The PEER REVIEWERS told you that your book "needed to take Victorian religious debates into account." Now, you're in a RESEARCH LIBRARY, staring at a VICTORIAN RELIGIOUS NOVEL. A COMPUTER with a WI-FI CONNECTION is in front of you.
Understandably, you feel rather lost.
> help!
A polite request would be more effective.
> help
Have you thought about opening the book?
> ha ha
It was just a suggestion. Really, try it.
> open book
The BOOK opens to the TITLE PAGE. There are WORDS here.
> quit making jokes and get with the program
I am the program.
> read words
You're in luck! The TITLE PAGE includes the following information: AUTHOR, TITLE, PUBLISHER, and DATE. It even mentions some of the AUTHOR's other WORKS.
The author is a CLERGYMAN.
> google author
Googling reveals the AUTHOR's birth and death dates, some biographical information, and details about his ministry. It looks like he was in the habit of writing CONTROVERSIAL TRACTS. He apparently has a DNB entry, but you'll have to walk across the room to check it.
> this isn't "the machine stops"
And a good thing, too.
> read title
You notice a BIBLICAL ALLUSION in the title.
> check NRSV
Now you're the one cracking jokes. He isn't quoting from the NRSV.
> check KJV
That's better.
He took the ALLUSION from LUKE.
> read publisher
Smart move! PUBLISHERS who brought out religious fiction among their offerings often carved out their own little theological fiefdoms. For example, a NOVEL published by CHARLES DOLMAN, BURNS AND OATES, or R. WASHBOURNE will undoubtedly be ROMAN CATHOLIC. Remember to look up PATRICK SCOTT's important article on this subject, as well as the more recent study by MICHAEL LEDGER-LOMAS.
This NOVEL was published by an EVANGELICAL PUBLISHER.
> read date
The novel appeared in 1852.
> does that mean something?
Well, y-e-s-s-s-s-s.
> google date
Lots of stuff happened in 1852. Were you interested in Parliamentary debates, or maybe contemporary theater?
> help
Doesn't anybody read HISTORY these days? Walk across the room and find DENIS PAZ or JOHN WOLFFE.
> oh
Oh, indeed. This novel appeared during one of the most aggressively ANTI-CATHOLIC decades of the VICTORIAN ERA, just two years after the so-called PAPAL AGGRESSION.
Did I mention that your CLERGYMAN wrote CONTROVERSIAL TRACTS?
> look up tracts in worldcat
There are copies in the British Library and the Bodleian.
> look up tracts in googlebooks
Hey, look, a TRACT.
> bookmark
Done.
> can i read the $*@#! book now?
Be my guest. But it looks like your CLERGYMAN's TRACT was written in response to another tract.
> sigh
You can look it up later.
> read novel
You're reading the NOVEL.
There are many WORDS here.
> oh, for crying out loud
I kid, I kid.
There are many GOTHIC TROPES here.
> gothic tropes?!
A-yup. An underground dungeon, somebody buried alive, a ruined castle...
> i'm reading a religious novel, not dracula!
Religious fiction appropriates conventions from other genres all the time. The historical novel, the boy's adventure tale, the sensation novel, the domestic novel, etc. Gothic and sensation fiction both exerted a powerful influence on anti-Catholic literature (and, sometimes, anti-Protestant literature). See, for example, JENNY FRANCHOT, ROBERT MIGHALL, MAUREEN MORAN, and PATRICK O'MALLEY, among others.
> can i keep reading now?
Sure.
You're reading the NOVEL.
There's a LONG, BORING DEBATE ABOUT IDOLATRY here. It looks like a CATECHISM.
> snore
Um...
> snooooorrrrre
*bzzzt*
> ow!
As I was saying. There's a LONG, BORING DEBATE ABOUT IDOLATRY here. It looks like a CATECHISM.
> what is this?
You're a child of the Google age, remember?
> google quotation
Google reveals that the author has plagiarized part of this LONG, BORING DEBATE from a book by R. P. BLAKENEY. However, catechetical dialogues are a hallmark of controversial novels.
