Henry was once a Baptist preacher, but like the present writer, he outgrew that vocation.
Never the less his knowledge of the Bible is vast to the point of second nature.
Northrup Frye, the best known critique of English Literature traveled the same road as
the above; his world reputation began with his thesis for a Phd at Oxford with Fearful
Symmetry. He also described William Blake as a 'bible soaked Christian".
Frye also said that virtually every serious writing in English literature is to a large
degree involved with biblical thought and that often from completely secular writers.
On even a cursory reading of 'Summer Boy' a multitude of allusions to Scripture appear:
p.38 "..with nothing but Mary's staff to..comfort him on his way" echo of Psalm 23.
p.198 Lizzie gave Bard a lesson on 'shepherding'
"melted down into "plow shares and such"
they shall beat their swords into plowshares, (Isaiah 2:4
p.41 "The One Mother breathed in them all, and they were all her." (John 17:22f)
p.84f Callie tells the story of Creation and the Fall....and the loss of a
common language, a version of the biblical story called The Tower of Babel.
207 The Mother "God, Spirit, Maker, Mother, whatever word you use, it names
the One who is all"
p.235 "sustaining Grace"
There are theological and scriptural references in the story, and also echoes of Yeats, Robert Frost, Greek mythology, Eric Hoffer, Stephen Hawking and a passel of other influences. It might be more fruitful to a reader to stay close to the story and not wander too far afield in any of these directions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the author about the book having so many other influences other than biblical, though those are important of course. I like book reviews and comments that help me to decide whether or not I want to read a book, but I just don't think Summer Boy is the kind of book that can benefit from a blog and might even be harmed by anything that attempts to explain it or take it apart. We should leave that to critics fifty or a hundred years from now and let Summer Boy tell us all by itself what it is. I say this with all due respect for the obviously good intentions of the blogger.
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