news, views & reviews
Posted in Classics on Aug 16th, 2007
Reviewed by John Murphy
Spies of God
Mr. Blue is a little gem of a book – short but affecting, and featuring a memorably iconoclastic hero. Published in 1928, Myles Connolly’s first novel is like a Catholic answer to The Great Gatsby, questioning that distinctly American brand of materialism which offers big houses, fancy cars, and a […]
Posted in Classics, Science Fiction on Aug 3rd, 2007
reviewed by Marilyn Prever
This 1959 science fiction classic gives a new twist to the familiar post-nuclear war story: it follows the life of an American Catholic monastery from the new Dark Ages after the devastation of World War Three, through the slow re-building of civilization (a span of several thousand […]
reviewed by John Murphy
“You are not afraid it may be rather a mistake for an American man of business to marry a French countess?”
The American man of business is certainly not afraid it’s a mistake; it seems only too natural. Christopher Newman, a captain of American industry in his mid-thirties, travels to Europe to become […]
Posted in Classics, Comedy/Satire on Apr 16th, 2007
Gallows Humor
One of my favorite stories about Evelyn Waugh finds him at a swank Parisian dinner party. After rudely belittling a helpless French intellectual with his characteristic boorishness, the host asked Evelyn how he could be so mean and still call himself a Catholic. “You have no idea,” Waugh answered, “how much nastier I would […]
Posted in Classics, Mystery/Detective on Feb 18th, 2007
As I write this, the Catholic diocese of Spokane, (like my own Archdiocese of Portland, OR) is going through bankruptcy proceedings brought on by sex abuse cases. I don’t know what the Portland numbers are, but in Spokane, according to this Catholic News Agency report, fully half of the $48 million to be awarded the […]