Classic Literature

Free love, birth control, test tube baby factories, cloning, mutants, and sex, sex, sex. There are good reasons to have your mature students read this book, but you must do YOUR homework and read it first.

Huxley, writing during the giddy early days of the eugenics movement, has written a remarkable novel. His story portrays that movement's ideas taken to their logical consequences. There is a complete disconnect between sex and procreation. Sex is STRICTLY for pleasure (not even for unity). Babies are 'decanted' in factories by impressive scientific processes.

His story speaks on many levels. His brilliance is in deducing the way in which men could rationalize what unfolds before the reader as a revolting world pretty much at peace with its incredibly selfish self.

Huxley has developed what could be our future. He has taken more than a little thought to account for the sustainability of this world. As in our own world, there are occupations which require more and less intellectual acuity. By decanting babies of different intellectual ability AND training them differently everyone should be happy in their station. Some embryos are given all the benefits during development and become "alphas". Some are given less than perfect treatment and become "betas"... And some, by selective poisoning and light deprevation etc. become epsilons (semi-morons, but therefore happy in their lowly functions in society).

Everyone enjoys sex, so everyone is conditioned from day one to be 'free-lovers'. And since babies are decanted no one has to carry or care for offspring (the words "mother" and "father" have become foul language!).

This is clearly the natural consequences of a society which wants to divorce sex from procreation. Thirty years after Huxley wrote the book mainstream society was just picking up on the theme. This selfishness steamrolled into abortion. In Huxley's world this is no longer necessary (usually). But for those who are not sterilized at birth (some fresh eggs are needed to keep the factories going) contraceptives (and strong conditioning to use them faithfully) are provided.

This brave new world has even done away with money. In fact, there is a much more direct transaction on payday - as the workers leave their place of employment on Friday they are given their payment/ration of soma - the perfect drug with no hangover or anything!!! Huxley nails it again. Such a selfish society needs an escape - it is drugs. Did he see the 60's coming or what? And is he right about where we are headed?

But not everyone is happy. There is an "odd" fellow in the book. He just doesn't feel satisfied even with every thing one could lust for (an alpha of course). Huxley's world even has a place for him. He gets exiled with all the other misfits to Greenland.

There is more and more and more in this book. It doesn't preach about the evils of contraception, of free-love, of drugs etc. It simply displays them and their consequences without remorse. In doing so, even in the best of circumstances, their evils are laid bare. And in this way the book is both thought-provoking and good for discussions. But there is more. Huxley has wrapped many layers into this book. The story is sickeningly believable on it's surface. But he has put in symbolism and allusions to many more things that I cannot even begin to tell here. See this article from Envoy Magazine for examples. Or consider how peace is obtained by making men LESS than full men.

One more note. To return to the admonition that you read this book before your child; there is a lot of sex in this book. That can be difficult for any teenager. However, when the student is prepared to look seriously and critically at the messages in the book this should not be a problem. Huxley does not aim to arouse but to inform.

Click Here for Study Questions

I usually make it a point not to read an introduction to a book; I never want to be prejudiced by someone else’s take on a story. But since this would be the fourth time I would read Helena by Evelyn Waugh, I decided to read the introduction by George Weigel in Loyola Press’ reprint of this classic. And I am so glad I did.

I had always marveled that Waugh said he considered this to be the favorite of his novels when it was never as critically acclaimed as some of his others, and was, until this reprint, pretty much on the edge of obscurity. Weigel explores Waugh’s rationale, revealing some of what Waugh was thinking when he created the character of Helena.

What the reader must know is that this is not a work of accurate historical fiction, but a statement of Waugh’s idea of personal sanctity. Addressing the objection that Helena isn’t portrayed as a “saint,” Weigel reports that Waugh said:

I liked Helena’s sanctity because it is in contrast to all that moderns think of as sanctity. She wasn’t thrown to the lions, she wasn’t a contemplative, she didn’t look like an El Greco. She just discovered what it was God had chosen for her to do and did it. And she snubbed Aldous Huxley with his perennial fog, by going straight to the essential physical historical fact of the redemption.

I think appreciating this thought is the key to appreciating the whole novel, and what makes it a great Catholic story. It is historical fiction that is not meant to show the historical time period (though it does do that admirably), so much as to show one woman’s pilgrimage toward sanctity.

Waugh makes Helena the daughter King Coel (of “Ole King Cole” fame) and puts Constantius in Britain before he was historically there. She leaves her beloved home to marry Constantius and follow him into the political intrigues of the struggling empire. She is finally put aside so that Constantius may make a political marriage, and in those years of solitude she doesn’t simper and feel sorry for herself; she becomes a strong, successful woman who ultimately finds the Christian faith—a truth among the strange philosophies of the time. Once Constantine is Emperor and she is restored to the pages of history, she sets out to find the True Cross. No one knows how she finally found it, but Waugh has her meet in a dream the “Wandering Jew,” one who is doomed to walk the earth because he didn’t help Jesus on the road to Calvary.

