The Green Paradise/The Apprentice Writer:

...Peguy had THE IMMORTAL GREEN a conversation with his friend Lotte, about his marry worries, when all of a sudden his eyes f lled with tears and he said: " Ihave not told you all...

...The experiences of an American boy lished in New York in 1963 under the title They cover the subjects that interested growing up in Paris in the years before To Leave before Dawn...

...In March 1916, he freely converted TOWARD A PUBLIC THEOLOGY to Catholicism...

...I am a Catholic...

...by Green as a recounting of a spiritual thors have only suggested Second, their argument is at almost itinerary, a description of the action of grace needs to be done: an articu- every point directed against three features within his soul as seen by a man in his lation of "the social aspects of dogma" that of contemporary American public dismidsixties able to recognize more clear- Henri de Lubac urged over fifty years ago cussion: the privatized status of religion ly in retrospect how God had worked in Catholicism...

...His special demic settings, during the war years...

...I be- these texts are hardly known in France, says...

...Nor did this converMarion Boyars Publishers, $24.95, 255 pp...

...Les pays These volumes show us the two sides lointains (which the publisher of the books of Green's persona, the French and the under consideration here has already American...

...first appeared in 1963, it was conceived ly attempting what many au- bishops...

...These le jour, which first appeared in Paris in works have enabled Green to reach an ex- 1963...

...It successive chapters and shown to yield the about basic meanings and values that should be noted that this first volume of "background theory" that informs classi- might unite all participants in the public Commonweal 24 September 1993: 27...

...He lemsforPeguv...

...The purhis carnal desires were directed toward Michael J. Himes & Kenneth R. Rimes, pose here, it would seem, is to demonstrate members of his own sex...

...after having visited and prayed in each of published by Gallimard's prestigious se- Green's intelligence, sense of humor, these churches, he glances up at the spires ries called Editions de la Pleiade is to pub- humility, and deep faith are all in evidence of Notre Dame in the distance and says to lish only those works written in French, in this most interesting collection of eshimself: "This is my city...

...Thus the Catholic ues and goals...

...grounded more securely in the central index...

...When he walks along the river complete works in the Oeuvres completes ten in...

...It is mine...

...It is first an effort to show nonbelievers, the individualism that marks that Green's decision to write an autobi- how the central symbols and doctrines of much public discourse, and the domiography coincides in time not only with Catholic faith yield a vision of things that nance of instrumental rationality over valthe beginning of the sexual revolution but has public significance...

...The Green Paradise, translatbrought out under the title The Distant ed by his sister Anne Green, is the first Lands), appeared in Paris in 1987 and its volume of his autobiography, Partiravant sequel, Les etoiles du sud, in 1989...

...As a boy, Green was initiated never he solved...

...On the contrary...

...doctrines of Original Sin, the Trinity, But third, the book argues that this task Green, despite his sexual orientation, was grace, the Incarnation, and the Commu- is best accomplished by the construction, sure of his place in the church even though nion of Saints are briefly discussed in not of a public philosophy, a consensus the church itself might not have been...

...In this he speaks simply and eloquently for many Catholics from around the world who have had a similar experi ence...

...The limpid style, the sensitivity, the delicatesse, the discretion in talking of his sexual awakening are all in the French tradition of restraint, sobriety, and good taste...

...He has been a major French novel- only the words that people spoke every day had established a solid reputation as a ist since the 1920s, when works like that were different...

...1869) and almost three quarters of a century, his name Mauriac (b...

...1885), for example, Green in is still not as widely known in this coun- this confessional memoir deliberately potry as it should be...

...These texts were written in English in praise of Joan of Arc and the Virgin upbringing to the Catholic church paral- and, except for a short story that was pub- Mary (large portions of which Green was lels the shift from American to French cul- lished in The University of Virginia Mag- translating at the time...

...It shows the self-absorbed sensitivity tremely wide audience rather late in life...

...him most at the time...

...degree in 1917 and then, after service in major Catholic cultural figures that I call Then in the '30s he began to publish his the ambulance corps at the end of World the Generation of 1885: Mauriac, Bernadiary, which has attracted a good deal of War 1, came back to his family roots in nos, Maritain, Teilhard de Chardin, Gilson, critical attention over the last half cen- Virginia and Georgia by enrolling at the Gabriel Marcel, among others...

...Thus, diary-keepWorld War I are recounted here from the The essays contained in The Apprentice ing, novel-writing, translation, and the perspective of the sophisticated French Writer represent Julian Green the Catholic tradition in French literature are writer he later became...

