Author Archives: wjduquette

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About wjduquette

Author, software engineer, and Lay Dominican.

Thirteenth Night, by Alan Gordon

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This book was a Christmas present from my sister-in-law. She eschewed all of the heavy tomes of theology and philosophy she found on my Amazon wish list in favor of a light-hearted tale of murder and deceit. It’s an odd and interesting book that I’d probably have picked up on my own, were I buying mysteries this days (I run hot and cold on mystery novels, and am currently running cold) and had I run into it, which I’d not.

The book draws its inspiration from Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. The premise is that Feste, the Duke of Orsino’s Fool, was in fact no fool. Or, rather, that Feste was the member of the Fool’s Guild, a kind of secret society with the goal of preserving peace in Europe. Feste was in the town of Orsino not merely to entertain the Duke and his guests, but to ensure that certain things happened to further the diplomatic and political goals of the guild. Having done so, Feste disappeared, moving on to other assignments.

And then, fifteen years later, the Duke of Orsino turns up dead at the bottom of a cliff. Accident? Murder? Feste is sent back to Orsino to find out. Much foolishness, including (naturally) a certain amount of cross-dressing, ensues.

The book isn’t particularly deep, but I found the setting fascinating. It takes place in 12th century Europe. (I don’t recall whether the year is ever stated explicitly, but a young Francis of Assisi makes a brief appearance.) The culture in which Feste lives is undeniably and plausibly Catholic, with particular individuals varying widely in their degree of piety and virtue. Feste and the other fools we meet are not un-Christian, but are not entirely orthodox, either; one gathers that the Guild doesn’t entirely approve of the Church, and is actively working to subvert certain aspects of it. We also meet a “holy man”, a hermit of the Catharist heresy, to whom Feste appears to be quite sympathetic. Where the author stands on the Church is impossible to say; certainly, the Church was seriously in need of renewal in St. Francis’ day, which is, of course, what St. Francis was there for.

I found the book entertaining enough, though the mystery aspect seems a little lacking in retrospect. I’m not planning on rushing out to buy the sequels, of which there are evidently several; but then, I’m not buying a lot of mysteries at present, and I’ve got plenty of unread books floating about the house. If I were in need of a book, though, I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up the next in the series.

A Reviewer, or a Critic?

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For most of my time on-line I’ve been a reviewer of books. I greatly fear that I’m mutating into a critic.

These two jobs distinct and separate. A reviewer’s job is to tell you enough about the book so that you can decide for yourself whether or not you’d like to read it. As a reviewer, I try to talk about what kind of book it is; whether I enjoyed it or not (and if not, why not); and in general, whether it contains an interesting tale, well-told. These are fairly modest goals.

A critic, by contrast, is all about evaluating a book from some other point of view. And I find that when I come to review a book these days, I can’t help pondering the degree to which it is consistent with Catholic teaching. That phrase, “consistent with Catholic teaching,” covers a vast world of things, which I can’t do justice to in this short post; I hope to have some things to say about in the future. At present, I’ll simply say that I’m not talking about whether or not the book has explicitly Catholic themes, or whether or not the characters behave according to Catholic moral teaching; it’s more complicated than that.

And then, of course, if the book does say something explicit about the Catholic Church, I feel like I need to address it.

I can’t seem to help any of this; and I’m not at all sure it’s a bad thing. But after having worn a pretty smooth and comfortable groove in the area of writing book reviews, it’s unsettling. I hope the results will be no less useful.

What does it mean to be “Spiritual”?

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We’ve all heard people say, “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual,” or “So-and-so is a very spiritual person.”

I’ve been pondering what is meant by the word “spiritual” in this context. I’m not ready to share my ponderings quite yet, in part because I don’t want to assemble (in Lilek’s phrase) a “clone army of strawmen”. So I’m asking for a little help from my readers.

When you hear someone say that they are “spiritual”, what does that convey to you? And if you have ever said something like, “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual,” what did you mean by it?

I’m genuinely curious.

Part II

Freedom

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I was at the mall this weekend, and I saw a sweat jacket with these words:

“Freedom is the ability to do what I wish.”

And it occurred to me that although many people would define freedom this way, it isn’t so. Rather, freedom is the ability to do what I ought to do. This is a notion that causes most of us to recoil in horror. What I want to do and what I ought to do often seem all too firmly opposed. So let’s look at that.

First, what ought I to do? Per Aristotle, I ought to do that which will make me truly happy. I ought to pursue the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in all of their fullness, rather than chasing after the apparently good, the apparently true, and the apparently beautiful. Should I have a double-size hot-fudge sundae right before I go to bed tonight? Sounds good…but (in my case, at least) it’s not a good idea.

So what prevents me from pursuing the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, from doing what I ought? Two things: lack of knowledge, and concupiscence. First, I don’t know what I ought to do; and second, when I do know what I ought to do my sinful nature leads me astray. As a fallen man, I am manifestly not free to pursue my ultimate happiness.

In Christ, however, there is true freedom. For God is the summit of all that Good, True, and Beautiful, and Christ Jesus is God’s most perfect revelation of Himself to us. And in Christ, and through His sacrifice, I receive the grace to follow Him, to avoid sin, to grow in virtue, and, in short, to pursue the Good He shows me. And that is freedom.

