Book Review Of The Odyssey Of Love
By JIM M. VALOIS
Paul Krause has written a detailed analysis of the Great Books because the humanities are more important than many academics would have us believe. Krause points out the goal that “the study of things human would awaken the mind and move it to seek after the good, the true, and the beautiful” (page xiv). The author contends that sacrificial love runs through the Great Books like life-blood runs through our veins and makes an immense contribution to the body of mankind’s knowledge. And this is the knowledge that truly moves man to heroic, selfless and noble acts rooted in sacrificial love.
This collection of essays is written in the context of cancel culture. Many of the new nihilists are foolishly at work attempting to erase our history for idealogical utopian dreams. They endeavor to replace our culture and government with a new system devoid of alternate views, enlightened discussions and virtue but based instead on raw power and the will to use it. Krause sounds the alarm that this deconstruction project cannot end well. Destroying the collective memory of our DWEM’s or Dead White European Males ignores the great good that has been produced in our civilization.
Krause begins the journey with the most famous DWEM of all time, Homer. The author argues that “Homer may be now long dead, but he still sings to us and touches our hearts” (page 2). The inquisitive mind questions why Homer stands out and continues to be read.
Homer stands apart from his rival poet, Hesiod. Whereas the Hesiodic cosmos is “erotic and violent” and focused on the gods, Homer’s epic is focused on men: “. . . the opening of the Iliad sets the tone that the grand song of Homer is dedicated to men rather than to gods” (page 8). The Iliad is a moving poem about the power of love and forgiveness: “How love redeems and heals the world, brings forth our immortality, and allows human nature to flourish. Indeed, Homer goes so far as to suggest true virtue, true happiness, true peace, are found in acts of love” (page 11). This is seen so manifestly in the family where acts of service and reconciliation are the very fabric of the imperfect, domestic church. Homer spotlights: “Love is what makes a man heroic, not how many men or monsters he has killed” (page 14).
700 years after Homer, the world would witness the fulness of sacrificial love in the birth and life of Christ—who came to freely offer up His life for us and restore us to God and bring peace to the hearts of men. In Homer, we catch a glimpse of this eternal reality: Reading Homer gives us a glimpse of eternity, that eternal image of love and how it brings serenity to the cosmos and human soul (page 16).
The author does a splendid analysis of Gulliver’s Travels and the “worlds” he encounters. Jonathan Swift, writing in 1726, was very prophetic concerning the modern project we find ourselves in. As Gulliver travels to Houyhnhnm country and meets the Brobdingnagians, they assert that he is a freak of nature. Through Gulliver, Swift brings out that this is “exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe” (page 136):
“In other words, the emerging materialist philosophy of the Enlightenment will eventually do away with the incarnate humanism of Christian anthropology and conclude humans to be freaks of nature and no different from other animals. How prescient, all things considered” (page 136).
Misguided environmentalism even sees man himself as public enemy number one in our era. Even a couple of prominent billionaires are actively engaged in reducing the surface human population through contraception, abortion and potentially other means as well. The Christian worldview that man is the summit of God’s creation on earth has long been forgotten or rejected by the minds of the materialists. Swift’s writing reveals how bad philosophies produce dreadful consequences.
Another aspect of the lack of beauty and proportionality in the Brobdingnagians reflects the emerging scientific outlook of the progressive project. In the former Soviet controlled Ukraine, the block-like buildings and landscape devoid of beauty in the communist empire were standard fare in their “science” based society. But in present day Ukraine, there is a real desire among many to bring back beauty in the country since the Soviet controlled state had stripped it all away. Beauty was not appreciated by the masters of the futuristic, scientific utopia and Swift saw it at the beginning.
Krause gives us a well thought out essay on the beginning conversion of Andrei, the Russian prince in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Tolstoy paints a portrait of modern man in Prince Andrei. Reflecting on the glory seeking, self-absorbed prince, who dreams of his moment of fame—his ‘Toulon moment’, Krause informs us: “Andrei is the tragic man of Saint Augustine’s insight, a man turned entirely inward to himself, who can think only of himself and his desires, to the exclusion of others” (page 168). The near narcissism of Prince Andrei highlights the emptiness and meaninglessness of the self-centered life.
The author explains that Andrei’s first conversion is in the midst of fierce battle in the war with the French. He is wounded and falls to the earth:
“It is not until Andrei has been brought low, humbled, that he glimpses eternity. Andrei’s slow journey to love of God, culminating in forgiveness and love of others begins with his looking up to the heavens and finding a wonderous sight before his eyes” (page 170).
This process of change in his outlook, leads to his ultimate conversion of forgiving love for the woman who deeply wronged him by betrayal.
There are a number of good, true and beautiful nuggets in the essays on the great books and well worth the read.