Catholic Group Read: How Far Can You Go? by David Lodge

My parish/cluster book club is going to be reading David Lodge's How Far Can You Go (U.S. title Souls and Bodies) for early August.

No LT description. See the description at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Far_Can_You_Go%3F

Anyone want to give it a go with me?

I just read a few beginning paragraphs thanks to the clever way Amazon gets us hooked, and hooked I am. Count me in!

I was raised as a Roman Catholic, but always had the mind of an Anglican and/or agnostic. In my mind, I haven't yet decided -- do I need to? I threw the baby out with the bath-water at my confirmation, but kept Mom happy? at bay? by going with her quite religiously to Sunday Mass. Then came Vatican II and I really found it all quite fascinating, and since I hadn't the courage to say "no" to her, I kept myself busy with various changes in the Mass and an interesting and growing collection of Missals.

Once I was out on my own as an adult, life was different, and Church wasn't part of it until I had a kind of epiphany and boldly took my young children to a lovely welcoming Episcopal Church in the Diocese where the controversial
John Shelby Spong was bishop. He did a series of weekly week-night presentations on the Hebrew Scriptures and really inspired my interests and spoke to my tendency to study -- look at my collection and you can see where my interests lie!

All this to say, I expect I will be welcome in this discussion despite my no longer being a Catholic, or at least not one who isn't also a Protestant.

I'm looking forward to this exercise. Amazon promises the book by June 12.

Thanks.

Awesome. I'm looking forward to getting my copy too.

Although Lodge is pretty well known, I couldn't find any copies locally. So I'm ordering copies (7 copies to start) from Amazon.

OK. I'll give it a go. I'm always interested in reading Whitbread winners. It'll take a few days to get a copy, though.

I am decidedly not a Christian, yet Tim has graciously invited me to this discussion.

(I promise to behave myself....)

Some background: I was very big on Kingsley Amis back in the 1970s; when I finished all of his stuff, I went on various of the Angry Young Men, and then to Martin Amis, and then on to Malcolm Bradbury and David Lodge (...and I STILL have trouble telling those two apart...).

How far can you go? was among the last of this school/genre that I read before I gave up most fiction-reading in favor of parenthood.

"...early August"?

Well, in the meantime, I'll just park THIS here (from Wikipedia):

On December 4, 1961, Enoch Powell, then Minister of Health, announced that the oral contraceptive pill Conovid could be prescribed through the NHS at a subsidized price of 2s per month. In 1962, Schering's Anovlar and Searle's Conovid-E were added to the FPA's Approved List of Contraceptives.

Yeah, sorry. But we can do it long before. Let's all plan to start talking in early July?

I sobbed the second time this incident came around, although it was barely much more detailed.

Parenthood will do that to you.

So, I finished it last night in a final glut of reading. I might as well start talking about it, since it's fresh in my mind.

To go to the quote, I find Lodge's intrusive narration rather better than some other writers'. The reason is, I think, what I find in that paragraph. Beneath the humor there, Lodge isn't busting up a game he started—an act that I find gets tired. He's just telling the story in a way that does not hide that it's a story. Sometimes in the novel he could, I think, be accused of being lazy--he tells, rather than shows, and his authorial intrusions are sometimes part of that. But I buy it overall. And the nod that "they stand here for all the real people to whom such disasters happen" strikes me as both post-modern and loving—two things that don't always go together.

The novel is sometimes rather distant, but I think it owes more to it being a satire and having a heck of a lot of characters on not very many pages, rather than authorial "intrusions."

Anyway, that's my feeling. Fuller response to follow.

Well put: I agree, the authorial intrusions are NOT as annoying as they could be.

Still, I get the sense that he's recounting "The Social History of Mid-Century Roman Catholic Britain" and only incidentally writing a novel - and that if he thought could have sold this story as an essay or memoir, he would have done that instead.

I think that's a fair criticism, a social history salted with funny and often poignant, illustrative anecdotes—but anecdotes that don't add up to a novel.

Still, I think it adds up to more—that the characters do live, if flickeringly at times, and that the ideas at stake are real to him.

Since my copy has yet to arrive (ABE Books up to its usual slow boat from China routine), I have only two paragraphs plus three lines to go by. However, that won't stop me from observing that Lodge as intrusive narrator seems to do a little special pleading here. Apparently, there is a character whose only purpose is to die, a fact that the author regrets, but also implies is in some way necessary -- for the working out of some plan? the development (for good or bad) of some other, presumably more important character? simply the advancement of the plot? Whatever; but we're assured it isn't done "lightly". Is this how God is supposed to operate?

Not even a character - a sketch of something that's described, but pretty much offstage; but the incident lets Lodge check off the "Theodicy" box on the list of topics he needs to cover.

