DOCSLIB.ORG

In This Book Ryder Moves from Being a Youthful Romantic to a Cynical Adult to a Mature Person Who Is Capable of Understanding His Need for God

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
In This Book Ryder Moves from Being a Youthful Romantic to a Cynical Adult to a Mature Person Who Is Capable of Understanding His Need for God -s- In this book Ryder moves from being a youthful romantic to a cynical adult to a mature person who is capable of understanding his need for God. Mr. Greene is as intransigent as the still unconverted Charles Ryder when he refuses to acknowledge the latter's acceptance of the Catholic faith. His references to Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and to the lama in Kipling's Kim are interesting, but I find it almost as hard to believe that Ryder was converted to the former religion as to the latter. CHARLES RYDER'S CATHOLICISM By John W. Mahon (lona College) Reading the essays of John W. Osborne ("Hints of Charles Ryder's Conversion in Brideshead Revisited'} and Donald Greene ("Charles Ryder's Conversion?") in the Winter, 1988, issue of the Evelyn Waugh Newsletter sent me back to the novel, which I had not read in the two years since I last taught it. My latest reading of Brideshead Revisited confirms my agreement with Mr. Osborne that the narrator of the novel is a Catholic when he tells the story, but Mr. Greene makes useful observations, even if in the service of a mistaken conclusion. However, both writers miss the forest for the trees, because Mr. Osborne's brief account neglects certain hints and because Mr. Greene's focus on hints, genuine or false, blinds him to the whole shape of the novel, a structure which constitutes the clearest evidence of Charles Ryder's conversion to Catholicism. Waugh's subtitle for the novel, "The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder," points to this structure, a memoir that traces the hero's experiences, worldly and religious, over a twenty-year period. Mr. Osborne misses several hints more suggestive, perhaps, than those he lists. For example, Ryder refers quite comfortably to terms and phrases normally associated with Catholicism, like "Limbo" (79; all page references to the Little, Brown paperback edition), "chrism" (338), "swords of her dolours" (189). When Ryder visits Sebastian in Morocco, the brother who brings him to Sebastian calls young Flyte "a real Samaritan," and Ryder comments, "Poor simple monk, I thought, poor booby. God forgive me!" (214). Twenty years on, Ryder no longer regards the monk as a booby and hopes that God, whom he now believes in, forgives him. Learning that his mother is dying, Sebastian "said nothing for some time, but lay gazing at the oleograph of the Seven Dolours" (214). Most interesting of the hints, however, is one that occurs much earlier in the novel: "Sebastian's faith was an enigma to me at that time, but not one which I felt particularly concerned to solve" (85). The vital phrase is "at that time," since it suggests that twenty years have changed Ryder's stance. Indeed, fifteen years change it. This early discussion of religion with Sebastian is the first of at least eight significant exchanges on the subject, culminating in the extensive treatment of religion in the episode of Lord Marchmain's death., In most of these exchanges, Ryder professes puzzlement, mystification, inability to understand the Roman Catholic mind-set; indeed, as Mr. Greene observes, near the end of the narrative Ryder's mood turns to anger at the "superstition and trickery" (324), "tomfoolery" (325), "witchcraft and hypocrisy" (325), "mumbo-jumbo" (327) of Catholicism. So much does he "rant" (Julia's word) that Julia comments, after one bruising exchange. "I shall begin to think you're getting doubts yourself" (330). Puzzlement leads to anger, which in turn leads to understanding and grudging acceptance. In the "Preface" to his 1960 revision of Brideshead Revisited, Waugh wrote that the theme was "the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters." That grace operates on Ryder throughout his encounters with Catholicism, culminating in his prayer, on his knees, at Lord March main's bedside. Here, the way is wide open for the action of God's grace in Ryder's soul; when the dying man signs himself, Ryder recognizes "that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom" (338-339). A few hours later, when Ryder and Julia part, she laments, "If