Mmmm Guinness Goodness

Guinness GUINNESS Kule Kube Refrigerator

I've been known to tip a few pints, from time to time. And I have a preference for Guinness or almost anything not American or Canadian. But this fridge would sit so nicely in the corner of my den. I could stock it with my favorites:

Guinness
Double Diamond
Bah Humbug
Boddingtons
Hobgoblin
Black Wych
Fiddler's Elbow
Smithwicks
Kilkenny
Tetley's
Alexander Keith's Amber

Hat tip to:

Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Eric Scheske at The Daily Eudemon

Wheat That Springeth Green by: J.F. Powers

Wheat That Springeth Green
J.F. Powers
NYRB
ISBN 0940322242

Originally Published as:

Wheat That Springeth Green
A.A. Knopf
New York, 1988, 335p.
ISBN 0394496094

This book was nominated for the national book award in 1988 for fiction. It is the story about Father Joe Hackett who as a young man was an athlete and a bit of a partier, and then he became a priest out of saintly ambition but becomes overly fond of the drink. Joe is a strange hero for a novel. Powers' daughter Kathrine in her introduction to the current edition states: "Written over an increasingly dark time, Wheat That Springeth Green was shaped by my father's growing conviction of the progressive and irredeemable absurdity of things. He was a connoisseur of the dull, the mediocre and the second-rate, and of the disingenuous and fraudulent, but now it seemed that their dominion has truly come." This book captures much of that sentiment - Joe in his own life and in his interactions with most of the other clergy in this book. Though Powers is more famous for his earlier work Morte D'Urban, I personally find this book much more enjoyable and Joe, though he has more visible faults, a person you can relate to more easily. I have known priests in my life that were mirrors of both Joe and Urban and yet I end up seeing a lot of myself in Joe.

Joe desired to live a holy life; he wanted to be pious and devote. He desired to be a man of prayer, serving the world. In chapter 6 Out in the World (previously published as The Warm Sand) Joe, in his last year in seminary, became known as a holy roller and was avoided his last year in school. His first assignment is with a priest who is a truly pious man, and when he criticizes him in front of some other clergy he experiences great remorse. Through this event he tries to change his ways.

Personally I can really relate to Joe; there is much in his small successes and more frequent failures or setbacks. This book is excellent. It was a labour of over 25 years of writing and rewriting. And having read some of the earlier versions of some chapters published as short stories, it was worth the wait. Powers, being the wordsmith he is, crafted and recrafted the stories together into a fabulous novel.

My Reviews and Articles on Powers:

1962 - Morte d'Urban - novel
1963 - Lions, Harts, Leaping Does, and Other Stories
1988 - Wheat that Springeth Green - novel
1991 - The Old Bird, A Love Story - Illustrated Edition
1999 - The Stories of J. F. Powers
J.F. Powers Selected Bibliography
J.F. Powers Book Covers
That Elusive Story
The Warm Sand
Meme Booked By 3 May 2007
Meme Book Meme
Meme Booked by 3 February 2007

RS398 Directed Reading - The Religious Fiction of J.F. Powers
Essay - Why J.F. Powers
The Prince of Darkness and Other Stories
The Presence of Grace
Morte d'Urban
Look How the Fish Live
Wheat that Springeth Green
Essay - J.F. Powers Literary Life and Legacy

The Old Bird, A Love Story by: J.F. Powers

The Old Bird, A Love Story
(Illustrated Edition)
J.F. Powers (Author)
Barbara Harman (Illustrator)
ISBN 1879832267
Minnesota Center for Book Arts

This short story is a like a sad version of the The Gift of the Magi with the sacrifice, but without the reward. The story is one of an old man looking for work during a depression. He finds a temporary seasonal position, yet his day is long and hard. When he goes home he must act a role with his wife. This is a sad tale of a sad man - a man who has lost it all, but must keep plodding on. While working, he overhears part of a conversation about himself, and he is referred to as the old bird.

This story is heart-wrenching. I have known people like Mr. Newman, men broken and beaten by life, tortured, timid men. The story evokes great emotion.
But what makes this book so excellent is not the story. It is this special edition. The story is enhanced by the illustrations from Barbara Harman. This special edition was created by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. The project created 260 signed, numbered, limited-editions of this soft story. The Old Bird, a Love Story was published by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts on December 7, 1991. It was the fourth in an annual series commissioned to celebrating winter in the Upper Midwest. The story previously appeared in the Rocky Mountain Review, (1944) and in Prince of Darkness and Other Stories (Doubleday, 1947).

