Awesome post on Catholic fiction

[katycarl]

at First Things On the Square:

www.firstthings.com/

Pop over, if you haven't. Especially, I think y'all will be interested in the four more recent British Catholic novelists the writer picks out for our attention: David Lodge, Sara Maitland, Alice Thomas Ellis, and Piers Paul Read. We're always looking for more recent models, and well, here they are. Also some good speculation on the future of Catholic fiction, which, um, is us, heh.

[syme]

Oh yes! Great post. Had you ever heard of these authors? Several of them sound quite interesting, especially Alice Thomas Ellis. On the other hand, the following quote from Sara Maitland left me wondering: "But there in one another’s arms, and only there, they are affirmed, encouraged, borne up, freed." That sounds very much like shallow New-Agey pseudo-feminist language that tends to make me roll my eyes, but I'm willing to believe the quote sounds better in its context. I wonder if the editors could try to bring in any of these people as featured authors. That would be very interesting.

[bluemaydie]

I've read and enjoyed David Lodge, but he's rife with in-jokes. You have to be a Catholic or an English major or both to get a lot of what he talks about. And I know readers who are both Catholics and English majors who just can't get into him--rather cerebral stuff.

I read one Alice Thomas Ellis novel years ago (recommended by someone who loved it but disliked Lodge), and I remember it being beautifully written. When it was over, however, I couldn't figure out what the point had been. It had something to do with sin and guilt, but but was too vague for me.

Haven't read either of the other two. For that matter, haven't read O'Connor, Percy, or much Greene. Modern and American lit have just never been in the forefront of my studies. Plus, I'm leery of "religious fiction." Much as I want to write it, and have enjoyed Tolkien and Lewis and Williams, I worry about novels that are "too" Catholic. Now, I've never heard anyone complain that O'Connor is inaccessible to the uninitiated, but I've heard the complaint about Lewis (about Narnia, of all things) and I've thought it about Lodge. And I don't even know many of the initiated who can tolerate Charles Williams. I guess I don't have a problem with novels by Catholics for Catholics, but I wish more Catholic lit could be read by non-Catholics. Maybe that's just a problem of genius--everybody's a novelist it seems nowadays, but they can't all be brilliant. Anyway, I'm rambling now.