you could only understand. Then I could bear to part, or bear it better." Seconds later, Julia says, "Now we shall both be alone, and I shall have no way of making you understand" (340). Ryder replies, "I don't want to make it easier for you ... but I do understand" (341). It is clear to us that Ryder understands in a way Rex Mottram never could, even after months of formal instruction in Catholicism. It is this understanding that leads Ryder to acceptance. Therefore, Ryder's conversion is carefully prepared for throughout the novel and clearly implied, as Mr. Greene himself admits, in the phrase on page 350: "I said a prayer, an ancient, newly learned form of words." Mr. Greene argues, rather disingenuously, that "newly learned" could mean "learned again," a prayer once familiar to Ryder at his public school.' More likely, Ryder refers here to a particularly Catholic prayer, perhaps the "Hail Mary," which he had learned as part of the conversion process. Alternatively, he could mean the Lord's Prayer, held in common by Christians, "learned again" in the conversion process. Here is the vital point: conversion is a process, for the Flytes as for Ryder. We watch as the .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and Their Adaptations Evan J
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2016 The alueV of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations Evan J. Molineux Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Molineux, Evan J., "The alueV of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations" (2016). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 1407. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1407 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Claremont McKenna College The Value of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations submitted to Professor Kathryn Stergiopoulos by Evan Molineux for Senior Thesis Spring 2016 April 25, 2016 i Table of Contents Acknowledgements I. Introduction . 1 – 7 II. The Transformative Effects of Oxford in Brideshead Revisited . 8 - 30 III. Paul Pennyfeather’s Chaotic Journey through Decline and Fall . 31 - 55 IV. The Bright Young Things of Vile Bodies . 56 - 70 V. The Reaffirming Power of Evelyn Waugh Through Film and Television . 71 - 85 Works Cited ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Kathryn Stergiopoulos, for her patience, guidance, support, and constructive criticism over the past two semesters. Without her or her colloquiums, this thesis would not have been nearly as enjoyable to work on. I would also like to thank the rest of the literature department for helping to nurture my love for a subject that I have truly enjoyed studying over the past four years.
    [Show full text]
  • Tours, Talks & Private Views 2011
    Tours, Talks & Private Views 2011 Tours The best way to experience the extensive Castle Howard landscape is to walk through it, measuring what you see with your eye and your feet. The route between the Temple, Mausoleum, Pyramid, Mock Fortifications, Gatehouse, and Avenue is full of dramatic surprises; with each step you travel through the landscape but also journey back in time to the early 18th century when the grounds were first fashioned, and on to later eras when these features were changed or restored. The Mausoleum Mausoleum tours last Mausoleum Tours 2-2½hrs, Monumental Visit the most mysterious and imposing tours slightly longer; sensible footwear is building in the Castle Howard landscape, where recommended, see generations of the Howard family are buried website for further in the vaults beneath the spectacular chapel. details. The evening tour The tour also includes a visit to the Temple of on 7 June includes wine the Four Winds not normally open to the public. and canapés in the Temple. The premium Monumental Tours tour on 2 June includes This circuit walk covers the heart of the famous lunch in the Grecian Hall after the morning tour, 18th-century landscape taking in the Avenue, followed by a rare Gatehouse, Mock Fortifications, Pyramid, opportunity to view Mausoleum, and Temple, with exclusive access estate maps and other to these buildings. material from the archives. The Temple of the Four Winds The Pyramid Talks The 2011 series of talks is divided into a spring and an autumn went smoothly and not so smoothly during the visit, as well as the disastrous season, with an opportunity to sign up to all four events if you wish.
