“From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”
Pieper recommended an artistic vision – visual, musical or literary – as a conduit for the contemplative life. He proposed participating in the arts as a remedy for seeing anew, to see reality as it truly is.
Both realistic and supernatural, The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol is an appeal for compassion for the barely visible “little man” and the dis-mantled.
“There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
When all is said and done by Luke, is he really protecting himself, his “real life”, his ritualized sources of comfort, when he protects his daughter from being taken away?
Ivan relates the gospel events to the two widows. This has an acute effect on them. As he heads home, Ivan reflects on the implications of this and has an epiphany.
Why read great literature from the past?
Love. Is it die-cut like the Valentine cards of grade school? Is it cliché like pop music? Is it a potion we constantly thirst for? Is it intoxication and under its influence we are not in our right minds? Is love passion? Sentimental? Carnal? Absolute? “What do any of us really know about love?”
Kingdom Venturers 