Narrative Quest and Healing Transformation in the Work of Reynolds Price
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A VIEW TO A CURE: NARRATIVE QUEST AND HEALING TRANSFORMATION IN THE WORK OF REYNOLDS PRICE Suzanne Shrell Bolt A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English. Chapel Hill 2007 Approved by: Joseph M. Flora Fred Hobson Edward Donald Kennedy George S. Lensing Kimball King © 2007 Suzanne Shrell Bolt ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT SUZANNE SHRELL BOLT: A View to a Cure: Narrative Quest and Healing Transformation in the Work of Reynolds Price (Under the direction of Joseph M. Flora) Reynolds Price is a writer of serious religious fiction whose unique evangelium reaches beyond orthodox Christianity for some of its deepest expressions. At the heart of his work is a line of radiant, threatened protagonists whom Price calls “sacrificial people. .lambs in whose blood we bathe, whose blood we drink . in the sense of the god whom men kill and eat.” And the nature of such physical and spiritual grace—its swift destruction and occasional, surprising redemption—is one of the most crucial, recurrent mysteries Price explores. As sinner, battler, victim, object of Grace, and vehicle of revelation, Price’s central type surfaces memorably in characters such as Milo Mustian ( A Generous Man ), Todd Eborn ( Love and Work ), Rob Mayfield ( A Great Circle ), Neal Avery ( New Music ), Raphael Noren ( The Tongues of Angels )—even Price’s father, Will ( Clear Pictures and the sketch “Life for Life”). Echoing the dynamics of Jesse Weston’s core grail scene (with its ritualized gesture of identification, reconciliation, spiritual revelation, and healing), each narrative staging resembles a kind of passion play. Each embodies the spiritual dilemma of the wounded young Grail King and evinces what Emma Jung calls “the dark aspect” of the Divine, which wounds as prelude to blessing. Price’s evolving narrative approach to these “grand lost boy[s]” iii traces the progress of his own quest for healing and virtue, mirroring the spiritual progress of grail knight toward wounded grail king. This study links and examines major manifestations of Price’s privately minted archetype, exploring why such iconography flourishes—scattered, buried, but persistently emergent—entwined with the mystery of a central relation Price’s work has explored from the first (and in every genre). Like the grail narratives, Price’s own testify to God’s power and Grace—but also (with increasing fullness) to the emotional history and spiritual Quest of the “grand lost boy,” whose story implicitly demands witness and redemption (even within the tale). Price’s search for the perspective from which to frame his healing narrative gesture is a key element of this study—which is in one sense a history of the search itself. iv FOR MY FATHER, CLYDE HERBERT SHRELL, JR. From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn Its steady dyes, while all around is torn By the distracted waters, bears serene Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: Resembling, ’mid the torture of the scene, Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. —Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, LXXII v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This long and sometimes difficult labor of love was helped by many hands. The input and enthusiasm of Professor Weldon Thornton gave it a strong start and the strength to last. Doris Betts and Professor Linda Wagner-Martin offered advice and helpful critiques in the earliest stages of the project. My thanks go also to the Special Collections Library at Duke University and to Reynolds Price, for his generosity in our meetings and for the continuing gift of his voice in the work—the source always of “credible . consolations” and reasons to persist (even flourish) amidst difficulty. But my return to and completion of this study has been no less complicated than Parzival’s return to the Castle of the Grail. I thank Professor Beverly Taylor and Dean Michael Poock for their advice in this regard. I could not have proceeded without Professor Fred Hobson and my new committee members (Don Kennedy, George Lensing, and Kimball King). But above all I thank my director, Joseph Flora. He has offered insightful, detailed critiques and has become a strong advocate for the project— enlisting the aid of Mary Floyd-Wilson (Director of Graduate Studies) and the Dean of the Graduate School, Linda Dykstra, to whom I am deeply grateful. I am grateful beyond words to my friends—and to my husband, Brian, who has loved me through every frustration. But I am most deeply indebted to my parents, Clyde and Gerry Shrell, for the support, laughter, and wisdom they have offered along this road. I treasure the conversation that has emerged from this project and strengthened us all. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………………..viii INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………..