Books this year: a book diary

This is a fascinating book. Of course, it will only be fascinating for people who have read a fair amount of Williams’ work and enjoyed it enough to read a book of criticism about it, which I realize is a fairly small group of people. And a significant part of what makes it fascinating is the questions it raises and leaves unaddressed, which can be frustrating. Still: a very interesting book.

Fundamental to this book is Dunning’s assertion that the occult was a far greater part of Williams’ life and writing than has previously been acknowledged. It is well known that he joined the hermetic/occult Fellowship of the Rosy Cross in 1917 (at the age of 31), but his involvement has generally been downplayed. However, Williams was not only a member for at least a decade, he was an active and advancing member, and served as Magister Templi for period in the 1920s. Furthermore, he was significantly influenced by the Rites of the FRC and the writings of its founder, A.E. Waite.

Dunning examines the role of the occult and the clash between heterodoxy and orthodoxy in Williams’ body of work using two sets of ideas borrowed from Kierkegaard: the three existential stages and Religions A & B. I’m not at all familiar with Kierkegaard’s writing, so I don’t know how accurately Dunning outlines those ideas, or how well I understood his outline, but I’ll attempt to define the idea as they’re used in the book.

The three existential stages, in order, are the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. Dunning acknowledges that the stages are more a continuum than discrete entities, but he then employs them as though each stage was antithetical to the others; Kierkegaard, though, wrote about them as though the higher stages contained or synthesized the lower stages.

Dunning uses the existential stages to discuss characters in Williams’ novels, plays, and the Arthuriad, as well as Williams himself. Dunning argues throughout the book that Williams’ body of work displays a fundamental incoherence owing largely to his attempts to reconcile the aesthetic and religious stages. There are, certainly, a several major characters whose religious authority flows from their poetic genius – Peter Stanhope in Descent Into Hell and Taliessin in the Arthuriad, for example - but I’m not sure that they’re problematic because Williams is trying to make them occupy two existential spaces at once (though they are, certainly, difficult characters).

The concept of Religion A and Religion B is less well-defined in Dunning’s book, and, so far as I can tell, a fairly minor part of Kierkegaard’s thought. Dunning defines Religion A as pantheism, with an emphasis on the immanence of God, and Religion B as Christianity, with an emphasis on the transcendence of God. The problem, of course, is that Christianity emphasizes both the transcendence and the immanence of God, so Dunning’s “Religion A vs. Religion B” dichotomy is one of the book’s biggest weaknesses. It would have been more accurate to have employed a “hermetic-heterodox vs. orthodox” scheme to discuss those influences in Williams’ work.

Despite the weakness of the terms he uses, Dunning’s analysis of the conflict between hermetism and orthodoxy in Williams’ writing is, generally, very insightful, especially when it comes to Shadows of Ecstasy, the first novel Williams wrote (though it was published fifth) - written, furthermore, during the period of Williams’ most active involvement with the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. The novel’s central character,  Nigel Considine, has become an “Adept of the Mysteries,” which has allowed him to remain in the prime of life for nearly two hundred years; he is, essentially, immortal, vulnerable only to an extremely sudden and catastrophic wounding. The novel concerns itself with (among other things) his plan to conquers death by committing suicide and resurrecting himself. The fascinating thing about the novel is Williams’ obvious attraction to Considine; and, though Considine dies at the end, the possibility that he might succeed in bringing himself back from death is left open. It is a profoundly ambiguous novel, and Dunning deftly traces this ambiguity as Williams wrestles with it throughout his work.

I wish Dunning had handled the “Kierkegaardian” aspect of the work differently; trying to lift a few ideas to use as critical tools from as difficult a thinker as Kierkegaard - with his numerous pseudonyms, none of whom agree or represent what he actually thought - is an exercise in futility. But there is much to study in terms of the influence Kierkegaard had on Williams, and a number of big questions: when did Williams first read Kierkegaard? How did he come to be the editor for the first English translations of Kierkegaard’s works? What was Williams writing at the time? What did he write about Kierkegaard in correspondence or journals?

I also wish the conflict between the hermetic theology of the FRC and the orthodoxy of Anglicanism had been framed in those (their own) terms, rather than “Religions A and B.” Further, I think Dunning ought to have mentioned his own theological leanings; his discussion of Williams’ theology is colored by his own theology, and I should have liked that theology to be made explicit. There are large grey areas in Williams’ writing, theologically speaking, but I think there are relatively few - and maybe no - areas of actual heresy, if one’s definition of orthodoxy is the Creeds. Dunning seems to disagree, but as he never states his theological position or offers a definition of orthodoxy, it’s hard to argue with him.

Despite my criticisms, I found the book to be intellectually stimulating and well worth the time and effort, and I’ll certainly be revisiting it as I continue to read and struggle with Williams. It’s earned its place on my shelf.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Books Chris has read, 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.