What are you going to do about BLAKENEY?
> please tell me I don't have to read that
What kind of a scholar are you, anyway? Of course you're going to have to read BLAKENEY.
> arrrrgggh
Suffering is good for the soul. Barring that, for your intellectual integrity.
Don't forget that you'll have to read DOMINIC JANES on idolatry, too.
> can't i just read this novel?
Since you apparently know nothing about the theological and historical context, and therefore can't understand what the book is doing...no, actually.
Shall we proceed?
> sigh
Shall we proceed?
> read novel
You're reading the NOVEL. There's an UNREALISTIC DEATHBED SCENE here.
> good riddance
That's not the right response.
> read unrealistic deathbed scene
The EX-CATHOLIC PRIEST is DYING, but in the process, he CONVERTS to Protestantism and WITNESSES to his FAITH. His listeners are IMPRESSED by his WORDS of SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT. It takes fifteen pages before he dies.
> does this happen on a regular basis?
The AUTHOR seems to be borrowing the ending from GRACE KENNEDY. There are several other novels featuring EX-CATHOLIC PRIESTS on similar DEATHBEDS. This is what's known as a "GOOD DEATH"; for more on the subject, read MICHAEL WHEELER and PAT JALLAND.
> grace who?
GRACE KENNEDY. Author of the most influential CONTROVERSIAL NOVEL of the nineteenth century. You'll need to read it.
> but i just want to write about this novel
But how will you know if this novel is representative of its genre? Or if it's doing something unusual? You can't just pull a single religious novel out of its literary-historical context; you don't even know if it's the novel you ought to be writing about.
> there's gotta be a survey
Sure--you can read ROBERT LEE WOLFF and MARGARET MAISON, for starters.
However, if you're serious about Victorian religious fiction, then you'll Just. Have. To. Read. Lots. More. Victorian. Religious. Fiction. I believe it's called "mastering the field."
> can i go for "unserious"?
Nice try! But no. Read more novels.
> no
Yes.
> nooooo!
Yessss!
> xyzzy
Magic spells have no effect on the peer review process.
> there are people crazy enough to study this sort of thing?
Errrrm...
This is spectacular. Reminds me of Colossal Cave and my later MUD years.
Posted by: Andrew Vogel | October 02, 2009 at 02:35 PM
Very funny. And, although I have been following along, it clarified a few things about your project for me. So funny and pedagogically sound.
Posted by: Amateur Reader | October 03, 2009 at 10:14 PM
(begin rant)
I'd suggest the beach method: start with what's nearby, soft, relatively shallow, and delightful -- and tiptoe in deeper inch by inch.
Starting perhaps with Narnia, then Avonlea. Then Rose Macaulay's TOLD BY AN IDIOT. Then Lewis's SUPRISED BY JOY. Then some Shaw and Chesterton and Belloc. Maybe Ward's bio of Chesterton.
Then for an overview all the way back to Adam, er, Virgil -- Lewis's THE DISCARDED IMAGE and Lovejoy's THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING.
Then George MacDonald's LILITH. Dunno if the theological opinions he got defrocked for are available.
Then http://houseoffame.blogspot.com/2007/01/margerye-kempe-at-feest-of-mla.html
and perhaps some unedited ROBINSON CRUSOE and earlier exploratory voyages.
Then some fiction that includes religion but is not centered on it. Yonge, Louis May Alcott...?
Then http://www.telelib.com/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/volumeXI/mandrewshymn.html
All this is to circle round the deep and cold and rocky to see it in perspective....
(end rant)
Posted by: houseboatonstyx | October 06, 2009 at 02:19 AM
For a stupendously rudimentary but promising precursor of manipulating your browser as if you were playing Colossal Cave (350 point Adventure), try the Ubiquity plugin for Mozilla Firefox. It will not, as of yet, make snarky comments on your choice of literature.
Posted by: jkcohen | October 08, 2009 at 10:39 AM