V2nd - chapter 11 - more examples

[alice wellintown]

> While I'm fascinated with the idea that knotted into the Fina episode,
> Godolphin's confession to V., and Chapter 11, are interesting ideas
> pertaining to the Church, as an amateur reader all I'm prepared to do
> is occasionally wave my arms and invoke an hypothetical
> "ecclesiastical history read"
> ("chapter 11 examines limitations on the priesthood or priestly
> impulse such as celibacy, the role of a priest in a war situation, and
> restriction of the priesthood to males" eg)

If Fitz's Last Tycoon doesn't thrill ya, ya might wanna try re-reading
Hemingway's _A Farewell to Arms_. Young P was anxiously influenced by
it and it does dove-tale with the priest soldier engineer try-angle.
The title, as you may recall, is taken from a poem about a soldier and
a priest.

A Farewell to Arms (To Queen Elizabeth)
By George Peele
1558?-1597

HIS golden locks Time hath to silver turn'd;
         O Time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurn'd,
         But spurn'd in vain; youth waneth by increasing:
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees;
         And, lovers' sonnets turn'd to holy psalms,
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
         And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms:
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart.

And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
         He'll teach his swains this carol for a song,--
'Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well,
         Curst be the souls that think her any wrong.'
Goddess, allow this aged man his right
To be your beadsman now that was your knight.

> But the main thing that occasionally my blur resolves into here is
> Fausto laying it out for his daughter.
> In a way, I associate Fausto's confession with war memoirs of the
> intellegentsia.  People who were drafted into the conflict but were
> actually built or trained for something else, the vivid memories they
> carry, the diaries they kept, the disparity between their talents and
> their duties...

Perhaps men can be built or trained for most anything. Wars can make
use of talented men; some men are made for it and not for peace. Some
the other way round. I am reminded of Richard II. Not a General, not a
King, but a fine poet.

And Richard II. A man made or built for war, but a fine poet too.

But I,--that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;--
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore,--since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,--
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

> Fausto, who's been able to produce essays on Hopkins and de Chirico
> that he still likes, and refers to himself as a man of letters, brings
> his talents to bear here specifically for his own posterity: he
> addresses his own muddled legacy to her (not completely his own fault
> - he didn't start the fire)

Well, from Hopkins, a Jesuit I think, he should have learned that All
Things are Works of God, even bombs that destroy two-thirds of your
building. The Lord Giveth and Taketh too. We were each and everyone of
us born at exactly the right time, perfect and in proportion. Like
every grain of sand. And every thing He fathers-forth whose beauty is
past change.



>
>
>>
>
> But she's grown up enough to marry, and sophisticated enough to hold
> her own in conversation at the Rusty Spoon.  Roony's a nut, but her
> self-possession is more than a match for his schemes or Pig's lechery.
>  Fausto's letter is written in knowledge of the innocence and grace
> you refer to, and I conjecture that a sense of worry for her adds to
> missing her and wanting her to come back. Perhaps he's decided she
> will be most moved by his writing to her as to an adult.
>
> But in any case, something to note is how a parent may utilize the
> written word to alter the course of a child's life...(it happened to
> Stencil too)

Fausto moves me not, for unlike Stencil the elder's fragments and
ambiguous allusions, Fausto's Confessions are a closed system.