One interesting thing is that Waugh does not portray Constantine in a good light at all. Although, Constantine did convert on his deathbed, Waugh has his character plan it that way; I suppose to make some sense of his not converting sooner. He seems a kind of contrasting archetype to the sincere seeking soul of Helena. Constantine says:

You start again, quite new, quite innocent, like a newborn child. But next minute you can fall into sin again and be dammed to all eternity. That’s good doctrine, isn’t it? Well, then what does the wise man do—the man in a position like mine where it’s impossible not to commit a few sins every now and then? He waits. He puts it off until the very last moment. He lets the sins pile up blacker and heavier. It doesn’t matter. They’ll be washed away in baptism, the whole lot of them and all he has to do is to stay innocent, just for a very short time, just to hold the devil at bay for a week or two, perhaps a few hours only.

Waugh’s writing is impeccably timed. The ache of Helena’s loneliness, even when she is with Constantius, is palpable. There is one place where Helena is trying to stop from laughing at something, and I found myself laughing out loud for her. Although this book is recommended on many high school reading lists, there is one scene in the first chapter that a parent might preread to determine its appropriateness for his/her children. At a banquet, Helena is daydreaming about being a horse, and it comes to a very sensual conclusion, in my opinion. It is important to the story, though, because as she comes out of her reverie, Constantius is staring at her and she knows that she belongs with him.

In addition to Weigel’s introduction, another great feature of this Loyola Press edition is a set of discussion questions provided at the back of the book. They are very thought provoking—not simple comprehension questions, but those that will provide opportunity for serious discussion.

“This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community. In this gripping narrative of the crises surrounding the ancient Brede Abbey, Rumer Godden penetrates to the mysterious, inner heart of a religious community – a place of complexity and conflict, as well as joy and love. It is a place where Philippa, to her own surprise and her friends’ astonishment, finds her life by losing it.” – from the back cover

The Loyola edition includes an introduction by Phyllis Tickle and a few study questions. I found the introduction helpful and interesting; among other points, she said that Godden had lived "at the gate" of a Benedictine Abbey for three years while working on the novel, and converted to Roman Catholicism in 1968 (shortly before it was published). The study questions are rather meager for a volume of this size, but they could make a starting point for discussion.

Although on one level, In This House of Brede is simply an interesting novel, on another level it offers profound truths about the journey of a soul along its vocational path. Rumer Godden succeeds in giving the reader tremendous insight into the communal religious life through the various situations and conflicts involving the nuns at the fictitious Brede Abbey. Among other things, we learn about the process of formation: the postulancy and the novitiate, the real everyday life of the nuns, and the depth of the spiritual life of a contemplative community and how this impacts the world around it. The nuns are extremely well-characterized and very believable both in their human frailties and in their ability to serve as a channel of God’s grace.

Besides the enormous size of the book, it contains several themes that are not suitable for young readers, hence my recommendation that it be reserved for adults and mature teens. Among these themes are:

(1) the tragic story of the death of Philippa’s son – I found this a very difficult read myself

(2) a former employee (Penny) who has an abortion

(3) references to Philippa’s love life (prior to her conversion)

Other themes that may concern some readers include the financial crisis that the Abbess gets her community into and the discussions among the nuns regarding the election of Pope John XXIII and the second Vatican Council.

One quibble I have is with the wording when Philippa is counseling Penny to choose life for her baby. After Penny says that she wondered if she could “stop it” but her doctor wouldn’t do anything, Philippa responds, “Of course he wouldn’t. Doctors don’t like doing it even when there are strong reasons.” (p 404) Given that she makes several statements along the lines of “Babies … are people from the very beginning,” I don’t think she is implying that abortion is OK sometimes, i.e. for “strong reasons.” But it still bothers me.

Overall, I found this to be an excellent novel and I love the way that Godden portrays the action of Divine Providence in the lives of her characters.

I am delighted to see a popular edition by Penguin Classics of one of the world's greatest woman writers settling itself to be in print for any foreseeable future. This review refers to the 2005 paperback edition of the combined trilogy of Sigrid Undset’s master work Kristin Lavransdatter, translated by Tiina Nunnally.

The Penguin Classics page does a great job at introducing the novel to the public:

In her great historical epic Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses readers in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tiina Nunnally’s award-winning definitive translation brings this remarkable work to life with clarity and lyrical beauty.

As a young girl, Kristin is deeply devoted to her father, a kind and courageous man. But when as a student in a convent school she meets the charming and impetuous Erlend Nikulaussøn, she defies her parents in pursuit of her own desires. Her saga continues through her marriage to Erlend, their tumultuous life together raising seven sons as Erlend seeks to strengthen his political influence, and finally their estrangement as the world around them tumbles into uncertainty.

