I posted this squib on FB in answer to a discussion of the origin of America’s ongoing ideological crackdown via the media.
Every political regime (or tribal society) known to me imposes, whether consciously or not, its way of thinking on the populace.
Let us first and briefly consider several character portrayals before going on in the next stage to speak of the political dimensions. I’ll pass over our young hero, who is a somewhat more violent version than Scott’s most heroic characters and look at the variety of tough men portrayed: Chelmnitski, Bogun, Tugai Bey the Tartar chief, Zagloba and the Prince. Chelmnitsk is the pivot of the action. He is the soul of the rebellion and the personification of the Ukrainian Cossacks. The wrong he has suffered from the Polish elite–whose leaders he understands very well–have given him, at least in...
I used to laugh at snowbirds who let a little bad weather drive them out of their homes to the dismal housing tracts that have destroyed Florida, but I can no longer take it.
I pledge to my supporters that I shall do what I can to restore the vision of political order that inspired the drafters of the Constitution.
The press have been beating down my door and besieging me by telephone and email to find out my positions. My crack team of specialists and eggheads is preparing a package of proposals that I intend, as every good candidate does, to ignore.
I can’t say how many times I have heard some bishop or diocesan official or other representative of the pro-life movement explain solemnly that being “truly pro-life” means you won’t just be concerned about abortion. No, we also need to be committed to alleviating the plight of migrants, the homeless, Third World babies in need of adoption, those on death row, and for all I know the polar bears.
This talk was given early last year at the Immaculata Classical Academy in Louisville.
As I explained in a comment, Curtin was a famous folklorist and historian of the Mongols, whose death was lamented by Teddy Roosevelt. He can be long-winded and takes for granted a breadth of reading which not everyone possesses. Nonetheless, his introduction is very useful.
What is most astonishing in Garrett’s narrative technique is his generosity to the narrators. While most novelists write from a single point of view, whether their own or that of a fictional character or of liberal philosophy’s impartial spectator, Garrett allows his people to speak for themselves and to justify their (often miserable and sometimes worthless) lives.
