(3 and 4) ON ABSOLUTE IRONY. (Yet another) Update on Doctor Faustus and the Jackass Trilogy. What does Thomas Mann’s depiction of World War II Germany have to do with today’s Jackass Trilogy of novels on all the murderous intrigue of interreligious politics?
The battle continues. [for the last update, scroll to the bottom of this post...]
Here’s how this all started:
I fisk the responses of “B” only in trepidation, since he is one of the most brilliant journalist-theologian-Scripture scholars in Europe. However, here goes…
Jackass Trilogy blog-readers will remember that a reader sent me this book via Amazon. He said that Book 1 of the Trilogy was like Doctor Faustus in a number of ways. I wondered if I should be flattered, since this is one of the most read books in Germany. Yet, I said, the author is more than just a bit odd.
Anyway, I asked if the pianist is really not just an analogy about the German State at the time of the Second World War. The response was in the affirmative. Interesting, said I. Then he went on to say that
It’s about grace and about Germany and the intellectual history of Europe and about the Reformation… and much more. Read!
Well, getting stuck on the first couple of chapters, I asked him for more comments. Et voilà!
Ok, what reminds me of that book [[Doctor Faustus]] when I read your novel?
– there is a lot of symbolism and hidden allusions in it.
- all the names of the protagonists have meanings.[...]
- The protagonists represent certain, say, intellectual or cultural prototypes.
- The action takes place in the present but has lots of links with the past
– It’s ironic. To be honest: It’s more ironic than your book.
… and some other things.Read!
Cheers
BWell, I had to ask him about the “more ironic” bit! His response:
For example the way the “fictive author” is depicted is a kind of self-irony of the real author, Thomas Mann. B
Hmmm… I’m not trying to be in a competition for who can be the most ironic, which would get rather complicated if one understands this as levels of communication from which one thinks one can distance oneself, even if only to make the comment that one has not been successful. Since I haven’t read Doctor Faustus — yet — I don’t know what this self-irony of the author is all about, though I am thinking that if it really is self-irony, then it is, strictly speaking, not possible. That would be a lifting oneself up by one’s own bootstraps, only to fall on one’s keister. Irony regarding self needs a goodness outside of oneself. I direct readers to my favourite passage of Hillarie Belloc on Irony and some personal comments which I made in all the opening pages of the Trilogy, repeated here:
To the young, the pure, and the ingenuous, irony must always appear to have a quality of something evil, and so it has, for [...] it is a sword to wound. It is so directly the product or reflex of evil that, though it can never be used – nay, can hardly exist – save in the chastisement of evil, yet irony always carries with it some reflections of the bad spirit against which it was directed. [...] It suggests most powerfully the evil against which it is directed, and those innocent of evil shun so terrible an instrument. [...] The mere truth is vivid with ironical power. [...] The mere utterance of a plain truth labouriously concealed by hypocrisy, denied by contemporary falsehood, and forgotten in the moral lethargy of the populace, takes upon itself an ironical quality more powerful than any elaboration of special ironies could have taken in the past. [...] No man possessed of irony and using it has lived happily; nor has any man possessing it and using it died without having done great good to his fellows and secured a singular advantage to his own soul.
Hilaire Belloc, Selected Essays (2/6), ed. J.B. Morton; Penguin Books (1325): Harmondsworth – Baltimore – Mitcham 1958. See the essay “On Irony” on pages 124-127.
I then offered this about irony from various angles:
If not happiness, irony brings blessedness, living life on the edge, marginalised as obscurantist, cut down by the sword for reflecting light. As for me, without grace, I am not ironic, but self-affirmingly trample on others, claiming a moral high ground swamped by my weakness. Given the circumstances, and without grace, I would be more evil than the worst monsters in the trilogy. Nice circumstances do not justify, but tend to delude. Anyone saying differently is a liar. Any irony in the trilogy is, then, most ironic, for, with Peter, I learn not from any failure, but in being forgiven for culpable ineptness by the One I have often betrayed, Irony Incarnate. Irony is not diablerie. He who said – “One who talks does not know; one who knows does not talk” – spoke of nirvana, not religious politics. To remain silent would be a travesty.
On a personal note, I must thank my father and many others, who, through the decades, urged me to write an autobiography, not any Cartesian “I think, therefore, I am” self-aggrandisement – neglecting the One writing the Book of Life – but rather, something akin to Saint Augustine’s Confessions, about the One who makes us restless until we are face to Face. But my unwieldy protestations would be unhelpful. Even if one must write about what one knows, I have revealed only my limitations in becoming all things to all men, in understanding the difficulties which many face, but for which, because they are so grave, I have tried to make myself available. Pop-psychology rejects irony as satire, a projection of self, an autobiographical laxative. Before such obtuseness, a disciple of Saint Francis described irony as understanding willingly at risk of being misunderstood. God ironically brings others to heaven by way of us. That is my hope.