With its captivating heroine and emotional potency, Kristin Lavransdatter is the masterwork of Norway’s most beloved author—one of the twentieth century’s most prodigious and engaged literary minds—and, in Nunnally’s exquisite translation, a story that continues to enthrall.

Seldom do we find such contrasting examples in quality of work as found in the two translations available of Undset’s master work. When we lived near Princeton, NJ, I was challenged to read the trilogy for a Catholic Woman’s Literary group at Aquinas House. My husband offered to buy it for me in Princeton on his way home, and in a good bookstore he found the then-brand-new translation by Tiina Nunnally.

I had the opportunity to compare the old Archer translation of the 1930s, which has been continually in print since the 1920s, to this new one. For someone who studied translation in graduate school, this was exhilarating. While the new award winning translation by Nunnally flows in fresh, contemporary style, yet reflective of the historical period, the old one had forced medieval English-isms and felt dry and rusty. In further comparing I noticed that indeed Archer has left entire pages out of the volume—and most especially pages of deep Catholic content. (For readers who have read the second volume, one of the passages left out include the spiritual musings by the heroine upon her arrival at the shrine of St. Olaf during her penitential pilgrimage.)

Indeed, the Penguin Classics web page comments:

This new translation by Tina Nunnally—the first English version since Charles Archer's translation in the 1920s—captures Undset's strengths as a stylist. Nunnally, an award-winning translator, retains the natural dialog and lyrical flow of the original Norwegian, with its echoes of Old Norse legends, while deftly avoiding the stilted language and false archaisms of Archer's translation. In addition, she restores key passages left out of that edition.

Sigrid Undset converted to the Catholic Church while doing the research for this great historical novel. Daughter of a noted Norwegian archeologist, and fascinated by her father’s field of study, Undset looked to the past as the setting of her greatest novel. In the process of digging Norway’s medieval world she found Catholic Christianity and wholly embraced it. I believe this process of finding one's true meaning in life is behind the superb quality of the story. Some argue that her four volume novel The Master of Hestviken is a more Catholic book because the Christian thought is already present from page one. Maybe so. But alas, no other work by Undset work has the crisp freshness of Kristin Lavransdatter. Undset seems to transfer into her most memorable protagonist the exhilaration of her newfound faith, which caused no small token on her own personal life. As Kristin in the novel, Undset’s own decisions in life, now in the light of her newfound faith, caused many personal sacrifices as well providing the realities redemption and purpose. Again from the Penguin Classics page:

In Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1922), Sigrid Undset interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life to create a colorful, richly detailed tapestry of Norway during the fourteenth-century. The trilogy, however, is more than a journey into the past. Undset's own life—her familiarity with Norse sagas and folklore and with a wide range of medieval literature, her experiences as a daughter, wife, and mother, and her deep religious faith—profoundly influenced her writing. Her grasp of the connections between past and present and of human nature itself, combined with the extraordinary quality of her writing, sets her works far above the genre of "historical novels."

Few novels are able to remain so wholly in the readers' memories as Kristin Lavransdatter. Sigrid Undset had a gift that is seldom found. This is a story to be savored a paragraph at a time, and a fascinating window into a world that is so foreign and yet it becomes so close in the imagination. Keeping in mind that this novel is best appreciated after the reader has experienced much of life’s vicissitudes, it is still recommended for the high school students. When our daughter read it at the end of freshman year I told her to take note of her impressions and to compare them with her impressions of when she rereads it—hopefully fifteen to twenty years from now.

High school students could certainly benefit from reading Kristin Lavransdatter as an important sample of great Catholic fiction. The foreign flavor, in both style and cultural geography, is strongest in the first three chapters and can be a stumbling block, but a good reader will use those three initial chapters to fully immerse themselves into Kristin’s world. The story of love, romance, suffering and redemption will live in their memories.

One of the great Catholic element of Kristin Lavransdatter is the lesson of life around which it revolves: because of her initial lack of trust and obedience to her beloved father, Kristin undergoes a lifetime of suffering and pain, finding consolation and redemption only under the shadow of the cross. Few books will teach such a crucial lesson this vividly. Of course, this is a lesson than can be learned at any stage of life, yet lessons are best learned in the formation years of our children.

Kristin Lavransdatter is also the Women's Catholic Literary Club par excellence: a challenging yet deeply satisfying read, it could easily dominate an entire semester of meetings' discussions. If you have never hosted one of these, maybe this is the season to do it. Catholic homeschool mothers, I have noticed, enjoy great pleasure in discussing together their thoughts on great Catholic literature, most especially while enjoying a good Port.