SUN DANCING by Geoffrey Moorhouse

Some books keep you tied to the page unwilling to take a break, waiting eagerly to discover the next point.  This, unfortunately, was not one of those. This reviewer took far too long to finish the book. While the format was interesting at times, the latter part felt slow and encumbered with a bit too much detail seemingly unrelated to the immediate point at hand.  The first section attempted to tell the story of life in a Medieval Irish monastery through historical fiction.  It traced the early beginnings of Skellig Michael, a small outcropping of rock off the coast of Ireland where a limited group of monks led a rather austere existence, to the ending of its active existence and the eventual migration of the order to the mainline in the matter Medieval era (588 AD - 1222 AD).  Enlightening to students of Christian monastic existence was the revelation of the harsh and demanding nature of the early Celtic practice.  The Irish not only withdrew from the world, they attempted in this isolation to create a superior form of spirituality and closer proximity to the divine.  The Celts also betray a certain mixture in their life and practice of their pagan preexistence. 

The second part of the book served as a kind of extended series of footnotes on various details in the first section.  The book's interest and appeal, in the opinion of this reviewer, would have been enhanced by relegating some of the more detailed information to a real footnote and keeping the articles a bit more general in content.  One struggle the reader encounters is that after working through the first part you begin to forget some of the details of the first story by the time you get to the latter articles.  Again, an interesting format, but not quite effective in keeping the book moving. 

As an aside, the title seemed like an odd choice for the content.  One article at page 245 is devoted to the "Dancing Sun."  It simply did not seem central enough to the narrative to warrant its use as a title. 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Firefighter's Cross

Image
[Note: A similar article to this will be shared with my department at their next meeting. During this Lenten season when we are meditating on the significance and meaning of the Passion of our Lord and the Cross at Golgotha, it seemed like one way to offer a witness to the department that captured their interest and yet was not too heavy.] [Editorial Note: In response to a recent comment on this article I have made some changes to the original version of this article especially in regard to references to the so-called St. Florian's Cross. For any confusion the previous unreferenced information may have caused I apologize. I hope that the changes are satisfactory.] THE STORY OF THE MALTESE CROSS In many ways the familiar symbol to the right requires no explanation. It is the universal insignia of firefighting nationwide. Yet the precise origins of this symbol are less clear. The most popular explanation proposes its beginning in the far distant past of medieval Crusaders fi...
Read more

Historical Roots of the Warham Guild Hood

Image
In doing just a little checking on the internet, it's interesting to see how the Warham Guild hood, which I have as part of my STM degree attire, is actually a throwback to the Medieval hood. One article notes "the work of the Warham Guild in its imaginative renderings of medieval hoods" (reference is from here ). Again, here is my hood: The Medieval hood, which was originally a very practical outer garment to cover a person's head and shoulders, protecting both from the elements, bears striking resemblance to this revived form: This hood was also a part of the garb of monks in that era. The Medieval hood, in some cases, also had what is known as a "liripipe," a long tail hanging from the back of a hood. You can see the modern stylized version of this on my own hood. From an article on "Academic hood development" we read that "By 1463 the favourite dress of doctors was the hood with round bell-shaped cape, and the lir...
Read more

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Image
According to a recent documentary, for all the talk about academic freedom in the world of the large American university system, it would seem that it extends only as far as the system defines it - especially with regards to the subject of origins and science. Noted speechwriter Ben Stein stars as host of the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Dr. Angus Menuge, professor of philosophy at CUW, highlights the film in an article included in the Concordia University - Wisconsin magazine Concordian , including some seemingly revealing details about the expulsion of talented scientists who apparently were ‘expelled‘ from their positions for mentioning the theory of Intelligent Design: “In the current climate, even when academicians have a relevant doctorate and a track-record of peer-reviewed publication, their careers suffer if they argue that the scientific evidence points to an intelligent source involved in the creation of the world. In 1992, Dean Kenyon, a biology professor at ...
Read more