Dear Dennis,

I told you that Blood Meridian was in the back seat of my car and that I feared it.

I had previously been comforted by your assurances that, if, (as I have not done) I did not finish the book Ulysses, by James (yawn) Joyce, I was not, necessarily, a shallow person. And I could not complete that course. Having stumbled through the first half of this scholastically well-rated tome, knowing sentence by sentence that it certainly was a well-worded set of paragraphs, knowing description by description that the worthy author had ably captured the vignettes of a day, knowing that as the Bloom-fanned pages fluttered and flipped, slowly, I should be appreciating it, I simply could not develop a plan to finally capture this Troy of a book. No hollow horse nor trickery could do it. So back on the shelf it has gone.

And as the sun set on that book, The Evening Redness of the West rose. You were correct. I was not, in the least, bored.

Then on the heels of that, I read, too, Hard Times, by Charles Dickens and was impressed by the fact that both of these books carried with them the air of the morality play.


Dickens, never shy in his naming of moral elements, takes us to the edge of Hell's Shaft in contrasting the lights of Sissy Jupe, Rachael, and Stephen Blackpool with the evils of Victorian industrial and utilitarian society. Certainly, the clouds of blackness that hung over the town of Coke were not less thick than those of the dust that rose under the hooves of the Glantons and Comanches of Cormac's meridian, if not as violent.

But I wonder if Cormac really sees his book as a morality play on the subject of violence, with the Judge, the Devil of War, rising from the shaft of an extinct volcano, able to tend bats and dance the naked totentantz.


Saint-Saens certainly developed the essense reflected by the Judge in his Danse Macabre. I was struck by Cormac's ability to present the picture of this group of men so clearly and yet so soul-lessly. I think he was able to make them seem so spiritually dead by refraining from giving us any picture of their inner lives, but only painting their actions and exterior beings. Only the Judge seemed reflective and animated from within, but the glimpses we were given revealed a black hole sucking light into darkness and life into annihilation.

Perhaps it is most fitting that the protaganist of this book, if there is one, the kid, dies a most demeaning death, non-descript and in the "jake". I find it interesting that critics and reviewers speculate about what indescribable violence the Judge must have inflicted upon the kid. Perhaps, they have fallen into the web of violence itself, seeking to create one worst thing, when the author himself was willing to spare us.

So what is the take-away from the morality play that studies violence? We aren't given the message on the kind of silver platter that Dickens would provide for us, with a nudge to the development of sensibilities that preserve the human spirit animated by kindness, generosity, love, and integrity. We aren't spared by C. M. the reality that has and does play out in every war and every willing maker or war. Nor does he urge us with a turn from alternative. Yet, it is the very bleakness, the desert of the heart of this novel, the thirst with which we are left, the nakedness that such imploding characters reveal, that turns us to the other.

Cormac has left his subject unmasked. There is no question for him, of the result of violence.

I am reminded of the words from Ephesians 2. "You were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the judge of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." That is the morality play that Blood Meridian expresses. Like an illumination of a medieval manuscript, this story has revealed the hidden meaning of being dead in transgression. Goodness, it is not a pretty sight.

Betsy

Folks,

• why this book is one that they love or were touched by


• what characteristics make this book great


• what other books might vie for the title of Greatest Novel


• what are the worst books


• who is the greatest novelist


• why I am asking this question


• and so forth

(I do like these discussions.) Here is the list I've collected so far. I will list them in the comments section. Readers, please add your votes.

My personal answer is: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Betsy

P.S. Even if your favorite is already listed, please feel free to list it again. In addition, your comments related to whys and wherefores are very welcome.

Dear Diana Butler Bass,


I heard you speak the other Sunday, but I feel like I've spent the week with you as I've read The People's History of Christianity.


So often, I've looked over my shoulder at the history of Christianity and I snap my gaze around again, quickly, to the future, not because I have great hopes, but because history, as typical history, is such a shame. The chapter titles are so grim and disgraceful. It is not disheartening that Christians were martyred at the point of swords, but that, so often, they held the swords and ran through the hearts of believers and disbelievers alike. It is not that they were thrown ignominiously to the teeth of lions, but that they were lion hearted. It is not that they were raped and plundered, but that they, with the shield of Christendom emblazoned, deflowered women, children, men, and regions in the name of salvation.


So, your book turns me round and lets me look with teeth unclenched and reminds me that, throughout the ages, there was another, truer history of faith that played out alongside the narratives of power and prestige recalled by biographers and annalists with credentials impressed upon an authorized version.

Betsy

Dear W.E.B.,



The 2010 Ellstrom Award for Literature is late in being awarded. It is not that the decision had not been made. It was clear in my mind that this was a stand-out book based on the criteria set up for the award. That is, it is the book that I liked the most and was most deeply affected by during the reading year 2009. However, I stopped posting for longer than I care to think, and you were left waiting.

So, The Quest of the Silver Fleece by W.E.B DuBois is our choice.

This book is now in the public domain, so all of us are welcome to read it online for free. And it is a meaningful read. I believe that you described the overall affect best, yourself in the introductory note.

He who would tell a tale must look toward three ideals: to tell it well, to tell it beautifully, and to tell the truth. The first is the Gift of God, the second is the Vision of Genious, but the third is the Reward of Honesty.

In the Quest of the Silver Fleece there is little, I ween, divine or genious; but, at least, I have been honest. In no fact or picture have I consciously set down aught the counterpart of which I have not seen or known; and whatever the finished picture may lack of completeness, this lack is due now to the story-teller, now to the artist, but never to the herald of the Truth.

And it is so, that you are not a writer of fiction who is fully matured and refined. Your sentences do not leave all of us in awe. Your story has some limits, though I have read far worse that were chosen from the New York Times best seller lists. But I am convinced that you have given us a picture of the angst and dignity of two creative young people, living, and wanting to succeed, in a time and environment that was difficult.

The wholeness of the charaters, Zora and Blessed, is striking. We empathize with their dreams. We feel for their plights. They convince us. And they give us hope. And I suppose, in 1911 when this book was published, you, too, had those hopes.

Your dream lived within you until the day before Martin Luther King spoke the words, "I Have a Dream," but by that time you had left us for Ghana, finding, perhaps, at least for yourself, a better vantage point to see your dreams unfold. Perhaps, were you with us today, you could help our country build a new and better quest for interracial relationships that address the complexities of our lives today.

Thanks for your soul and your words.

Betsy

Dear Book Lovers,

This year my reading goals are going to include a genre of books that are difficult for me--long books. Most of my reading in the past couple of years has been centered on the classics of new and old literature. However, I have always used one qualifier. It can't be too.o.o.o.o long.

This year, I plan to head into that storm of excessive wordiness, letting the howling sentences plash upon the prow of my vessel, setting myself adrift upon the endless roll of interminable ideas and utterances. Simply, I will read some long books. I will also read some others.

Books like Ulysses and War and Peace, even In Search of Lost Time, have long been on my list of "I couldn't get through that" books. Maybe, after this year, that list will have diminished. So far, I'm halfway through my first. I might even try to dabble in The Eight Dog Chronicles, though I don't think I want to commit the next 30 years of my life to them!

Books

The Public Domain by Stephen Fishmen
Complete Copyright: An Everyday Guide for Librarians by Carrie Russell
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
American Mind Part I by Allen Guelzo
Ulysses by James Joyce--first 1/2 and I'm taking a break!