{"id":36922,"date":"2023-02-08T17:45:34","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T01:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/?p=36922"},"modified":"2023-02-08T20:42:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T04:42:35","slug":"the-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/the-roundup\/","title":{"rendered":"The Roundup: The Return!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Links from Elsewhere<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My favorite reads from around the web. If you used to read my link roundups a few years ago, you’ll note my reading material has changed somewhat! A shift from focus on film to more about books and teaching and education will likely be evident, as well as more explicitly Christian-themed links. Click on the header\/article title to read the full article. I haven’t figured out how to change the link color to be more obviously a link in this layout yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n

Watch the Great Fall – Paul Kingsnorth<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Kingsnorth has become one of my favorite writers to follow on Substack – he writes public posts infrequently enough that I can usually keep up with them, but they’re always worth reading. He definitely tends toward the gloomy side regarding the current state of the world, but in ways that somehow generally make me hopeful. He also writes very evocatively, which reminds me, I need to read his novels one of these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My point is this: as we refuse the rising Total System<\/a>, as we stand against the Machine, we need solid ground on which to brace ourselves. Neither Progress nor nostalgia offer that solidity. Perhaps we all tend in one or the other direction. Perhaps we tip between the two depending on the day. But I think it is incumbent upon us to draw ourselves out, into the present, into the ongoing moment, and to acknowledge the reality of where we are. To open our eyes, and take in the moment.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What Makes a Classic African-American Text – Henry Louis Gates<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not only a great exploration of the African American literary tradition through the lens of what texts to include in the Penguin Classics (Gates was asked to curate a series of African American texts for the label), but also of what a classic book is and does in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each text has the uncanny capacity to take the seemingly mundane details of the day-to-day African American experience of its time and trans\u00admute those details and the characters\u2019 actions into something that transcends its ostensible subject\u2019s time and place, its specificity. These texts reveal the human universal through the African American particular: All true art, all classics, do this; this is what \u201cart\u201d is, a revelation of that which makes each of us sublimely human, rendered in the minute details of the actions and thoughts and feelings of a compelling character embedded in a time and place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

Reading Tristram Shandy in an Age of Distraction – Literary Hub<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So…now I really want to read Tristram Shandy. I actually love the movie that came out a decade or two ago, but I’ve always been a little afraid to tackle this 18th century behemoth. I don’t know that this makes it sound EASIER, but I’m intrigued by how it does sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our lives today exist in multiple dimensions: the present, the past, and online. Sterne\u2019s novel might help us to make sense of this tangle. Reading Tristram Shandy <\/em>for the third time, I realized that my previous frustration was not a failure to understand the book. Sterne\u2019s digressions are both rich and unsatisfying in equal measure, as any surfeit of information must be. But whilst trawling the internet often leaves me drained or feeling numbed by variety, Sterne\u2019s novel invigorates as it overwhelms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Schooled – Alan Jacobs<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Really neat reflection led by Tom Shippey’s book The Author of the Century<\/em>, on what separates Modernist writers’ use of classical literary allusion from how Tolkien uses Norse sources. Disclaimer: I do love both Tolkien and Modernist writers. :)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great Modernist writers have a tendency to flatter their learned readers and disdain the others; they are in many respects principially<\/em> elitist. (As has often been noted, Leopold Bloom is Joyce\u2019s hero but he couldn\u2019t have read Joyce\u2019s book about him.) There\u2019s none of this in Tolkien; the astonishing range of allusions to medieval writing in The Lord of the Rings<\/em> is certainly meant to provide a kind of felt<\/em> (not directly perceived) coherence to the reader \u2014 Shippey is great on this \u2014 but its primary purpose is to satisfy Tolkien\u2019s own imaginative needs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Integrity of Poetry – Micah Mattix<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A thoughtful response and update of poet Dana Gioia’s 1991 inquiry “Can Poetry Matter?” and whether poetry has begun to matter again in the ensuing three decades, or has regained the integrity that Gioia feared had been destroyed as poetry became the property of academics writing for each other for tenure rather than a vital, central part of national discourse (as of course, it was some centuries ago). Though poetry is more visible in some ways, Mattix isn’t apparently convinced that visibility is actually treating poetry as poetry, rather than as political or moral statement. The essay is wide-ranging and a good reminder for those of us who use even old poetry as teachers that poetry is valuable BECAUSE it is poetry, not merely because it contains ideas. How to do this well I think is a continuing question we need to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is to espouse a view of poetry that, though more noble than that of the Instapoets, is not different in kind. To value poetry primarily<\/em> for how it teaches humility and kindness, for how it teaches us to be good friends and citizens, to act justly, or to love well is likewise to view poetry as a means to an end. To value it primarily for what<\/em> it says rather than how<\/em> it says it is to undermine its integrity. This leads sooner or later to the subjugation of poetry to politics or theology (or psychology), which, in turn, renders it useless to society as poetry<\/em>. Poetry is an essential part of society\u2014but only as itself and not as a vehicle for something else.