Dancing Priest

Author and Novelist Glynn Young

Literary Life

When the Story is Not What You Think It Is

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I suppose you could call me a Les Mis fan. I’ve seen the stage version of Les Misérables twice. I’ve seen the movie twice. I’ve watched the anniversary specials on PBS (the ones they show during fundraising months). I know the words to the big songs. I am deeply enthralled with the character of Jean Valjean. My heart breaks for Fantine. I laugh at and secretly adore watching the comic and grasping Thenardiers.

What I haven’t done is read the book by Victor Hugo. Perhaps it was the size – 1,222 pages of the “complete and unabridged” edition we have. Perhaps it was my wife telling me, as she read it, “There must be 300 pages describing the sewers of Paris. It goes on for page after page about the sewers.” Eewww. She surprised me when she said she loved the book.

Last year, I spotted a book at the local bookstore, and only saw the title on the spine first: The Novel of the Century by David Bellos. Ah, I thought, a book about David Copperfield, or Great Expectations, or Vanity Fair. Uh, no. It was subtitled “The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables.” That book about sewers. Perhaps watching the movie version yet again would suffice; the sewer scene in the movie is the vastly abbreviated version of what the book contains.

The Grace of Les Misérables by Matt Rawle has changed my mind. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

Counting the Cost of Faith

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Years ago, more than 40 to be precise, I was reading The Habit of Being, the collection of selected letters by Flannery O’Connor that had been recently published. Checking now, I see that my copy was from the third printing. And the book in various forms is still available on Amazon.

It’s a marvelous book, filled with so many great quotations and observations that they’re difficult to keep track of. One that I memorized, and sometimes used in Sunday School classes, was something she said about faith: “What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”

It is the cross. That observation keeps coming to mind over and over as I read William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanityby Kevin Belmonte. Three chapters in particular demonstrate the truth of O’Connor’s statement – the three that describe the “two great objects” Wilberforce said God had set before him once he had experienced the “great change’ and became a believer.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

Painting: William Wilberforce by Karl Anton Hickel, about 1794.

The Road is Long, and the Call is Loud

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The road ahead was not a literal road. But it felt like one. A very long one.

My organization had just done what organizations are famous for doing: internal politics. A spectacularly successful initiative had been rewarded by the wrong person getting a promotion, someone not even involved in the success. The team went from celebration to devastation in 24 hours. I spent a few days considering what to do. I’d poured life and soul into what became a success, and I’d been slapped, hard. Overnight, gold had become rust and tarnish. I decided to leave. Go to another part of the company.

I accepted a job that had been turned down by five people, including two people on the outside. It was considered the worst communications job in the company, dealing with all the dirty stuff, like pollution, spills, accidents, emissions, waste sites, and more. No one looked for gold here. And it was facing a huge challenge – a new law requiring public reporting of all toxic emissions. It was if I’d boarded the Titanic knowing there were icebergs ahead.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

The End of ‘The Scarlet Letter’ – and Its Lasting Influence

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We’ve come to the end of The Scarlet Letter, and it’s time to consider this journey we embarked upon almost three months ago.

In 1876, George Parsons Lathrop (1851-1898) was editor of The Atlantic Monthly (and at 25 years old, no less). That year, he published A Study of Hawthorne, neither an official biography nor an official literary study, but more a hybrid of the two. Lathrop himself called it a “portrait” rather than a biography. Whatever it’s genre, it remains one of the best studies on the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1809-1864). The book remained a popular study of the author for at least the next quarter century; I have an edition published in 1898.

Lathrop notes that it was The Scarlet Letter that made the author’s reputation when it was published in 1850. The subject was something of a shock and sensation, but the public quickly got over it and the book became a bestseller, selling out the first printing of 5,000 in 10 days. It was not without its contemporary critics; a publication of the Episcopal Church, which fancied itself the authority on all things Puritan, rained harsh criticism on the book, its story, the author, and anything associated with them. The criticism was ignored.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

Poetry at Work, Chapter 20: The Poetry of Retirement

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Poetry at Work Poetry of the Workspace

I might have retired twice from the same company.

I officially retired in 2015, and I’d had given a year’s notice. I could have continued working, but the fact was that my skills, experience, and abilities were being wasted. I could have continued for a few more years, perhaps hoping for another general downsizing and a severance package, but work had become almost painful. 

When I told the head of the department of my plan to retire, the response was surprising. He became angry. It wasn’t as if I was irreplaceable. Without really knowing, I suspect it was more a case of I was doing it on my timetable, and it wasn’t something the department was planning on its timetable.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

Poetry at Work, Chapter 19: The Poetry of Workplace Restoration

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Poetry at Work Poetry of the Workspace

For a long time, I had what several of colleagues called the most interesting office at work. Because I was a speechwriter, I was expected to (a) read everything the CEO did, (b) read a lot of business books, particularly popular ones, (c) study books about speechwriting, and (d) read books on current issues. All of which meant I was doing a lot of reading. And the CEO likcd to read the novels of John Updike, just about anything by Charles Dickens, and anything published on the subject of Winston Churchill.

For a reader like me, this was a great job. 

One end of my office was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Another wall had a smaller but still sizeable bookshelf. I also had a row of books on a credenza. It’s no surprise that my office was known as the building library. 

My “frequently consulted” books included poetry. That was by design. I had several old American poetry anthologies, and my Norton’s Anthology of English Literature (college textbooks) included considerable poetry by British writers. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.