The book is a treasure for the Powers' fan, or for a serious bibliophile. Beautiful to hold and read, the book itself is a work of art, let alone the art of the story within on the pages. Gaylord Schanilec, MCBA Artist-in-Residence in 1991, designed and printed the book on Rives Heavyweight. The Garamond type was composition-set at Harold Berliner Type Foundry. There were two editions of this special edition - first the standard edition which consists of 260 copies, numbered and signed by the author and bound by Greg Campbell of Campbell-Logan Bindery in a non-adhesive paper binding. Second the deluxe edition consists of 40 copies, lettered and signed by the author and the artist. This edition is bound by Dennis Ruud in quarter leather with an original monoprint by Barbara Harman in a leather-edged slipcase. These special editions of this book were made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Program and with the generous support of Allegra and Paul Parker and Gail and Henry See.

If you can track down this edition, it is tremendous. A very persistent person from the InterLibrary Loan Office at the University of Waterloo was able to track it down for me after attempting a number of different libraries. It was a pleasure to read such a special book.
My Reviews and Articles on Powers:

1962 - Morte d'Urban - novel
1963 - Lions, Harts, Leaping Does, and Other Stories
1988 - Wheat that Springeth Green - novel
1991 - The Old Bird, A Love Story - Illustrated Edition
1999 - The Stories of J. F. Powers
J.F. Powers Selected Bibliography
J.F. Powers Book Covers
That Elusive Story
The Warm Sand
Meme Booked By 3 May 2007
Meme Book Meme
Meme Booked by 3 February 2007

RS398 Directed Reading - The Religious Fiction of J.F. Powers
Essay - Why J.F. Powers
The Prince of Darkness and Other Stories
The Presence of Grace
Morte d'Urban
Look How the Fish Live
Wheat that Springeth Green
Essay - J.F. Powers Literary Life and Legacy

(First published in Imprint 2009-07-24.)

(Note: Illustrations used by permission from Barbara Harman they both come from this book. You can find our more about Barbara from her websites here and here.)

Morte d'Urban by J.F. Powers

Morte D'Urban
J.F. Powers
NYRB
ISBN 0940322234

Originally Published as:

Morte d'Urban
Doubleday, Garden City,
New York, 1962, 336p.
ISBN 9997414411

This book won the national book award in 1963 for fiction. Our hero Father Urban is a little quirky and self-centered; yet even with those faults it is hard not to sympathize with him. I approached this book with some regret. It was the last of Powers' works I would have the chance to read. So I took my time and slowly read chapter by chapter, savoring the book over a much longer period than I normally would. The book was both satisfying and a bit of a disappointment. It was satisfying in that I have now completed the published books of J. F. Powers. It was also sad because of this fact. It was a bit disappointing in that the story feels unfinished. Like a chapter was left out when it went to printing.

Some of the plot was inevitable, and predictable, but the characters you meet along the way make the book very engaging and entertaining. I am a post Vatican II baby. As such, I do not know the Latin Mass - have only read books, and seen films of what the church was like before that period. Powers is a master at creating characters, and characters that are believable. His priests, brothers, monsignors and even bishops are believable to anyone who has had serious interactions even with clergy of today. I know of a priest locally who could be an Urban walking off the page to take up ministry today.

Many segments of this book were previously published as short stories in a variety of sources. Powers was a master at the short story, but his creative genius was his ability to take those short stories and turn them into a convincing novel. He has done this with both his published novels - this book Morte D'Urban and Wheat That Springeth Green. Both books were nominated for the National Book Award and Urban won. That is the testament to Powers' power and prowess with the quill. It is also witness to his ability to transcend the short story, a genre that appears to be going by the wayside, and to compile books of great depth and insight. Modern author Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, wanted to write a book of short stories, but his publisher, even with his popularity after Fight Club, would not allow him a book of short stories. Then Palauniuk wrote Haunted a collection of characters' personal stories told by a group of writers locked in a building. Powers achieves what Palahniuk does not in that his stories flow together seamlessly, where Palahniuk's are obviously individual stories.

This book is worth the read for anyone wanting a glimpse of insight into post World War II Catholicism, especially in the Midwest. But it is also a great study of people and why they do what they do - what drives them to achieve, their dreams and ultimately their failures and defeats. Unfortunately I have now read all of Powers' fiction. Fortunately the 2 books and 3 collections of short stories can be savored again and again. I can predict I have not finished with reading Powers, or Urban.