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Caspar David Friedrich and the “Reliturgification” of the West – Imaginative Conservative<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image above is one of the most famous Romantic paintings, a man standing tall against the wild crashing of waves below him – man in contemplation of the sublimity of nature. I’ve seen this picture a lot, but never delved into the artist or his other works. This article uses Friedrich as an example of the Romantic obsession with nature, and is one of the better short attempts I’ve seen to explain how the Romantics’ found transcendence in nature despite their general turn toward secularism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century was more than historians often understand it to be. With an unparalleled subjectivity and exuberance, it is usually seen as a reaction to the rationalism of the so-called Enlightenment. From the crescendos of Beethoven to the lyrics of Byron, it sought the transformation of a culture constrained, as proponents saw it, by eighteenth-century conventions of counterpoint and the couplet. However, as Romanticism elevated sentiment it also advanced an equally ambitious effort to secure a transcendent anchor for its cult of feeling. Advocates were painfully, even desperately aware that a yawning chasm had opened between the world and the source of its transformation, heaven. They were secularists to the core, but they nevertheless realized that the impasse of modernity was an ironic outcome of secularization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Restoring the Shire: A Review of the Wonders of Creation – Front Porch Republic<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Front Porch Republic is doing great work on the relationship between faith and community, and how to reclaim a sense of place in a modern transient world, and while I don’t think that *I* do a good job with this, I always appreciate reading their perspective. This is actually a review of a book, and not only did I immediately add the book to my TBR list (I mean, it’s about learning how to steward the earth well via Narnia and Middle-Earth) but the review itself is tremendously thoughtful. I’ve long felt that Christian critiques of “tree-hugging” environmentalists frequently swing too far the other direction – we are still called to faithfully steward God’s creation rather than exploit it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to emphasize Tolkien\u2019s attention to local spaces, small actions, and personal responsibility. As I have written previously<\/a>, Samwise Gamgee is my favorite example of human-nature relationships in The Lord of the Rings<\/em>. Presented with a problem that was not his own doing\u2014the destruction of his hometown\u2014he sets about the long, hard work of restoration. What is a typical American response to environmental problems? My college students tend to think that the government or corporations, not consumers, are responsible for most environmental problems and should be the ones to do the cleanup. […] Samwise is clearly not responsible for the destruction of the Shire, but he doesn\u2019t wait for Saruman and his ruffians to restore the Shire. He takes personal responsibility for the health of his own inhabited space, his own local community.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Coolest Bookstores in the World – BookRiot<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I apparently have a lot of international traveling to do to visit all these bookstores! Challenge accepted. Pictured above is the Boekhandel Dominicanen in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Not all of these are cool because of how they look or the unusual types of buildings they’re in – there are all kinds of reasons for their inclusion, making this a fun list to browse.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Valiant Hearts: Coming Home<\/em> Out via Netflix Games – Touch Arcade<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valiant Hearts: The Great War<\/em> is still one of my all-time favorite gaming experiences, a beautifully illustrated and emotionally compelling side-scrolling puzzler set during WWI. It remains one of only a handful of games that have ever made me cry (no, I haven’t played The Last of Us<\/em>). It’s been eight years, but I am definitely excited about playing a sequel – the first Netflix game I’ve truly been interested in. I already downloaded it, just waiting now for the right time to dive in!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading Right Now<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Added to My TBR This Week<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I troll book list posts incessantly looking for new books to read, despite the fact that I already have a billion books on my TBR and will never ever get to all of them. These ones caught my eye this week. Sources: Out of the Past Blog<\/a>, Jessica Hooten Wilson<\/a>, Front Porch Republic<\/a>, More Christ<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Watching<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I am entirely fascinated by this recreation of how Shakespeare’s plays probably originally sounded. Some of this I’ve put together myself from figuring out how certain sonnet lines that don’t rhyme now probably rhymed then, but doing a whole play like this – I would love to see this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n