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Briefly Noted

From the February 2020 Print Edition

In 1901, Rev. Maltbie Babcock wrote in a well-known hymn that God “shines in all that’s fair.” Like Calvin, Edwards, and Babcock before her, Marilynne Robinson presents in her writings a world suffused with theological significance. Robinson is known primarily as a novelist, but anyone who has . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

From the May 2019 Print Edition

A Field Guide to the English Clergy:  A Compendium of Diverse Eccentrics, Pirates, Prelates and Adventurers; All Anglican, Some Even Practising by fergus butler-gallie oneworld, 192 pages, $20 Ah, the holy fool. Though we often associate such characters with the great tomes of Russian . . . . Continue Reading »

An Irish Dante

From the March 2019 Print Edition

The Five Quintets by micheal o’siadhail baylor, 381 pages, $34.95 Sartre famously wrote that “hell is other people,” but for the poet Micheal O’Siadhail, hell is a highly specific group of other people. Among the damned are Franz Kafka, Karl Marx, and—you guessed it—a certain . . . . Continue Reading »