I could not say if "this how God is supposed to operate" - within or without the novel at hand - but it's certainly how life operates.

{Does this thread need a "spoiler" warning? Eventually, everybody here will have read the thing, but obviously some haven't, not yet...}

It's early July; is it time to start talking? I'm about halfway through and while I am busy with other things, the book keeps calling me.

I'm still waiting for my copy. But go ahead and start anyway -- I'm fully capable of holding forth on something I know nothing about.

Yeah, let's set all have read it soon—a week more?

JB: Do you want me to send you a copy? I have a bunch.

>16 jburlinson: "I'm fully capable of holding forth on something I know nothing about"

Well, it's an art. Have you read How to talk about books you haven't read? I have the book, but haven't quite finished it yet.

Oh, that sounds like an odd joke, but it's true.

I listened to the audio-book of How to talk about books you haven't read, so - strictly speaking - I haven't even read that....

Another aside, about buying and reading books: Some years, probably decades, I saw a book Procrastination: Why You Do it, What to Do About it on the shelf of a Borders shop I frequented. I joked about putting off buying it.

Well, I finally did.

My joke has been updated. I still haven't finished reading it.

I live, I fear, as if I will be here forever.

I've finished reading. Anyone?

I'm here. I read it about twenty years ago, and refreshed my memory of it last month.

I have a feeling that I need to explain my presence here in this thread:
1) Tim invited me;
2) I'm old enough to have faint memories of the world Before It Changed;
3) Although I'm a cradle atheist, I'm a life-long observer (...in the anthropological sense...) of American Catholicism. That is to say:

- most of the people I'm related to are (ex-)Catholic - - (heck, one of my cousins sent her kids to Catholic schools from Kindergarten right through graduate school.)
- my mother was effectively excommunicated from her parish for "marrying outside the faith";
- I grew up in a blue-collar town that was fully 70% Catholic;
- I grew up in the wave of ecumenism that followed Vatican II, where everybody made an effort to reach out to other traditions.
- I was familiar enough with Catholicism that in college bull sessions, I had to educate multiple nominal Catholics about transubstantiation. "Hey, it's your thing..."
- I was Best Man for friends who were married by THIS guy:Father Walter Cuenin, their parish priest - who has since had a New Yorker profile written about him. (We had dinner together.)
- the Best Man at my own wedding was on the board of our local Catholic Charities;
- part of my work involves issues around reproductive health: so I've met my local Bishop both professionally and socially.

In some thread or other I mentioned to Tim that I grew up reading my cousins' Treasure Chests.

So, yeah, How Far Can You Go - - all-in-all, reading the Lodge told me nothing that I wasn't more-or-less familiar with.

I'm happy to say my copy arrived today from WonderBooks. I started it up and am about 15 pages in, but will have to put it aside for some other things this evening. I'll try to try to hurry along starting tomorrow, but I'm a slow reader under the best of circumstances.

So don't hesitate in posting candidly without fear of spoiler. I don't have the feeling that this book is too dependent on plot twists and turns for its enjoyment.

Brief background, in the spirit of # 22. I have little to no first-hand experience with Catholicism. I was raised as a Mormon, but I started tiptoeing out of that faith at around age 17. I had a couple of friends who were Catholic, so I quizzed them to see if it might be a better fit for my spiritual temperament. These friends had neither knowledge of nor interest in their Church, so I decided to start attending one, where I was somewhat impressed by the accoutrements, but totally ignored by the practitioners and congregants. I've had much the same type of experience with the CofE. So I moved on to a succession of alternatives, passing through atheism/agnosticism (I was never sure which) through Unitarianism & others to what I guess is now called Progressive Christianity.

I've read some books on Catholicism over the years, primarily historical, and of course it's fascinating; but I've hardly conducted any kind of systematic study. So, believe it or not, some of the introductory material in "How Far" was actually news to me.

That's about it, I'm afraid. Oh, I should mention that when I travel for my job and have to spend the night in a hotel, I'll often, for some odd reason I can't quite explain, turn the channel to the Eternal Word Television Network. One of the most absorbing shows consists entirely of a group of nuns reciting the rosary for half an hour.

So... who here remembers the world Before It Changed?

9/11 was just a decade ago... We all do.

> 24. who here remembers the world Before It Changed?

One thing, among many, that's changed is that now when the world changes in one place, it's likely to change instantaneously in other places across the globe. Back then, 1950's & '60's, when it changed in some places, like swinging London or swinging New York, if you were in a place like the Arizona desert (or probably any other desert), you might hear about these changes, but you certainly didn't live these changes.

Change lag was a very big problem in the world Before It Changed.