Prince Crapsian — or — How to Turn a Silk Purse into a Sow’s Ear

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So Jane bought the DVD of Prince Caspian at Costco the other day, and we watched it this evening.

What an unmitigated load of rubbish. Spectacle everywhere, sense nowhere; complete disrpect for the source material; personalities savaged; Peter acting like a tomfool instead of the High King of Narnia; Reepicheep being rude; Lucy sitting on the Stone Table, for goodness sake, for all the world like Mary Magdalene having a bit of a sit-down on the True Cross.

I don’t think so.

What an out-and-out utter travesty. I have never, in my entire life, been so disappointed by a movie. My expectations were low to begin with (or I’d have seen it ages ago in the theater), but I am still flabbergasted. I had problems with Peter Jackson’s version of The Lord of the Rings, and particularly with The Return of the King…but the people behind this piece of awfulness make even Ralph Bakshi look good. If they couldn’t tell Lewis’s story, at least they could have told a story that made sense. I simply don’t have words for how gruesomely, grotesquely, stupidly bad this crock of sh*t is.

I don’t usually write hatchet jobs, and I’ll no doubt regret this one in the morning…but nearly as much as I regret this film.

Sigh.

No doubt C.S. Lewis himself finds all of this terribly funny, but I don’t yet have his perspective.

“Yes, It’s a Boy”

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Saw a neat T-shirt this noon whilst having lunch with my daughter. A young woman, obviously pregnant, came in; she was wearing a black T-shirt with an ultrasound scan across her tummy and the words, “Yes, It’s a Boy.”

Cycle of Exertion

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Long-time readers of this blog will remember that about four years ago, my doctor put me a strict diet. It was just before Ash Wednesday; I came home and told Jane, “Guess what? I’m giving up food for Lent.” She also put me on an exercise regimen, to wit, I was required to walk for at least 30 minutes a day.

And, with God’s help, I did those things, and in a year and a half or so had dropped over seventy (70!) pounds. Very cool. Since then I’ve been more or less plateaued, going up and down within about an eight pound window. The high point has usually been in the fall months; in October there’s my wedding anniversary, followed by Jane’s birthday and the annual Tcl/Tk Conference, followed by Halloween and then Thanksgiving, and then, of course, the bane of all dieters that is December. This year was particularly bad–or, rather, I rather let myself go, and now I’ve got some ground to make up. What to do?

What to do. We all know what to do: eat better, exercise more, and be patient. So I’m trying to eat better, and not give in to the excesses of last fall, such as they were–though, annoyingly, they weren’t all that excessive compared to my pre-diet behavior. But what about that exercise?

I’m still putting in that 30 minutes a day, and on weekends I’m often walking 45 minutes to an hour. Well and good. But what happens when you do that for four years? Your body gets used to it. Your muscles build up to it. It’s nothing extraordinary. It’s maintenance.

One day in December I decided to try to extend myself a bit. I walked for a couple of hours, and went a little over seven miles, which might be a personal best. (I wonder how far one walks on a day’s trip to Disneyland?) I was tired at the end, and my feet were a little sore…but here’s the kicker: I didn’t feel it the next day. Or the day after. At all. My body (ahem) took it in stride.

So what to do to step up the exercise program? Walking further isn’t the answer: it simply takes too long. Running/jogging is right out. I’ve never been able to run or jog for any distance without getting seriously out of breath, and past attempts to build up my endurance in that area have been unsuccessful.

So this past week I went out and bought a decent bicycle, what they call a hybrid: better suited for the road than a mountain bike, but with mountain bike gearing. And that’s precisely what I need, because I live on the side of a mountain. (This blog is called “The View from the Foothills”, but it could just as easily be called “The View of the Foothills from Above”.) And my plan is, for the first time in my life, to learn to ride a bike up the hills I live on, rather than just down.

Jane and I used to ride quite a lot, a little over a decade or so; but we always went places where it was flat. We didn’t do any long trips; fifteen miles was a longish ride for us, if I recall correctly. I never did learn how to ride up hills properly, and I never built up the necessary muscles to ride up hills properly. It’s now time to do that.

I’ve read that when starting out (or coming back after a long absence) it’s best to keep the rides short, no more than two to three miles, and then work up. My plan is to try to do that around my house, emphasizing the uphill stretches to the extent that I’m able (which isn’t much yet). I went out this morning, and rode about two-and-a-quarter miles in fifteen minutes (cycle computers are key). Of necessity it was a mixture of uphill and downhill–equal amounts of each, actually, if you remember the Mean Value Theorem–and by the end my legs were done: cycling uses entirely different muscles than walking.

I’m not sure why riding uphill is so hard. I’ve no doubt I could go out and ride the same seven miles I walked in December without too much trouble: there’s a fair amount of downhill, and the rest is flat. But even a short distance uphill is much more difficult. (Note to cyclists: yes, I’m gearing down.)

Well, my first week of walking was awful; I got through it only by sheer willpower and the grace of God. And my endurance improved. I’m presuming that cycling, even uphill, will work the same way. (Say a prayer for me, would you?)