    [Show full text]
  • EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER and STUDIES Vol
    EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol. 33, No. 3 Winter 2003 Wights Errant: Suffixal Sound Symbolism in the Novels of Evelyn Waugh by Simon Whitechapel He who hesitates is lost. Particularly in the novels of Evelyn Waugh, where little serves to damn a character as readily as hesitation and uncertainty. In the prologue to Brideshead Revisited (1945), for example, Charles Ryder accompanies his C.O. on an inspection of the camp: ‘Look at that,’ said the commanding officer. ‘Fine impression that gives to the regiment taking over from us.’ ‘That’s bad,’ I said. ‘It’s a disgrace. See that everything there is burned before you leave camp.’ ‘Very good, sir. Sergeant-major, send over to the carrier-platoon and tell Captain Brown that the C.O. wants this ditch cleared up.’ I wondered whether the colonel would take this rebuff; so did he. He stood irresolutely prodding the muck in the ditch, then he turned on his heel and strode away.1 The C.O. is never named, perhaps because Waugh had already bestowed his favorite suffix of contempt on another character in the prologue, Hooper, who accordingly joins Beaver, Trimmer, Atwater, Dr Messinger, Mulcaster, Corker, Salter, Lord Copper, Peter Pastmaster, Box-Bender, Pennyfeather, and Ryder among what might be called Waugh’s wights errant. The last two characters, who are partly autobiographical, prove that Waugh did not spare himself: Paul Pennyfeather, the hero of Decline and Fall (1928), suffers misfortune after misfortune because he is too trusting and unassertive, and Charles Ryder, the narrator of Brideshead, though perhaps partly shielded by his patrician “y”, is still worthy of serious blame for his behavior.
    [Show full text]
  • Brideshead Revisited
    1 | P a g e “Snobbery, sin and salvation*” – Why Should We Bother Revisiting Brideshead? (*with apologies to Henry Mount) (APE THEME: The Danger of a Single Story) PAMELA NEETHLING (EPWORTH HIGH SCHOOL) Arthur Evelyn St John Waugh was born on October 28, 1903, the second son of a more than respectable middle class, High Church Anglican British family with some distinguished ancestors. His father, Arthur, was a literary critic, publisher and author, and Waugh’s older brother, Alec, also enjoyed a respectable career as an author – although according to his nephew, Auberon, his uncle “wrote many books, each worse than the last”! After the devastating infidelity of his first wife, also called Evelyn, with one of their best friends, Waugh would persevere on a spiritual journey which probably began at Oxford and convert to Catholicism. This conversion would inform everything he did, and was, for the rest of his life, not least of which his writing. During the course of his prolific writing life, despite Waugh’s “untenable opinions” (as George Orwell put it), which unfortunately appear to have included anti-Semitism and xenophobia, he would go on to be described by Orwell as “almost as good a novelist as it is possible to be” and by novelist Graham Greene, shortly after Waugh’s passing in April 1966, as “the greatest novelist of my generation”. Heady praise for a man who has variously been described as a cynical churl; a misogynist, possibly a “permanent adolescent” (by Cyril Connolly, referring to a “certain type of Englishman doomed to relive school days”) and famously mean, cruel and hurtful to his family and friends – so much so that when Nancy Mitford challenged him on his behaviour, he retorted that nobody could imagine how horrid he would be if he weren’t a Catholic.
    [Show full text]
  • A STUDY GUIDE by Marguerite O'hara
    A STUDY GUIDE BY MArguerite O’hARA http://www.metromagazine.com.au http://www.theeducationshop.com.au OVERVIEW > This film, Brideshead Revisited (2008) directed by Julian Jarrold, has been adapted for the screen from Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel of the same name. It tells the story of Charles Ryder and the Marchmain family in the period between the First and Second World Wars in England. The novel has been adapted for the screen before, most famously in an eleven- part British television series in 1981. This is a story about love, sexuality, religion, class, families and identity. It explores story as we are carried along by the intensity of these the connections between all these things in a narrative that is people’s lives and loves as they come together, trav- richly detailed. While the story is set between the wars from el, move apart and come together again. We want the 1920s to the 1940s, its themes are universal. to know how it will all end. Will Lady Marchmain’s will and insistence on her children’s adherence to the tenets of her Catholic faith prevail? What does it mean to be happy? Do family loyalties and values inevitably prevail as we face the complexities of life? Curriculum Relevance What do we discover about life in England between the two wars when the social order was changing Brideshead Revisited will have interest in so many ways? Are class differences and social and relevance for students at middle and aspirations different today? How have attitudes to- senior secondary levels, as well as wards sexuality changed over the past eighty years? tertiary students studying in a number of areas In what ways is this story relevant to our lives today? including: Synopsis • ENGLISH – exploring a complex narrative that moves between several time periods and socie- Brideshead Revisited is an evocative and poignant ties; understanding the psychological dimensions ..