Our Lord God, Christ Jesus, Irony Incarnate, is the only way we can realise any irony in our own lives, for He is supreme goodness shining upon our darkness, enlightening us about the Living Truth, the Charity that is the Father, that is Christ Jesus. We find out who we are only in Him. Of ourselves, we only lack the goodness we ought to have. In Him we live and move and have our being.
Having said that, there is, then, plenty of irony in Chesterton’s poem about a certain Jackass, damned by all, who had the privilege of carrying Christ into Jerusalem:
The Donkey [a.k.a. Jackass for the Hour – Zechariah 9,9]
by G.K. Chesterton
When fishes flew and forests walked and figs grew upon thorn
Some moment when the moon was blood, then surely I was born
With monstrous head and sickening cry and ears like errant wings
The devil’s walking parody on all four footed things
The tattered outlaw of the earth, of ancient crooked will
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb; I keep my secret still
Fools! For I also had my hour, one far fierce hour and sweet
There was a shout about my ears and palms before my feetI’m happy to be a Jackass, with all my readers, by the grace of God. That’s enough irony for me! Yet, O.K., I’ll have a read of Doctor Faustus! Thanks, B. That’s really cool of you!
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After all that, I received this response:
Here comes something on irony. Irony is a dangerous thing: It is
abysmal, bottomless. Irony plays with senselessness. OK, you may say:
It is my standpoint (in the very sense of the word), the firmness of my
perspective which makes my irony on what is “out there” possible. But
mind the hazard. In the romantic sense of the word, irony is just about
playing with diverse perspectives. So how do you assure that in
relativising things by way of irony your “own” standpoint stays
unaffected? At least you get vulnerable.
The answer:
I suppose that if you look at Belloc’s words on irony long enough you will see that the only one who can really be ironic is Christ, and then us inasmuch as we are with Him by His grace (very much like Chesterton’s donkey). Christ is not evil for responding to evil with a goodness which conquers that evil, though it might just seem to us that He becomes sin for us while He hangs upon the Cross. The irony of the evil of that death is that this death manifests the greatest love that can ever be, the Love that is God Himself.
If, then, I think I can offer some irony, it is not because I am good of myself, but because I know in some way the goodness of Christ, and this because I know that He loves me, especially because, and here is the irony, I know that without His grace and given the circumstances, I could do anything evil. If I had the circumstances of the soldiers on Calvary, if I were without the Lord’s grace, well, I would just so be right there with all the hatred, violence, torture and death. I know that. That’s why I also thank Him for His goodness and kindness. Not just for different circumstances (which, without His grace, I could turn into a hell), but for the life I know He gives. True love (His love assented to by us, by His grace) casts out all fear. If you want vulnerability, it is not fear, but knowing who we could be without His grace.
AS REGARDS THE HORRORS OF WORLD WAR II GERMANY, KNOW THAT IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN UNLESS WE ACCEPT THE ABSOLUTE IRONY OF GOD INCARNATE, IRONY INCARNATE.
UPDATE 4
[[Jackass Trilogy comments in brackets and red]]
As I understand you, the only [[One Who is]] really ironic is Christ, and you share this irony inasmuch you are in his grace. Well, that sounds very pious. [[If your definition of piety is honouring the One to Whom Honour is due, namely, God, then I agree! But if you think that a creature's participation in the Charity in Truth of His Creator is impossibly stupid, then, I can't answer you as Christ could not answer Pontius Pilate with his "WHAT is truth?" when the Living Truth was standing before him. ]] But does this mean that we have to imagine Christ on the Cross making fun on, say, a modernistic sister [[No!]] or on one of all the other bizarre (ironically depicted) characters from the novel? [[No!]] At least this is what you are doing. [[No, again. Reality is more bizarre than fiction, is it not? The trouble with the modernistic sister, as you call her, is that much of the dialogue is for real, some of it lifted directly from episcopal conferences or speeches or odd sayings of actual people who are extremely highly praised for such "insights". Moreover, except for her more bizarre behaviour (which has a purpose in the story), what she presents is the written and accepted and practiced norm. Pretty frightening, don't you think? To put the light of a character like Father Alexamenos against this conglomerate character of the Sister is, I think, irony at it's best. The truth is showing up falsehood. If this is comical, so be it. Irony is not necessarily bizarre or comical. See the description of Hillaire Belloc, which is the description of irony that I act upon. There is plenty of this kind of irony in the Scriptures, and Christ Himself speaks and acts with ferocious irony (such as with the would-be stoning of the woman caught in the act of adultery). The ferocity of the irony, even the sarcasm and downright mockery of the accusers is surpassed only by the overwhelming truths of charity, which I hope to have depicted in Book 1 of the Trilogy. The horrific, homosexually perverted programme of formation for seminarians presented by the United States Episcopal Conference as a response to the sex abuse crisis, which programme is critiqued in those chapters, is a deadly serious topic. People are SICK TO DEATH about it. No one is in the mood to read highly refined scientific analysis. People can read what I hope is, in those chapters, an intensely gripping scene in an inquisition. It has light hearted moments, yes, to keep people reading. This is not an easy task. I don't ask for any slack, however. I think I have done well. As for other characters, like Archbishop Ahan, or Cardinal Froben, well, you haven't been googling very well, have you? And you haven't been in and around such characters over decades, have you? Sorry, but this is just the way it is. Yes, there is poetical license, but, I mean, there is no other way to write a story and keep people interested. Yet, what they say is historically accurate, if not by way of direct quotation, often from written sources, then as a summary of historical situations in the past and present. If it all sounds like it is too much, maybe you need a dose of reality. Welcome to a reread of Book 1 of the Trilogy! ]]
Now, what has that to do with Thomas Mann?
