence’s books are always readable; Mr. Joyce’s, seldom, but they both have gifts of sincerity and mental acuteness which lift them from the ruck of the ordinary incomprehensible. Their pungent observations on types, existing conditions, and each other, are amusing to say the least.
We have heard Mr. Lawrence’s name bandied promiscuously about as a realist. Nothing could be less real than “Aaron’s Rod”. The action and dialogue never took place on this earth, nor does it seem probable that they ever will. There is an odd, pervasive sense of violence saturating this novel. The Great War has evidently left its stamp on the intellects of these younger British geniuses, for their work has a tense, strained quality which is disquieting in the extreme. The characters of “Aaron’s Rod” move ceaselessly back and forth like a scurrying body of ants; they jabber in a rather inhuman way about love, socialism, Italian scenery, and Christmas trees.
There is no action, no story to speak of: A coal miner runs off to London, thence to Italy, from one of the larger Midland towns, for no reason whatsoever except that his wife is fond of him. Persons appear on Mr. Lawrence’s stage, speak their lines, and hurry off again, no one seems to know whither. Nevertheless, these characters are interesting by virtue of Mr. Lawrence’s positive genius for purely physical portraiture. Josephine, Aaron Sisson’s first incidental “amoureuse”, is particularly well done,from a pictorial standpoint. Scarcely a page is given to her, yet she leaves an impression on our minds far more lasting than that of Aaron himself. Pains have been taken with Lady Franks in the same way; it seems as if Mr. Lawrence loses interest in his major characters. He must be on to pastures new.
“Aaron’s Rod” can scarcely be called a “good” novel. It contains many advanced ideas in the field of sociology which we found rather difficult to agree with. However, the world may in time grow up to Mr. Lawrence and until then we should seize the opportunity of reading his descriptions of luxurious interiors, and the Alps. They are remarkably able bits of writing.
Mr. Lawrence is an important novelist now, but it is in his power to do much better things than he has done so far. If he would lessen his tone of violent indignation, if he would tincture his spiritual realism a little less with impure physical realism, he might be considered one of the great novelists of our time. As it is, his achievement in “Aaron’s Rod” is remarkable in that he has stripped off everything unnecessary, merely giving us the essentials on just about every topic known as a “world problem”. However, we should prefer the doses one at a time; all at once they seem a rather large gulp.
G. L. G.