...that the church's social ethic is in fact This book is marred by the lack of an Paulist Press, $14.95, 213 pp...

...There are beautifaith, inherited from his mother, is already back and spent five years in the United ful pages here on Charles Peguy's poetry firm, and the evolution from the Episcopal States...

...I have found faith again...

...of a young man and in so doing reminds A recent elaborate photo essay in the mag- us of so many of the other French mama's azine Paris-Match reflects this newly boys from a bourgeois background who found popularity...

...Like his elders Gide (b...

...What went on in Peguy's soul Marion Boyars Publishers, $24.95, 248 pp...

...into French culture by attending grade sion mean a simplifying of life's prohschool and secondary school in Paris...

...young Catholic novelist and man of letAdrienne Mesurat (1927), Mont-Cinere Green finished his French baccalaureat ters...

...In this respect the brothers Himes that would place this first volume of are following a trend that has become Green's autobiography within the context dominant since Vatican II, in the social of his career...

...Born in 1900 and raised in Paris This was the outcome of a long strugAutobiography: Volume 1 (1900-1916) as a boy where his American parents lived, gle about which we know practically Julian Green Green developed an ear for the cadences nothing...

...Green emerged in the wake of the (1928), and Leviathan (1929) appeared...

...Later, after tury...

...THE GREEN PARADISE bringing...

...American South, have appeared...

...In fact, able in the English-speaking world, to what goes on outside often takes on meanwhich he belongs by birth and family up- ing only to the extent that it reverberates 26: 24 September 1993 Commonweal on the inside...

...10K sitions himself in the French tradition These two important volumes seem to through his keen awareness and sharply reflect a British publisher's commitment observant eye for everything that goes on to make Green's work more readily avail- both around him and inside of him...

...Since the 1960s, large sections of the University of Virginia, where he remained the five-year period spent in the United diary have been available in English...

...Most for three years (1919-22) without finish- States between 1940 and 1945, he rerecently, two very long historical novels, ing his degree...

...Even more troubling is the lack of faith than in the natural law or in "right any kind of serious introductory essay TJoseph A. Komonchak reason...

...His FULLNESS OF FAITH cal Catholic social doctrine and suggests achievement is all the more striking since The Public Significance of Theology certain concrete policy choices...

...For Green the adhesion to Catholicism azine while he was still an undergraduate extent to which the daily routine of the as both a religious and cultural phe- at Charlottesville, consist for the most diary is essential to his fictional oeuvre and nomenon is necessary if he is to partici- part of lectures he gave, usually in aca- posits the power of linguistic structures pate fully in French culture...

...It is important to know, for he Himes brothers should documents of Popes Paul VI and John Paul instance, that when Partir avant le jour be congratulated for actual- II, and in the pastoral letters of the U.S...

...There over mind and inspiration by assuring us attachment to two churches in the Latin are also three short pieces published in that an essay on the subject of France must Quarter, Saint-Severin and Saint-Julien- Commonweal at the time...

...He also shows the ture...

...Their book may be read too often assumed by both believers and within him during his early years...

...and by the end of the twenties he time...

...After this first reimmer- turned to France since he considered that dealing with life in the antebellum sion in his native culture, he went back tocountry to be his true cultural home...

...His Christian American, the one who in midcareer came given special attention...

...the autobiography was previously pub- even to specialists...

...ed and when we still had to make do with -Julian Green Julian Green is the first Amer- the word "bilingual" which, in stressing The Apprentice Writer ican ever to have been elected language at the expense of culture, seemed as one of the forty "immor- to imply that the worlds of Paris on the tals" who can belong to the one hand and of Savannah on the other France determined to become a French French Academy at any one were essentially the same and that it was writer...

...of the American South listening to his par- from the time he declared himself an ents speak...

...E long here...

...His father worked for the atheist, around '92 or '93, to the minTHE APPRENTICE WRITER Southern Cotton Oil Company and spe- ute when he unburdened his heart to Essays cialized in importing cottonseed oil into Lotte is a in ystery that will probably Julian Green France...

...The fact at three levels...

...Yet, despite Green's have poured out their inner feelings to their many literary accomplishments spanning readers...

...Only David O'Connell received a bicultural upbringing in an age from the outside do conversions appear when that word had not yet been invent- fo simplify life's problems...

...Since the edi- of necessity go in quite different directions le-Pauvre, symbolizes this aesthetic at- torial policy of the editors of Green's depending upon which language it is writtraction...

...also with Vatican II is worthy of note...

...O.F.M...