Correspondence
D. Callahan got it right I liked David Callahan's assessment [October 25] of "why this election matters." While I do not share all of President Bill Clinton's views (especially those on capital...
...How bad is it...
...Mc-Grath's screenplay drowns Jane Austen's material in a bathos of Regency-romantic furniture, furnishings, and furbelows...
...To the rescue I am a poor man, but after reading of your amazingly bad fortune ["Stop Thief...
...But I hope most of all that Christ has saved us from our sin...
...Delightfully, Gaston shows up in a cameo role in Deep River...
...An early Endo novel I appreciated Robert Coles's reflections [November 8] on Shusaku Endo, and he is no doubt correct to discuss Silence, Samurai, and Deep River as Endo's most important novels...
...WALTER G. HOOKE Cambridge, N.Y...
...it is simply part of the package deal...
...How many current movies do that...
...Dancing distractedly through the accessorized scenes are Miss Emma Slyboots and ditsy Harriet going about their business of getting husbands...
...We are losing our men to fundamentalism, neoclericalism, and a passive secular drift because the center is not being proudly held...
...I'll read you again-even sentences like that One...
...Honesty applauded I compliment you on carrying the article "Homosexuality & the Priesthood," by John Shekleton [November 22...
...Emma' I vs...
...Sad to say, as far as I know, Wonderful Fool is out of print...
...BOB SHOEMAKER O'Neill, Neb...
...Your great publication deserves all the support it can get...
...The writer served in the United States Marine Corps' occupation of Nagasaki, 1945-46...
...The word for the acting overall is "excess," even that of Gwyneth Paltrow, who can't leave on its own the pretty music she makes but must puncture every phrase with conspicuous facial gestures...
...But there was this sentence: "If we want to be dismissive, we can say that this focus on 'social capital' simply provides a way for social scientists to recognize (at last) the nonmaterial, 'spiritual' realities of life...
...It is generous of Alleva to share his explanation of Jane Austen's Emma and Emma with us dummies, but film-goers would have benefited more from an explication of the filmic quality of McGrath's Emma...
...Albuquerque, N. Mex...
...Death comes in many forms, including our inability to relive the past or hold on to the present, the dimin-ishment of spirit that results from sin, (Continued on page 4) (Continued from page 2) and our biological end...
...3. The most recent three-year denial of exposure to chemical weapons and depleted uranium ammunition imposed on Americans serving in the Gulf War...
...Death attends life in all of God's creation...
...This is a simple but powerful story about a Christ figure named Gaston Bonaparte, a young, large, "horse-faced" Frenchman who travels to Japan, there to find his destiny...
...RICHARD ROHR, O.F.M...
...Emma' II In his screen commentary [September 17], Richard Alleva shows that he knows a lot about Emma the novel, then proceeds to apply that "lot" to Emma the film as if Jane Austen and Douglas McGrath had similar narrative objectives...
...I consistently find that men feel left out of the present conversation-not because they want to return to patriarchy but because masculinity in its rich and archetypal form is no longer honored or even symbolized in much contemporary religion...
...I suggest that our lawmakers apply the same doctrine to those in the military, the CIA, and the Department of Energy responsible for: 1. The denial for more than thirty years that members of our armed forces were exposed to radiation from nuclear testing and from postwar service in Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
...There is some nonagenda-driv-en" honesty here that is self-evident to anybody working in the trenches...
...REV...
...Michael p. chew Stuttgart, Germany S. Callahan said it all Sidney Callahan's "The Capital That Counts" [November 22] offers great insights to be pondered and, when and if possible, to be implemented...
...He is certainly right that Neil Jordan's direction lacks the idiosyncratic touches of past masters of spectacle...
...FROWIN BROWNFIELD Springfield, Mo...
...it also helps in fathoming Ulster...
...Collins led two Irish-Americans I know to leave the theater asking questions and wanting to pursue them by looking at a book or two...
...When a government deliberately lies to its veterans, their widows, and their genetically damaged children, it is no wonder that so many citizens lose confidence in it...
...ROBERT OSTERMANN Chandler, Ariz...
...MITCH FINLEY Spokane, Wash...
...They do not...
...Toxic masculinity is so feared and hated that the healthy and necessary form-"half of what it means to be human"-is denied existence, voice, and face...
...JOHN GALLIVAN Arlington, Va...
...Life is not comprehensible without death...
...While I do not share all of President Bill Clinton's views (especially those on capital punishment abortion, and welfare reform), I do appreciate his vision for the future and believe that he has done much more than he is given credit for to put us on the right course...
...But I have a warm spot in my heart for Endo's early short novel, Wonderful Fool...
...Alleva is usually wonderful, but he should have cast a larger critical net on this one...
...that this analytic evaluation of human relationships and trust as a form of wealth counters materialistic and technocratic approaches to society...
...November 22], I decided to renew...
...Living means dying Re: Sidney Callahan's "Death's Fearful Curse" [October 25]: Like Ms...
...Callahan, I hope that Christ has somehow saved us (and all that dies) from the biological and temporal aspects of death...
...2. The denial for years that veterans of the Vietnam War had been exposed to Agent Orange...
...Where's the umpire...
...Callahan, I am afraid of dying...
...I was out of breath before I finished it...
...But hang in there, Sidney...
...Soon there will be few priests left willing to be seen or studied as human...
...How 'Collins' succeeds Too bad that Richard Alleva took such a lukewarm view of the film Michael Collins [review, November 22...
...THOMAS S. MCMAHON San Jose, Calif...
...ROBERT A. SUPER Saint Paul, Minn...
...Rather, death is the inextricably intertwined companion of life...
...Nontoxic masculinity After giving men's retreats and conferences for fifteen years, I found the analysis by Kenneth Woodward ["Gender & Religion," November 22] to be very compelling and to match my own growing awareness...
...This is not unbridled enthusiasm for the cycles of nature...
...The film can help millions of us of Irish ancestry who know little of the history of the "old country...
...As one "shunned" by the hierarchy for marrying and having children after twenty-six years in the institutional priesthood, I enjoyed the article's human honesty, realism, and in-depth psychology...
...Over these past many months politicians of all parties have again and again sounded the theme, "Three strikes and you're out," as the magic cure for crime...
...But can't Jordan get some credit for possibly stirring some curiosity about real events...
...I hope Woodward's observations receive a fair hearing and are inserted into the new "common ground" mentality...
...Please...
...Three strikes and you're out should be applicable to the criminal deceit, denial, and obfusca-tion evident in these three instances...
...Silencing truth has become one of the chief defenses of a dying clericalism...
...Supporting subplots are presented so offhandedly that they are little more than signposts to their stories, and secondary characters who were never intended to be clowns are deployed for their comic potential...
...With Ms...
...An out-of-print book search may prove fruitful, however, as well as the interlibrary loan service...
...Imagine one of those wimpish introductions PBS tacks on to a "serious" BBC drama to help Yankee dunces-but here spread, in spirit, throughout the story...
...But unlike her, I do not see death as "a fearful curse from whose jaws Christ has saved us...
...Such overcompensation is not getting us anywhere...
Vol. 123 • December 1996 • No. 22