I'm still reading the book. I told you I was slow. As I roll along, I'm keeping a running list of different ways of understanding the title. So far, here's what I've come up with:

1. The obvious way, the one actually mentioned in the book itself -- how far can you go on the sexual spectrum before you've crossed the line into venial and then mortal sin?

2. How far from your early beliefs as a child/young adult can you go as you slog through the years and decades?

3. How far can the Catholic Church go in playing theological limbo?

4. How far can a person who dislikes reading thesis novels read a thesis novel?

5. How far can an omniscient author go in asserting his omniscience?

6. How far can an author go in undermining the diegetic validity of his characters before the reader loses interest in them?

I figure I'm missing some.

bump.

Some thoughts. Too many, and not well written enough.

1. I liked it. But I liked it more the second time around. I real slowly and carefully—Classics graduate school was all about that, and it's how I read novels now. I read with a pen. Alerted by the first chapter that there would be a ton of characters, I kept notes on characters at the end. Still, the first time through I found it hard to keep track of all the characters. There are a ton of the them to start with, they are not widely different overall, and then all but one marries someone else. I liked it better the second time because kept better track of who was who and the foreshadowing was more meaningful. Still, I can't help but feel that the number of characters is a problem.

2. The second time through I was able to wring every drop out of the thing, and I think it holds up both as commentary and an exploration of the human soul, as it were. That is, I think it was perceptive on both topics, saying that that have sometimes been said but rarely so well expressed.

3. I very much enjoyed Lodge's technique of mentioning events a number of times before they are described--Dennis shitting blood, for example, or the death of Anne. Or take Violet, whose story about being abused by a tramp is at first paired with an unbelievable story about being deflowered with a holy state and the narrators comment that you never know what the believe from her. But later her history of sexual abuse is dropped in every so lightly--the cousin in the attic, the tramp, etc. Then we get the masturbating classics professor, Robin—who isn't much better—and the psychiatrist. It's never spilled out, but she's the result of the simple and undeniably evils of sexuality. She's pretty much broken by them.

4. A number of scenes will stick with me--Edward and Tessa's arrival at the pre-Cana thing which turns out to be a marriage-encounter thing, Michael's adventure with the box of poop, Dennis tearing his hair out in the gutter with the ruined body of his daughter.

5. The character struggle against the structure--so many over a long period in a short book. Still I think it works, particularly on the second read. As characters, Miriam, Miles and Violet are memorable.

6. The book's "tell don't show" style is interesting, but I also think it works. There are some ideas here, and it's easier and funnier for him to just explain things rather than inventing some characters who could play stupid, in order to have the history and theology explained to them.

7. Theologically, the book obviously skewers "both sides," as it were, and to my mind quite justly. At out book club tonight the participants--basically, a number of Vatican II Catholic women--confirmed some of the funny, cringe-inducing details. They also spoke at length about the sexual aspects, and how, when they were young Catholics before Vatican II, Catholicism seemed largely about sexual ethics--"Be Ready for Freddy," cross your legs at the ankles, etc. One remembers that a priest would come in every month and try to give them some real inkling of theology apart from such topics, but it fell largely on deaf ears too.

For me the book raises the question of whether Catholicism today can have a "stable point." My general reaction to Catholic liberalism is "Okay, but you don't need to go that far with it, and certainly don't go off the rails." For example, I'm perfectly comfortable with a critical, historical reading of the New Testament. I think anything less is intellectually empty. At the same time, I see limits to that technique and trust the church's development over time. But I don't need to throw everything over--to treat it all as a myth or a metaphor. I can combine doubting the reasoning of Humanae Vitae but not doubting the creed. In this and much else, the characters and--let's admit--many moderns just can't find that stable point.

Part of me thinks the problem is one of the starting point. If the mountain is steep enough, you can't strop rolling once you start--if one you admit the possibility that Paul VI got birth-control wrong, well, you might as well go to key parties. That is, Vatican II came so "late" that the collapse of the elaborate defenses of neo-scholasticism and anti-modernism into a more biblical and patristic approach and an honest and sympathetic encounter with the world could only produce mass confusion. Part of me thinks it's just hard in itself—people resist nuance, and we live in a notably anti-historical age--and in a church that loves "tradition" but treats historical context and consciousness with great suspicion.

8. I think it's an interesting book to be reading now. The book covers a key period in the church from the supposedly-halcyon days of pre-conciliar Catholicism until the coming of Pope John Paul II. That aspect of it—that PJPII was elected as he was finishing it, which I believe anyway—is great. If he were to continue it, I'm sure the book would have been rather different. More would have left the church, some would have settled down to a somewhat less liberal stance, some would have become bitter and some would have joined one of the "movements" or become a "trad."

