I had hoped this morning to write a post entitled “The Eternal, Unchanging England” as a comment upon Dena’s excellent “blasphemous” post. Although I agree with her observations and analysis, I’d like to take her discussion on a transendental tangent that leads us to a more hopeful conclusion. Since, however, I am on holiday with my family in California and since my son had me up half the night because of a bad case of congestion, which is preventing him from sleeping, I think I’ll need to postpone the writing of the post until tomorrow.
In the interim, I’m posting a link to an excellent article by the inestimable and indefatigable Jesuit, Father Schall, about R. H. Benson’s novel, The Lord of the World. I should warn those who have not read Benson’s classic dystopian and apocalyptic book that Fr. Schall summarizes the plot. Those wishing to read the novel and not wishing to know the plot beforehand should resist reading what follows. For the rest of us, it is intriguing to discover why Fr. Schall considered Benson’s novel, along with C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, the most frightening novel he had ever read.
Talk about terrifying–I read Lord of the World just after the last presidential election when the entire country had way exceeded the legal limit and was totally intoxicated. How scary was that?
Anyone who reads this novel as “futuristic” should not be misled by Benson’s lack of scientific acumen. That’s NOT what it’s about.
Strange, though, how, like Schall, I too found it both terrifying and “consoling” at the same time.