In the fiction section of our splendid Wheaton Public Library, the Grim Reaper is moving through the Bs. The evidence is on the library's sale shelves, which I visit regularly. Here, along with books donated, there's a steady flow of books withdrawn from circulation. What else to do, with finite shelf-space and new books arriving each week?
At some libraries, alas, there's more going on. Space devoted to books is shrinking. I've seen no sign of that at our library (so far, at least). Nevertheless, the current round of weeding out is unusually severe. Among the books on the sale shelf yesterday were volumes by Elizabeth Bowen, Vance Bourjaily, Malcolm Bradbury, Gillian Bradshaw, Dorothy Bryant, John Buchan, Christopher Buckley, William F. Buckley, Frederick Buechner, and Mikhail Bulgakov, along with other Bs too numerous to mention. I've read titles—in some cases, many titles—by all those named except Bradshaw and Bryant. I hate to think of these books no longer being available except via interlibrary loan—but again, what's the alternative?
Please don't suppose that ALL of the fiction by the writers named has been discarded. There are still a number of Buechner titles on the shelf. You'll still be able to check out Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita at the Wheaton Public Library. (If you want to read Bourjaily, you'll have to resort to interlibrary loan or pick up a cheap used copy.) I'm sure the discarded titles hadn't been checked out in a while—in some instances, not for MANY years.
Even so, I felt a crazy desire to "save" these books (at $1 apiece). I settled for acquiring several historical novels by Bryher (the pen-name of Winifred Ellerman). She turns up in many books by and about "modernist" American writers, ranging from H. D. to Hemingway. Marianne Moore admired her fiction, but I haven't read her. Now seems like a good occasion to do so.
Question: In what very interesting book of American poetry, published in the year 2012, do the following lines appear?
What is Christianity, anyway? Is it a
theological tractate? Or merely
Whatever answers the needs of people
standing at gravesites—?
The first reader to submit the correct answer (not counting close friends of the poet—we'll use the honor system) will receive a book of poems. (The answer to the poem's question, of course, is "neither.")
"Even the most gifted scholars were so immersed in the scriptures that they often saw the Bible everywhere they looked. There was a serious theory that the Great Sphinx at Giza was a monument to Noah. It was decided that the pharaoh Akhenaten wrote the original version of Psalm 104. Petrie visited an orphanage and his trained eye could not fail to notice that two of the children were Hittites … .
"Moreover, the meshing of biblical and Egyptological enthusiasms defied any neat boundaries. Religious skeptics of long standing would suddenly be overcome with fascination that a particular scriptural text was being confirmed by archaeology. Conversely, orthodox clergymen would plunge into occult Egyptian rituals. The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor was actually led by an Anglican vicar. The archbishop of Canterbury, E. W. Benson, was so enamored with ancient Egypt that the family cat was named after the god Ra. Primed with such zeal, his daughter, Margaret Benson, had Egyptology and Anglicanism so thoroughly blended together in her head that when she arrived in situ she found herself, in the fullness of her heart, confessing her sins to the Sphinx. But as ever in this story, the zany lies side by side with the substantial: Benson went on to become the first woman to lead an Egyptian excavation."
For the rest of the story, turn to p. 38 of this issue, where Timothy Larsen reviews Dialogues with the Dead: Egyptology in British Culture and Religion, 1822-1922, by David Gange. And speaking of Tim Larsen, his latest book is just out—The Slain God: Anthropologists and the Christian Faith (Oxford Univ. Press).
Have you heard that we've launched a biweekly digital edition of B&C that you can read on your tablet? (See the ad on p. 6 for more information.) Our art director, Jennifer McGuire, has created a very handsome and user-friendly design, as I think you'll agree. The digital biweekly will also feature some extras. If you subscribe to our free weekly e-newsletter, you already know that we regularly publish web exclusives, pieces that appear only on the B&C website, not in print. In July, for example, we posted Wesley Hill's tribute to his friend Chris Mitchell, whose sudden death left many of us feeling bereft.
But over the years I've discovered that many faithful readers of the magazine are not aware of these web exclusives. To introduce such readers (you, for instance?) to what they're missing, one installment of the digital biweekly gathers five web exclusives posted on the B&C website between June and December of last year. I hope you'll enjoy them—and that you will start looking for such pieces routinely.
Since the start of the year, we have been receiving donations fulfilling pledges made last fall to support B&C in 2014. Thanks to all of you who have already done so. We continue working toward our goal of securing funding for 2015-18. When I look at the contents of the September/October issue—encompassing Dale VanKley on the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, Matthew Milliner on Thomas Pfau's Minding the Modern, Rachel Marie Stone on Slow Church, D. L. Mayfield on trafficking into forced labor, and Sarah Ruden on the survival of writers in the digital age—I'm thankful all over again for your support.
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