    [Show full text]
  • Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited": Paradise Lost Or Paradise Regained?
    Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited": Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained? VALERIE KENNEDY It is worth asking why, in a secular and post-roman tic age, a myth of the Fall should have such validity. .. One answer, I think, is that the experience of being abandoned, of losing an unconditional love, and thereby of forfeiting the simple confidence and wholeness which it sanctions, is a common childhood tragedy. (Thurman 327) i. Introduction AJrideshead Revisited was first published in a limited edition in 1944, then in a revised edition for the general public in 1945, and then again, fifteen years later, in another revised edition, in 1960.1 The novel caused great controversy on its first appearance because of the striking changes it presented in Waugh's style and subject- matter.2 Previously known to his readers as a purveyor of ironic, apparently nihilistic black comedy and as a writer of no explicit moral or religious persuasion, Waugh emerges in Brideshead Re• visited as the author of a Catholic apologia whose dominant mode is that of realism. The novel traces the emotional, moral, and spiritual development of its protagonist and first-person narrator, Charles Ryder, through his relations with the Flyte family. As Waugh puts it in his i960 Preface to the novel, its "perhaps pre• sumptuously large" theme is "the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters" ( 7 ). In the first edition "Warning," he described the theme even more precisely as "the workings of the divine purpose in a pagan world, in the fives of an English Catholic family, half-paganized themselves, in the world of 1923-1939" (quoted in Heath 163).
    [Show full text]
  • Evelyn Waugh: an Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited
    - Evelyn Waugh: An Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited An Honors Thesis by Krista M. Pomeroy Thesis Advisor - Dr. Joanne Edmonds Ball State University Muncie, Indiana May 2000 - - Abstract English writer Evelyn Waugh has been known for using characters from his life in many of his literary works, including his novel Brideshead Revisited. Through analyzing my study abroad trip to Harris Manchester College in Oxford, England, the novel itself, and Evelyn Waugh's life, I discuss the comparisons that can be drawn and conclude with why I think many of the similarities cannot be avoided. - - - Acknowledgements Many thanks go to Dr. Joanne Edmonds for guiding me through the thought process of my thesis and for giving me the opportunity to travel to Oxford. I would also like to thank Erin, DeiDei, David, Sam, Aimee, Emily, Julia, Shea, Noelle, Natalie, Dr. John Emert, Dr. Joanne Edmonds, and Dr. Tony Edmonds for making our Harris Manchester study abroad trip a memorable experience. I would not trade it for anything. All my love (til Monday), Krista M. Pomeroy -- -- 2 - Evelyn Waugh: An Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited On Saturday, July 24, 1999, I, along with ten other Ball State University Honors College students, stepped into a world of beauty and tradition. Oxford University is famous for its medieval buildings with their reaching spires and for its aspiring academics. We were in Oxford to study abroad at Harris Manchester College and to experience the culture that has inspired its visitors for centuries. Oxford has been the muse of many poems and novels, and reading a selection of these was a portion of our assignment while in England.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural and Moral Heritage of Catholicism in Brideshead Revisited
