The art of living: novelist as mystic
My review of Garth Greenwell's beautiful new novel, SMALL RAIN
I’m excited to share my review of Garth Greenwell’s enchanting, beautiful new novel, Small Rain, just published in America. Very different from his two earlier novels (both of which I adored), I think this latest novel realizes what I’d call a “mystical” endeavor, akin to something like Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest, though with wholly different (and wholly “secular”) materials.
Here’s the opening of the review:
In the mystical tradition of the desert dwellers, there is a key moment—a movement, really—when the spiritual seeker withdraws from the chatter and noise of the world in order to devote attention to God and the soul. The ancient Greek word for this withdrawal is anachoresis, from which we get the notion of the anchorite, the hermit who retreats to the desert or to a cell in order to quell the distractions of the world and do battle with the flesh and the Devil, all in search of divine love.
In the life of St. Ignatius Loyola, we see that such moments of anchoritic disruption are not always voluntary. Sometimes a retreat from worldly absorption is enforced by illness or injury. The cannonball that shattered Ignatius’ legs required months of recuperation. The bedroom of his convalescence became a veritable desert of spiritual encounter. He entered the room as a patient; he left it as a monk.
In this sense, Garth Greenwell’s Small Rain is a mystical novel, a story of anachoresis in which illness becomes an occasion for a new attention to one’s life and loves. After a searing episode of inexplicable pain, the unnamed narrator enters the dire space of an American hospital where he will spend weeks in recovery. His anger and frustration with the U.S. healthcare system is visceral and understandable. So many tubes and wires; so much waiting. But there is also a strange gift in being a patient.
Out and About
A couple of events next month, in case I might be in your neighborhood:
Is There More? A Conversation on Distraction, Deconstruction, and Transcendence from Ancient & Modern Sources, Vanderbilt University, October 2, 7:00pm, sponsored by the Veritas Forum
Keynote address for the conference, Renewing Heart and Mind: Questions for the Next Generation of Christian Higher Education, October 17-19, Whitworth University, Spokane, WA