There is always a certain danger: you could become unintentionally comical in what you are actually really serious about. [[ Ah, but I'm intentionally comical. Remember the bit about sniffing the wind? I thought that was really good. People were shocked that God's Scriptures could be so, shall we say, incisive. Hah! Here's an excerpt with Padre (Cardinal) Emet speaking during the Inquisition Trial to the Sister in question:
But Sister, your emphasis on sexual sin is rather unusual. It is true that Jeremiah, as so many of the prophets, uses the terminology of wanton fornication, saying, so wonderfully: A wild she-ass familiar with the wilderness, sniffing the wind in her lust! Who can restrain her in her heat? All who seek her will not be wearied. In her new moon they will find her… Like the shame of a thief when apprehended, just so is the house of Israel to be shamed, they, their kings, their princes, and their priests and their prophets; however, Jeremiah left room for the remnant of faithful jackasses.
Pretty rough, that. But I think it's fitting in the context.]]
A way to avoid this [[I wouldn't want to avoid it!]] is to introduce the level of a fictive narrator who himself is ironically depicted (like Serenus Zeitblom in our case). [[But I'm just a Jackass, with my readers, remember?]] But, one could ask, if even the narrator of a story is an object of irony, can there be any seriousness in the text? [[Certainly, depending on the description of irony you go by. Again, see Hillaire Belloc! ]] In this case, I would guess, the “absolute” point is the text as a whole which is still written by somebody who had opinions, intentions, and so on. [[ You lost me in this mush of relativism. Nobody but nobody can understand anything in that manner. The Absolute is a Living Person, God, Who, because He is reasonable (except for Muslims), can enter into communication with His creatures. Philosophies of communication are important only if they are reasonable. Otherwise, what's the use. And that question depends on both parties sharing reason. Reason is rejected for emotional, utterly relativistic ends. I hope I have never done that in the Trilogy! It just sounds as if Thomas Mann is trying to come to grips with a fallen Germany of which he is a part. It was all a very sad, overwhelming time for Germany and so many other places, the Jews suffering the most.]]
Now I hear you braying: “Yes, maybe I am unintentionally comical [[Never!]], but this is just because all that jackass-stuff looks so senseless from outside whereas it actually means the salvation of the world” [[O.K. kind of. However, don't forget what I said about why one can be sure of being ironic, at least to some degree: first of all by knowing that one is so weak that one could sin in any way, given the circumstances (though we all have different circumstances), and that we are actually redeemed by God who loves us so much as to demonstrate the fullness of justice and the fullness of mercy to us at the same time, for they are, of course, the same in Him. He took on what we deserve, the worst we can give out in hatred, violence, torture and death, so that He would have the right in justice to have mercy on us. It is this which is beyond Islamic comprehension, for Allah begs for a bribe of a child-sacrifice just to have this child-sacrifice. This, as we've gone through before, is absolutely a perversion of what is found in Genesis 22 as understood by way of the Old Testament and also by Catholics]]. But, as you state, your novel is written not only for strongly believing Catholics, but also for Jews, Muslims and everybody. [[Yep! I think people are intelligent enough to see the irony IF they want to see it. If you want a common denominator, it is the natural law. This cannot be understood by those who are selfishly escaping from it so as to egotistically stomp on others. I write for the those who know that another perspective is needed, not for those who think everything is fine as it is with all the hatred, violence, torture and death that we continue to see around us. We all have free will. there is still a choice, redemption or not. Scary, but true. ]]
OK. But READ! [[O.K.! As I say, it was really super cool of you to send me the book, and to make me think more about irony like this in the public forum. Thanks for providing the platform with your comments. ]] The book is not only interesting because of its writing techniques… [[O.K.!!!]]
B.
Well, there are we, dear readers. Plenty to think about. To make it easier, glance over Belloc’s words again, and read Book 1 of the Jackass Trilogy! Here’s the cover, in case you were distracted by Thomas Mann! …
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Welcome to new visitors! To read about why the tags for these posts are the way they are, and so to read more about the murderous intrigue of interreligious politics between Jews, Catholics and Muslims by way of what I hope is a trilogy of novels being blogged out here, click on the blog-header for the table of contents. Make sure to read all the opening pages of the Trilogy to see what this is all about. Then go to the full posts-page for day to day fisking.
Cheers! לחיים
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