Grasping for the Wind

The Time Between Times

Of late, I have returned to the reading of my childhood, the reading of Celtic mythologies and the fiction based on their world. This can be evidenced best by the list of books in my sidebar to the right.

The first work I read was David Bellingham’s An Introduction to Celtic Mythology. Although this is not a stellar work, (it’s really a small coffee table book) the images inside are very interesting and Bellingham does a good job of presenting images of artifacts and locals that evoke the mystery of that prehistoric time. (By prehistoric, I mean before written history.) It then was an enjoyable two evenings of gazing at lovely pictures.

The second reading was actually a rereading of books I read in my childhood. Stephen Lawhead really burst upon the stage with his unique look at the Arthurian legend. The Pendragon Cycle, a series of six books five of which are set in Britain after the time of the Romans and one book in the present time (i.e. the Return of Arthur) does an excellent job of both creating a somewhat historical Arthur, and of presenting the Gospel message in an appealing way. The series is really a fantasy, but Jesus is not left out. Merlin becomes the prophet of the true faith and Arthur its fallible defender in the richly detailed and textured Celtic (Welsh/Briton) world. The characterization is superb, and one finds oneself wishing there were there. I am currently in the fourth book in the series called Pendragon which I find is my least favorite, as it tries to insert a story about Arthur into what seemed already completed in the third book. It is not a bad book, only difficult to read right after the trilogy before. I call it a trilogy, because it was completed long before Pendragon was written and the saga had seemed complete. Lawhead does bring us back into the story, but some of the repetition, although necessary, is dull.

The third reading was one of Peter Tremayne’s Irish mysteries. Badger’s Moon is a book filled with stunning description and detail of the pre-medieval Irish world. A.D. 667 is the time and of course, the place is Eirann. I find the mystery interesting and often surprising. I rarely ever can figure out the culprit, although all of the clues are there for me to see, plain as day. The other point I would like to make about this book is that I do find its arguments that it was all right for monastics to marry because it was more “natural” less than compelling. It is true that God created woman for man and man for woman, but unfortunately its nature is corrupted due to sin. This then means that the argument that marriage between monastics is just as compelling as the argument for celibacy, at least to me. Both have inherent sin in their lifestyles, so the argument holds no water. Of course, I do not have a problem with having monastics marry (after all, my preacher is married and he is as close to a monastic as the Protestant tradition gets) but I also have no problem with monastics choosing celibacy as well. I just think that the argument Tremayne presents (I don’t know if he believes it himself) is not compelling enough. And yes, I am aware that his is a work of fiction and not meant to be a theological argument, but if a writer brings it up, he better be able to defend it, even in fiction.

Posted by John on October 9, 2006 11:01 AM | Posted to Literature and Language
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