To immerse oneself in the modern literature of the past century is to come face-to-face with a deeply tragic view of human experience.
Though I do not consider myself to be a conscious adherent to many of the values of the West’s intellectual and spiritual heritage, I do consider myself a beneficiary of the stability that it has brought about in its provision of cultural, familial, and, in some ways, personal context.
After having spent several years reading the Great Books of the tradition, authors like Kate Chopin, James Joyce, (the early) Wallace Stevens, Ernest Hemingway, and (the early) T.S. Eliot caught me unawares and, as a result, I’ve undertaken the task of further exploring modern literature and, in particular, authors who respond to the sense of alienation, doubt, disorientation, and meaninglessness found therein.
All of the authors that I’ve reviewed in this column — T.S. Eliot, Walker Percy, Annie Dillard, and Marilynne Robinson — insinuate that their readers should be looking to religion for answers. More particularly, these authors point their readers — directly or indirectly — to the way of love and its expression in the Christian incarnation which offers unity between the alienating dichotomies of God and man, heaven and earth, time and eternity, body and soul.
While their works depict modern confusion, they are situated in their own culture, but don’t give in to meaninglessness or reject all of the old ideas that previously provided meaning for the individual. They stand out because they use the fragmented pieces of their culture to create something resonant and beautiful.
But in our day, faith in the religious tradition of Christianity remains a foreign concept or an insurmountable impossibility to most. In my estimation, however, the religious vision of our authors need not depend on the “truth” of the religion involved, but rather its practical value for the individual’s peace and well-being. Neither the tradition nor religion is less valuable to us if they’re not metaphysically “true.”
Considering how vast is the appeal to most people for a sense of meaning, place, time, or values, none of these old structures will be evaporating any time soon. These things can still be majorly beneficial even if they’re not “true” (and beneficial even for the person who does not believe them to be “true”).
To acknowledge a tension between life and death, love of self and love of God, is an honest step in the right direction, one which religious vision encourages and enables. To say that either “man is only matter in motion” or that “man is essentially a spiritual being” in both cases a perspective that deals with the “tension” by cutting out a part of the human.
I hope that my spiritual and intellectual journey in future years involves numerous changes of mind, comfort with saying goodbye to old beliefs which no longer ring true, and taking on new perspectives which might have been impossible at another point in my experience.
