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Chargement... The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith (1944)par Bruce Marshall
Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. A quiet read. A gentle, sometimes sad, look at village life in the first half of the 1900s, with the two world wars serving as, sort of, bookends. I got this book at a library book sale, and it has a lovely, vintage cover showing a village scene, some Catholic leaders and a group of French nuns, who take refuge in this Scottish village during the war. I liked it. I won't actively seek other books by Mr. Marshall, but if I run across one at a library sale or used-books shop, and the plot summary looks interesting, and the price is right .... I'd try him again. This is a kindly, sly comedy about a Catholic priest, Father Smith, in an unnamed Scottish industrial town. The tales takes us through 50 years of Father (and eventually Canon) Smith's life, from early in the 20th century into World War Two. It is a gentle tale about the foibles of man and the Catholic Church. Smith is portrayed as a devoutly religious man, sincere in his belief of Catholic philosophy and theology. Through Smith, we get lengthy descriptions of these beliefs and of their value as an ultimate source for good in this world and of their importance as a road to the next. As someone with an abiding suspicion of organized religion in general, I found it interesting to have these ideas presented in such a purely positive manner. Being Jewish myself, quite a bit of the philosophizing about Catholic dogma came as educational to me. It was nice to read that there are people who really do try to use these ideas as tools for good in the world. There are times when the good Father comes across, maybe, as a little too good to be true, but as a reader I was willing to forgive this from Marshall. The most important attributes of this book are that is is, as I've said, kindly and therefore more than a little refreshing, and also that it's funny. As Marsall decribes Smith's journey through life, and his attempts to help his poor and often beset parishioners (the Catholics in Scotland are a minority and often, at least in this telling, a harassed minority), his observations often make us chuckle, such as thusly: "Canon Smith hadn't been in the Carlton-Elite since five years previously, when he had taken the last sacraments to a dying Portuguese admiral, and he found the vestibule very worldly, with painted young women standing about with their overcoats thrown loosely over their shoulders and smoking with aggressive venom as though they were doing something both wicked and complicated, like committing adultery in Russian." The book was published in 1945. Marshall was a converted Catholic who served in the British Army in both World Wars, although he lost a leg in the first. This gives weight to his description of Smith's time as a chaplain at the front during WW1. A particularly poignant and painful scene involves Father Smith assuring a scared young soldier that he was fighting for something valuable, and that after the war the world would be quite a different one indeed. Both Smith and the soldier live to learn how hollow this belief would become. This is an entertaining and in some ways enlightening book which I'm glad to have read. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
"Suddenly...he knew the answer to it all: how the lame and the sick should be healed and how the poor should be rewarded and ...how the banker might be last and the harlot first; how a priest's hands never failed however flat his words; how the Church was all glorious within becausethe freight she carried healed all her cracks..."To ride along in the mind and heart of Father Smith is to experience the toil, frustration, humiliation, mercy, love, fear, and patience that brings this tender and simple priest to such a vision. This is a chronicle of Father Smith's priesthood, marked by relentless changes through the earthly passage of time, yet embraced by the constancy of human frailty and God's mercy.Bruce Marshall (1899-1987) followed a passion for writing throughout his life, and used his accounting profession to provide the funds that allowed him to hone his craft. His best known works are Father Malachy's Miracle (1931), The World, the Flesh and Father Smith (All Glorious Within), and Vespers for Vienna. With cleverness and an acerbic wit, he demonstrates his great love for the lowly and weak and helps us laugh at the follies of the rich. Human Adventure Books is proud to offer this title to todays reader. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)823.912Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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Reminiscent of Lewis and Chesterton ( )