    European Scientific Journal April 2014 edition vol.10, No.11 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 CULTURAL AND MORAL HERITAGE OF CATHOLICISM IN BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Ladislava Ivancova, MA University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia Abstract This article analyses the historical novel by an English novelist, Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. Introduction to the novel provides a brief account of circumstances behind Waugh´s motivation to write the novel and its criticism. The author analyses the conversion of the main character in the novel, Charles Ryder, to the Catholic faith. The re/conversion of another character, Julia, to the Old Faith is discussed and analysed further in the article. Through comparison of codes of behaviour of other characters from the novel, the author presents two miscellaneous characters of people. The author states that the difference between these people stems from their different approach towards the values that represent the Roman Catholicism, which formed the character of people in the past. The author focuses on the influence of religion accepted in childhood on the adult life of an individual. The paper also contains analyses of characters that represent the modern age era following the World War II. The analysis puts these characters, agnostics, in a sharp contrast with the Anglo-Catholics. The Marchmains represent the people of the past, who lean on their family traditions that originate from their long preserved history and Catholic culture. Keywords: Evelyn Waugh, catholic faith, modern era, culture, England Introduction Considered by many to be Waugh's best work, the novel, on the background of 1920s and 1940s England, broaches a complicated structure of relationships among the members of an orthodox Catholic family of aristocrats.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT Evelyn Waugh and La Nouvelle Théologie Dan Reid
    ABSTRACT Evelyn Waugh and La Nouvelle Théologie Dan Reid Makowsky, Ph.D. Mentor: Ralph C. Wood, Ph.D. This dissertation seeks to provide a more profound study of Evelyn Waugh’s relation to twentieth-century Catholic theology than has yet been attempted. In doing so, it offers a radical revision of our understanding of Waugh’s relation to the Second Vatican Coucil. Waugh’s famous contempt for the liturgical reforms of the early 1960s, his self-described “intellectual” conversion, and his identification with the Council of Trent, have all contributed to a commonplace perception of Waugh as a reactionary Catholic stridently opposed to reform. However, careful attention to Waugh’s dynamic artistic concerns and the deeply sacramental theology implicit in his later fiction reveals a striking resemblance to the most important Catholic theological reform movement of the mid-twentieth century: la nouvelle théologie. By comparing Waugh’s artistic project to the theology of the Nouvelle theologians, who advocated the recovery of a fundamentally sacramental theology, this dissertation demonstrates that the two mirror one another in many of their basic concerns. This mirroring was no mere coincidence. Waugh’s long-time mentor Father Martin D’Arcy was steeped in many of the same sacramentally-minded thinkers as the Nouvelle theologians. Through D’Arcy’s theological influence as well as the deepening of Waugh’s own faith, he, too, developed a sacramental cast of mind. In reading some of the key works of Waugh’s later years, I will show how Waugh realized this sacramental outlook in his art. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that Waugh’s main contribution to the renewal of sacramental thought within Catholicism lies in his portrayal of personal vocation as the remedy for acedia, or sloth, which he considered the “besetting sin” of the age.
