Catholicism Before and After 1963

by Gerald J. Russello

In trying to understand the extraordinary changes the Catholic Church underwent in the middle of the twentieth century, I recently came across two illuminating novels. Continue Reading »

19 Jan 2015

Get Ready for a “Quantitative Approach” to Reading

by Josh Mayo

At Stanford, literary scholar and marxist critic Franco Moretti proposes a radical plan for English departments: less reading, more computing. With an ocean of texts yet to be studied, literary-historians must, Moretti argues, adopt the methods of quantitative history, geography, and evolutionary theory. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History (2005) frames the problem in layman’s terms: The whole canon of the nineteenth century British novel—about two hundred titles, Moretti estimates— Continue Reading »

5 Jan 2015

A Witness, in Life and Letters

by William Doino Jr.

Born in Britain in 1923, and educated at Eton and Oxford, Philip Trower is a Catholic writer of notable achievement. This alone merits attention—as there is much talk about the relative dearth of Catholic authors today—but Trower’s life and work offer something more, as they speak to questions that are being asked within the Church today. Continue Reading »

15 Dec 2014

William Giraldi and Civilization’s Unraveling

by J. L. Wall

William Giraldi’s Hold the Dark, its jacket copy proclaims, is “an Alaskan Oresteia.” The comparison is perfectly calibrated to grab and hold this failed Classicist’s attention, and I found myself puzzling over it as I read. Soldiers come home from war, Continue Reading »

17 Nov 2014

The Enemies, and Friends, of the Humanities

by Mark Bauerlein

A funny thing happened when Michael Novak brought Herbert Marcuse to lecture to his students. It was the early-1970s when campus rebellion had entered its darker phase, and Marcuse was an idol of the Movement. His theory of “repressive tolerance” served as an essential touchstone for protest, and his volatile mix of Marx and Freud seemed an edgy, relevant style of intellectualized activism. Continue Reading »

21 Aug 2014

Literature Makes You Empathetic, But For How Long?

by David Mills

Reading good literature will make you better in dealing with people, according to a new study published in Science. The study found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social . . . . Continue Reading »

14 Oct 2013

Faith in Fiction

by Randy Boyagoda

I’m sick of Flannery O’Connor. I’m also sick of Walker Percy, G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Dostoevsky. Actually, I’m sick of hearing about them from religiously minded readers. These tend to be the only authors that come up when I . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 2013

Serious Summer Reading Recommendations

by R. R. Reno

Spenser’s Faerie Queene and James’ Golden Bowl as summer reading? I can hear my wife groaning and commenting that these recommendations amount to the intellectual equivalent of my usual vacation plans, which often involve climbing remote mountains and going on hundred mile bike rides. Continue Reading »

14 Jul 2013

David Foster Wallace to the Rescue

by James K. A. Smith

Let’s not speak of suicide. Let’s not encourage the cottage industry bent on reducing David Foster Wallace to a literary Kurt Cobain, a romance of self-demise. This is a significant temptation for any posthumous reading of Wallace, whose writing is populated by suicides and addicts and clients . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Mar 2013

What Are the Best Books about Heaven?

by Carl Scott

Excepting of course, The Book. I ask this question jumping off of Paul’ comment in the thread below. I’ve always been a doubt-bedeviled Christian, and whereas when I was younger it was the multiple issues raised by predestination and hell that caused me the most concern, the older I get . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Nov 2012