…ix Chapter I. THE GUARDIAN BOUND: NARRATIVE AS GRAIL QUEST……………..1 II. THE INNOCENT EYE………………………………………………………..45 III. RETOOLING THE QUEST: LOVE AND WORK, “CONSCIOUS CALISTHENIC[S]”, AND CRISIS IN NARRATIVE VISION…………….107 IV. THIS “HIGH TALE OF LOVE AND . DEATH”: A GREAT CIRCLE AND THE WAY OF THE “NOBLE HEART” ...……………………...…. 191 V. APOTHEOSIS………………………………………………………………250 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………....303 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………..313 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CM The Masks of God : Creative Mythology CP Clear Pictures: First Loves, First Guides LaT Learning a Trade: A Craftsman’s Notebooks, 1955-1997 L&W Love and Work LtG Letter to a Godchild: Concerning Faith LtMF Letter to a Man in the Fire: Does God Exist and Does He Care? PoR The Promise of Rest SoE The Surface of Earth SoL The Source of Light WNL A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing viii INTRODUCTION In the last twenty years, the already remarkable career of Reynolds Price has been undergoing a unique resurgence. Price had firmly established himself as a major voice (talented, versatile, and prolific) in the years between his award-winning first novel, A Long and Happy Life (1962), and the remarkable success of Kate Vaiden (1986). But following his recovery from a three-year battle with spinal cancer (1984-1987), Price’s reputation has broadened considerably, drawing renewed critical and popular attention for a flood of new projects. Since 1986, he has published two volumes of poetry, eight novels, and four new plays—venturing for the first time into the worlds of children’s literature ( A Perfect Friend ) and National Public Radio commentary (see his collection entitled Feasting the Heart ). More striking, perhaps, is the new directness with which Price—ever generous in this regard—began to address both his life and his lifelong fascination with the sacred. He has published two memoirs—the second of which, A Whole New Life , directly addresses his battle with cancer. Letter to a Man in the Fire (an expanded lecture delivered at Auburn Theological Seminary) began as Price’s reply to a thirty-six-year-old man dying of cancer who had read this second memoir and had written to ask (as Price’s subtitle reflects), “Does God exist, and Does he Care?” Though Price had explored biblical narrative before, in his volume A Palpable God (1978), he began publishing more frequently on both canonical and non-canonical Christian texts, exploring their implications for both Faith and narrative itself. Three Gospels includes his own translations of Mark and John, but the third in the volume is Price’s own narrative—a redaction drawn from various canonical and non-canonical stories of the life and work of Jesus Christ. A Serious Way of Wondering continues this trend, using narrative as a tool to stage and explore “missing” discussions from the Christian gospels. Price considers topics such as homosexuality, women’s issues, suicide, and adultery by envisioning Jesus’ conversations with Judas and with “Rahab”—a character inspired by the unnamed adulteress of John 8 and the woman at Jacob’s well (96-104). This new direction, and what critic James A. Schiff describes as “the more colloquial and accessible” voice of his recent writing, has found Price wider readership than ever before ( Understanding Reynolds Price 10). The most significant development of the new interest, however, has been serious reconsideration of earlier, largely neglected works and a deep reassessment of Price’s entire canon in light of several recent publications. 1 Throughout his career, Price has repeatedly emphasized the large extent to which his work (particularly the fiction) draws on images and experiences from his childhood and adolescence. Consequently, his first memoir, Clear Pictures (1989), is now indispensable to scholars for the light it casts on those experiences and on the tight network of friends and kin who left a strong and permanent imprint on his early life. The volume is unique in its structure and emphasis— 1 Early studies—especially those prior to Daniel Frederick Daniel’s 1977 dissertation, Within and Without a Region: the Fiction of Reynolds Price —tend to focus exclusively on Price as Southern writer, either praising or condescending to the work for its loving portrayals of life in the Virginia valley and piedmont North Carolina. Daniel’s study is the first to consider in depth “connections between Price’s technical and thematic interests and the larger tradition of Western literature” (12)—particularly their “romantic origins” (iii.)—and to comment extensively on its “mythic dimensions” (15). This study is also the first to stress the extremely personal quality of Price’s “evolving vision.” Daniel asserts that “the difficulty of creating and sustaining a community” is at the heart of this vision (11)—ultimately comic, but far darker than most critics had realized (13).