I feel, however, that we may be at another turning point in the church--every bit as momentous as PJPII's election.

That's it. I may not reply immediately as I am hurrying out, back camping!

Tim

>29 timspalding: I haven't read the book, but:

shitting blood

Now that's something I can identify with. Sounds like dysentery to me. Not much fun.

Vatican II Catholic women

For some reason I find that a strange phrase. Aren't we all "Vatican II Catholics"? Or do you mean women of a certain age who actually experienced Vatican II? Or do you mean something else?

if one you admit the possibility that Paul VI got birth-control wrong, well, you might as well go to key parties

Not sure what a key party is, but surely you accept that Catholic teaching on many issues has developed over the millennia, so it is perfectly feasible that the teaching on birth control will develop further in time?

could only produce mass confusion

Are you claiming that it has done so? I think honest and open debate, increased nuance, more emphasis on individual understanding and responsibility rather than blind obedience, and disagreement from some Catholics, are far from "mass confusion".

> 30. Not sure what a key party is

At a key party, the attendees are all couples, usually married couples, but not necessarily so. As each couple arrives, they put their car key into a bowl or other container. At the party's end, each woman takes a key from the bowl and goes home with the man who belongs to the car whose key she just drew.

If a woman draws the key to her own car, it was a very dull party.

>31 jburlinson: Ah, thanks. I must lead a sheltered life!

Is "mass confusion" some sort of Catholic pun?

>33 Jesse_wiedinmyer: There was certainly a fair bit of mass confusion when they made some changes to the English text of the mass recently and half the congregation were using the new words and the other half the old ones!

For some reason I find that a strange phrase. Aren't we all "Vatican II Catholics"?

The phrase is sometimes used in the US to mean people of a certain age and persuasion—people who lived through Vatican II at an adult age and then made it a bedrock of their faith. As Nicholas Lash remarked in a lecture I've posted before, people who lived through it measure progress in the church in the degree to which Vatican II is implemented—later Catholics just think of it as something that's part of the church's history and tradition, like they think of Trent or etc. It doesn't have the same urgency and currency. Then, of course, the more conservative minded have made a Catechism into something in between a super-council and how the fundamentalists understand the Bible.

>35 timspalding: Thanks, Tim. That's helpful to know.

> 29. For me the book raises the question of whether Catholicism today can have a "stable point."

What does a "stable point" mean? A tenet or doctrine that cannot be jettisoned?

I read the Lodge (and recently re-read it) from the perspective of a heathen - and much of the story here is decidedly NOT unique to Catholics.

I'm old, but I'm the youngest of all my siblings and cousins, and most of them reached adulthood Before It Changed - - and I see much of their experience reflected in Lodge's stories of The Before Time.

E.g.: One of the cousins was the first girl in the extended families to go away to college - and her mother told her that she would grudgingly allow her unmarried daughter to move away and live in the dormitory - but IF the girl found herself pregnant, she was not to return home. Things were different.

The point being that lots of people - not just Catholics - found themselves negotiating the upheavals of the sexual revolution of the 60s. That some people found the teachings of their church to be increasingly ridiculous seems like just icing on the cake.

Lodge's depiction of the world we have lost is accurate: it really was a narrow, constrained and joyless time, and we're well shed of it.

>38 AsYouKnow_Bob:

I think his portrayal is a little more nuanced than "a narrow, constrained and joyless time."

> 38. The point being that lots of people - not just Catholics - found themselves negotiating the upheavals of the sexual revolution of the 60s.

Not long before reading the Lodge, I had read The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis, a novel with a similar theme, though lacking the preoccupation with Catholicism. The title of Amis' book was drawn from a quote by Alexander Herzen: "The departing world leaves behind it, not an heir, but a pregnant widow. Between the death of one and the birth of the other . . . a long night of chaos and desolation will pass." The "departing world" is one of sexual repression, or at least inhibition. Like How Far, the novel chronicles the lives of a handful of representative youngsters who struggle to make their way through a rapidly changing ethos, with particular emphasis on a protagonist whose sex life is all but ruined by an unexpected encounter with a thoroughly liberated woman.

#39 I think his portrayal is a little more nuanced than "a narrow, constrained and joyless time."

Eh, Lodge describes long-married couples who remained ignorant and inexperienced of some very basic pleasures - for no logical reason other than long-conditioned shame about sexual matters. I'll stand by my description of it as "a narrow, constrained and joyless time."

Edited to add: Yes, Lodge's portrayal was a little more nuanced: it also showed a bit of how profoundly evil the old morality was.

#40 - Yeah, the Amis has been on my TBR heap for a while - the timeframe he describes is much closer to my own experience.