Bibliography
Dec. 22nd, 2009 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyIn The Company of the Courtesan – Sarah Dunant
I said I'd probably get into some more Sarah Dunant after Sacred Hearts, and lo, here I am. I have to say that I wasn't entirely convinced by the premise initially - the novel is narrated by a dwarf who lives with a courtesan in Rome who is forced by circumstances to swiftly relocate to Venice, and as such, the narrative voice takes a while to find its feet. I hate to admit it, but after reading Sacred Hearts, it also took me rather a long time to get my head around the fact that Dunant can write as a male character, which is a Really Odd Thing to say, but I can't do anything about it.
That said, again, this just got devoured very quickly. The historical details are rather more grisly than in the other book, which is hardly surprising - there's a certain element of risk and danger to being in the sex trade, not least of which is moral disapproval of invading puritanical armies. There was a certain difference in the portrayal of Venice as a city which I found interesting - having seen a couple of films about courtesans in Venice which have played up the image of the sexually loose city, to have it presented as somewhere that tries to present an ultra-straight-laced image but still rolicks away was interestingly cognitively dissonant.
The characters were fun too, and well written again, although the love story plot looked for one awful moment like it was going to wobble and fall over into schmaltz - but it resisted and got sensible again. There's a lot of that, actually, in this novel as a theme - the idea of walking a fine line, balancing on the tightrope, just trying not to fall off. So when the characters eventually do fall off, it comes as a real surprise because you didn't see it coming.
Again, I hold to what I said about the last one - it's well written and enjoyable, and I'm perfectly happy to have spent time with this calibre of historical fiction. I suspect the one problem with it is that it is trying to do a rather hackneyed subject (the Venetian courtesan) from a new angle, and it can't quite escape from some of the baggage surrounding that topic that, for instance, nuns in convents in Ferrara don't have.
The Wounded Healer - Henri Nouwen
Oh boy. Where to start.
There is one big problem with this book, and that is that a lot of the ideas that it expresses I have already come across and incorporated into my religious approach. That isn't true of everyone by any means, but it meant that reading this felt like a comforting and snugly-fitting encounter rather than a challenging or world-changing one, which was what I had (for some reason) been led to expect. I suspect that probably came from everyone who told me about said book being people who had been changed by it, but who also formed my faith in ways influenced by it. If that makes sense.
Anyway. Nouwen's basic point is to try to articulate a way in which Christianity can be relevant to the seeking generation; he is thinking in terms of Nuclear Man, but his thoughts haven't actually dated. The general thrust is that a Christian leader can only be effective when they tap into the internal desolation within themselves, and use that to be authentically present to others suffering the same kind of ache. It's the idea of using one's brokenness to make encounters genuinely meaningful, in a way that the Nuclear Generation can engage with - not calling upon a patriarchal model of the priest as Father, but instead tapping into the new importance of peer groups for the Nuclear Adolescent.
There's far more to it than that, of course, but I shall stop there to avoid boring you. Suffice to say, if you are a Christian and interested how one might use the brokenness of the world to heal it, this is worth a look.
I said I'd probably get into some more Sarah Dunant after Sacred Hearts, and lo, here I am. I have to say that I wasn't entirely convinced by the premise initially - the novel is narrated by a dwarf who lives with a courtesan in Rome who is forced by circumstances to swiftly relocate to Venice, and as such, the narrative voice takes a while to find its feet. I hate to admit it, but after reading Sacred Hearts, it also took me rather a long time to get my head around the fact that Dunant can write as a male character, which is a Really Odd Thing to say, but I can't do anything about it.
That said, again, this just got devoured very quickly. The historical details are rather more grisly than in the other book, which is hardly surprising - there's a certain element of risk and danger to being in the sex trade, not least of which is moral disapproval of invading puritanical armies. There was a certain difference in the portrayal of Venice as a city which I found interesting - having seen a couple of films about courtesans in Venice which have played up the image of the sexually loose city, to have it presented as somewhere that tries to present an ultra-straight-laced image but still rolicks away was interestingly cognitively dissonant.
The characters were fun too, and well written again, although the love story plot looked for one awful moment like it was going to wobble and fall over into schmaltz - but it resisted and got sensible again. There's a lot of that, actually, in this novel as a theme - the idea of walking a fine line, balancing on the tightrope, just trying not to fall off. So when the characters eventually do fall off, it comes as a real surprise because you didn't see it coming.
Again, I hold to what I said about the last one - it's well written and enjoyable, and I'm perfectly happy to have spent time with this calibre of historical fiction. I suspect the one problem with it is that it is trying to do a rather hackneyed subject (the Venetian courtesan) from a new angle, and it can't quite escape from some of the baggage surrounding that topic that, for instance, nuns in convents in Ferrara don't have.
The Wounded Healer - Henri Nouwen
Oh boy. Where to start.
There is one big problem with this book, and that is that a lot of the ideas that it expresses I have already come across and incorporated into my religious approach. That isn't true of everyone by any means, but it meant that reading this felt like a comforting and snugly-fitting encounter rather than a challenging or world-changing one, which was what I had (for some reason) been led to expect. I suspect that probably came from everyone who told me about said book being people who had been changed by it, but who also formed my faith in ways influenced by it. If that makes sense.
Anyway. Nouwen's basic point is to try to articulate a way in which Christianity can be relevant to the seeking generation; he is thinking in terms of Nuclear Man, but his thoughts haven't actually dated. The general thrust is that a Christian leader can only be effective when they tap into the internal desolation within themselves, and use that to be authentically present to others suffering the same kind of ache. It's the idea of using one's brokenness to make encounters genuinely meaningful, in a way that the Nuclear Generation can engage with - not calling upon a patriarchal model of the priest as Father, but instead tapping into the new importance of peer groups for the Nuclear Adolescent.
There's far more to it than that, of course, but I shall stop there to avoid boring you. Suffice to say, if you are a Christian and interested how one might use the brokenness of the world to heal it, this is worth a look.
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Date: 2009-12-23 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 01:58 pm (UTC)