My Reviews and Articles on Powers:

1962 - Morte d'Urban - novel
1963 - Lions, Harts, Leaping Does, and Other Stories
1988 - Wheat that Springeth Green - novel
1991 - The Old Bird, A Love Story - Illustrated Edition
1999 - The Stories of J. F. Powers
J.F. Powers Selected Bibliography
J.F. Powers Book Covers
That Elusive Story
The Warm Sand
Meme Booked By 3 May 2007
Meme Book Meme
Meme Booked by 3 February 2007

RS398 Directed Reading - The Religious Fiction of J.F. Powers
Essay - Why J.F. Powers
The Prince of Darkness and Other Stories
The Presence of Grace
Morte d'Urban
Look How the Fish Live
Wheat that Springeth Green
Essay - J.F. Powers Literary Life and Legacy

The Catholic Company

I am soon going to be reviewing for The Catholic Company, they have a new expanded reviewers program. So If you are Catholic and have a blog or website and are interested in reviewing products stop by and check it out. My first review will be on Signs and Mysteries-Revealing Ancient Christian Symbols by Mike Aquilina. Keep an eye out for it and other new reviews coming your way soon thanks to Chris at The Catholic Company. It was hard picking from the current selections. I was also very interested in Catholic, Reluctantly by Christian M. Frank hopefully it will still be available on my next pick.

Hat tip to Ebeth from A Catholic Mom Climbing the Pillars.

The Good Neighbors: Kin - Book One by: Black & Naifeh

The Good Neighbors:
Kin - Book One
Holly Black (Author)
Ted Naifeh (Illustrator)
Graphix an imprint of
Scholastic
ISBN 9780439855624

From the Publishers of Jeff Smith's Bone comes a new series from one of the authors of the Spiderwick Chronicles. The series called Kin debuts this fall with The Good Neighbors. This is a fantastic graphic novel. The story is strong and compelling, the characters are enticing and draw the readers in, and the artwork is excellent.

This is the beginning of the story of Rue Silver. Rue thought she was a typical student - she had good friends, hung out, went to class and broke into abandoned buildings to climb and explore in them. But now her mother has just disappeared, her father has been arrested, suspected of killing her and one of his grad students. However the story is not as direct as that. Because, unbeknownst to her, Rue is a faerie, like her mother. Rue embarks on a quest - a quest to save her father, a quest to find her mother and after discovering her fey roots, a quest to understand herself and her role in the world. For a battle is brewing between the faerie world and our world, and a dark faerie has plans to make mortals live in fear of the good neighbors once again.

This book reads like a cross between Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and Stardust but with a much darker edge than Stardust. Drawn completely in grayscale, it has an otherworldly feel yet strangely familiar. Black's story draws you in and compels you to read on and Naifeh's images powerfully complement the words. The only drawback is that the book leaves you hanging and desperate to find out what happens next, and yet I cannot find a release date for book two anywhere. So once you are hooked you might have to wait a while for the next installment. But even with that the book is more than worth the effort.

(First published in Imprint 2008-09-19.)

Other Books by Holly Black:

The Poison Eaters and Other Stories (2010)

The Modern Faerie Tales
Tithe (2002)
Valiant (2005)
Ironside (2007)

The Spiderwick Chronicles
The Field Guide (2003)
The Seeing Stone (2003)
Lucinda's Secret (2003)
The Ironwood Tree (2004)
The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004)
Arthur Spiderwick's Notebook of Fantastical Observations (2005)
Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You (2005)
Care and Feeding of Sprites (2006)

Beyond Spiderwick
The Nixie's Song (2007)
A Giant Problem (2008)
The Wyrm King (2009)

The Good Neighbors
Kin (2008)
Kith (2009)
Kind (2010)

The Curse Workers
White Cat (2010)
Red Glove (2011)
Black Heart (2012)

Anthologies
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd (2009)
Zombies vs. Unicorns (2010)
Welcome to Bordertown (2011)

The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test...

Jeff Vehige over at Thursday Night Gumbo had test results posted, he was a monk and I thought I would end up being one too. I ended up bing a Knight.

Your result for The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test ...

The Knight

You scored 21% Cardinal, 49% Monk, 35% Lady, and 57% Knight!

The Knight
You are the hero. Brave and bold. You are strong and utterly selfless. You are also a pawn to your superiors and will be lucky if you live very long. If you survive the Holy wars you are thrust into you will be praised for your valor and opportunities both romantic and financial will become available to you.
This picture I was given when I came back to school 10 years ago to study Religion and Theology, it has sat above my desk for most of that time. I prefer the vulnerability of the knight in this with his helm off, his neck exposed and holding a child. Both a warrior and a nurturer. Thus MCWPP Mad Celtic Warrior Poet Priest!

Here are some other pictures in that genre I have had up in my office over time. I have always had a fascination with artwork about knights, la belle dame sans merci and Ophelia.