麻豆社

Good morning. This year is the 100th anniversary of T. S. Eliot鈥檚 The Waste Land, often described as the greatest poem of the 20th century. Whether that is true or not, it was certainly a poem which caught the mood of a generation disillusioned by World War I, with its sense of fragmentation and futility.

It is also the 100th anniversary of the publication in book form of James Joyce鈥檚 Ulysses, and last week in Dublin Bloomsday, as it called, after the main character in the novel, Leopold Bloom, was once again celebrated in great style. What is noteworthy about both works is how they draw on the past. Joyce鈥檚 novel is a conscious parallel of Homer鈥檚 Odyssey and Eliot鈥檚 poem is steeped in literary references. Great literature lives on in all kinds of ways.
What I wonder will be the defining books of our own time? Which will future historians say summed up our mood? And, more important, which will actually still be read in 100 years鈥� time?

Christianity, and the Judaism in which it is rooted, have a particular interest in words. The Bible begins with something spoken. 鈥淎nd God said 鈥淟et there be light鈥�. St John鈥檚 Gospel begins 鈥淚n the beginning was the word鈥� and continues that all that is created exists only through this word. The Bible is also clear that this word speaks to the human heart with such moral and spiritual truth that it shatters all our normal assumptions. As the prophet Jeremiah was told 鈥淚s not My word like a fire?鈥� says the LORD, 鈥淎nd like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

And here is the link with novels and poetry-for great literature does, I believe, tell the truth about things-not always a savoury truth of course, and it does so from a particular moral perspective, whether the author herself acknowledges this or not. Of course much literature is sheer escapism or momentary entertainment, and there is nothing wrong in that. But some literature being written today will shape the way we and our children see and feel about the world. It also prods us to look at the words that we use-so much of it is simply linguistic sludge sluicing in and out of the mind. Serious writers are in the end in the business of moral and spiritual truth. They seek to feel more deeply, think more clearly and imagine more widely than most of us. They can refresh the language and help shape our whole culture.

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