    [Show full text]
  • Brideshead Revisited
    Ryde Library Service Community Book Club Collection Brideshead Revisited By Evelyn Waugh First published in 1945 Genre & subject Classic fiction Synopsis During World War II, Captain Charles Ryder returns to Brideshead, ancestral home of the Marchmain family. He recalls his friendship with the younger son Sebastian, his love affair with Sebastian's sister Julia, and the effect of Catholicism on each of their lives. Author biography Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966), known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, biographies and travel books. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer. His best-known works include his early satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), his novel Brideshead Revisited (1945) and his trilogy of Second World War novels collectively known as Sword of Honour (1952–61). Waugh is widely recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century. The son of a publisher, Waugh was educated at Lancing and Hertford College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a schoolmaster before becoming a full-time writer. As a young man, he acquired many fashionable and aristocratic friends, and developed a taste for country house society that never left him. In the 1930s he travelled extensively, often as a special newspaper correspondent; he was reporting from Abyssinia at the time of the 1935 Italian invasion. He served in the British armed forces throughout the Second World War, first in the Royal Marines and later in the Royal Horse Guards. All these experiences, and the wide range of people he encountered, were used in Waugh's fiction, generally to humorous effect; even his own mental breakdown in the early 1950s, brought about by misuse of drugs, was fictionalised.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion and the Nursery: Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited
    Beyond Philology No. 14/3, 2017 ISSN 1732-1220, eISSN 2451-1498 Religion and the nursery: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited ALEKSANDRA SŁYSZEWSKA Received 6.02.2017, received in revised form 18.11.2017, accepted 23.11.2017. Abstract Brideshead Revisited is often seen as a culmination of Evelyn Waugh’s early literary endeavour. In spite of its satirical elements, the novel engages in a serious religious discussion and acquires features of a conversion narrative. The motif of childhood is vividly present in various aspects of the novel: it contributes to the creation of characters and depiction of relationships between them; places associated with childhood become central to the characters’ life experience; references to children’s literature help shape the fictional world of the novel; finally, the motif of childhood is also employed to present various, often contrasting, approaches towards religion (Catholicism in particular). The article seeks to explore all these elements and indicate how the motif of childhood contributes to the thematic and stylistic aspects of Waugh’s first overtly Catholic novel. Key words religion in literature, Catholicism, childhood, Catholic novel 202 Beyond Philology 14/3 Religia i obraz dzieciństwa: Znowu w Brideshead Evelyna Waugha Abstrakt Powieść Znowu w Brideshead jest często postrzegana jako moment kulminacyjny wczesnej twórczości Evelyna Waugha. Mimo elementów satyrycznych powieść podejmuje poważną dyskusję o charakterze religijnym i staje się historią o nawróceniu. Motyw dzieciństwa jest bardzo widoczny w różnych aspektach powieści: przyczynia się do kreacji bohaterów oraz do opisu relacji między nimi; miejsca utożsamiane z dzieciństwem stają się kluczowe dla życiowych doświadczeń bohaterów; odniesienia do literatury dla dzieci pomagają kształtować świat powieści; wreszcie, odniesienia do dzieciństwa pozwalają na prezentację różnych, często kontras- tujących ze sobą postaw wobec religii (w szczególności katolicyzmu).
    [Show full text]
  • SUFFERING in EVELYN WAUGH's BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Thesis
    BEYOND SINS AND SYMPTOMS: SUFFERING IN EVELYN WAUGH’S BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Thesis Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Master of Arts in English By Sarah Elizabeth Miller UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON Dayton, Ohio May 2021 BEYOND SINS AND SYMPTOMS: SUFFERING IN EVELYN WAUGH’S BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Name: Miller, Sarah Elizabeth APPROVED BY: David J. Fine, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor Assistant Professor, Department of English Susan Trollinger, Ph.D. Faculty Reader Professor, Department of English Bro. Thomas A. Wendorf, S.M., Ph.D. Faculty Reader Associate Professor, Department of English ii ABSTRACT BEYOND SINS AND SYMPTOMS: SUFFERING IN EVELYN WAUGH’S BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Name: Miller, Sarah Elizabeth University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. David J. Fine This work interrogates the ongoing popularity of Catholic Modern novelist Evelyn Waugh's 1945 classic Brideshead Revisited as a novel that depicts the modern struggle to find hope and meaning in the midst of suffering after the widespread onset of modernity and decline of Christianity in the wake of World Wars I and II. I argue that Waugh's characterization of Sebastian Flyte, a lapsed Catholic aristocrat struggling with familial dysfunction and subsequent alcoholism, confounds both traditional models of sin as well as psychological frameworks of diagnosis. Employing close readings from the novel as well as historical and theological context, I demonstrate that Sebastian's suffering falls into the no-mans-land between modernity and spirituality, highlighting the failures of each to support healing and the importance of embracing suffering with compassion.
    [Show full text]