My Staggerford Journal
Hassler, Jon
Having misdiagnosed the American condition, Hunter has little to contribute to an effective remedy. At least Gary HOW A NOVEL HAPPENS Bauer, who operates in the real world of...
...But we also know that history takes him around most of Europe...
...complete and mailed off to his editor, Nation, after All (Viking...
...Drawing on art history, literature, glowing reviews, book tours, and an en- ization of political systems and political philosophy, Monod probes dowed professorship at Saint John's I is essentially a movement the changes in the social role of royalty University in Collegeville...
...In Hassler's Dear James, cies as the modern world emerged, but monarchs as the servants of faith...
...Countergerford Journal...
...1-1 Ed Block is professor of English at Marquette "It's not emperor-worship per se that we object to--University and editor of Renascence: Essays it's mandated emperor-worship...
...ment happened, they might as well pack every two weeks...
...If the state of our char- intrusions: "Now these are all basically acter is really so bad, and if efforts to r,, good people, and it is not their fault that reform it are so hopeless, what are we to r A their fuel pumps and noses leak, that their do...
...He is working on a book for Loyola Press of Chicago titled On Goodness: Sketches from a Novelist's Life...
...gerford, Simon's Night, The Love Hunter, Yale university Press, $35,417 pp...
...A dead man speaking pathy will lose its meaning if it is ap- teacher and a Native American uprising...
...After a few more entries we learn that an earlier young-adult tale MONARCHY'S CHANGED FACE of suspense, Four Miles to Pinecone, is likely to be published...
...The divine monarchs of the of Weber, traditional authority does not Staggerford...
...Those who are fed up with impetus...
...The rule of bureaucracy and The historian begins his discussion campus novels, Rookery Blues and The abstract law, according to Weber, grad- with the assassination of Henry III of Dean's List...
...Commonweal 2 5 June 2, 2000...
...fter almost two decades of of Staggerford's most mysterious charNone of this matters to Hunter...
...By the early mined the sacred character of monarchy, Despite an ongoing struggle with eighteenth century, though, kings were so that the reorganization of government Parkinson's disease, Hassler continues to write...
...We know in Europe, 1589-1715 communal life came under new forms that after his early success with Stag- Paul Kleber Monod of governmental regulation...
...borrowed from Christianity...
...Having misdiagnosed the American condition, Hunter has little to contribute to an effective remedy...
...I just hope that if my child As both the record of a year in a nov- in a cabin near Park Rapids, Minnesota: comes across a crying classmate, he elist's life and a glimpse into a well- "It has to rank as one of the best weeks would have the character to make that loved writer's mind, this journal is an of my life," he says...
...And will there be anoth- power across Europe...
...the oddness of ture, empathy may lead a child to ex- then took a year's sabbatical, hoping to things, which should be obvious...
...move schools toward an appreciation Hassler's whimsical comment on one of the need to think about character...
...values clarification" and other absur- There are also more general remarks dities of the 1960s are doing their best to Ed Block about fiction writing and inspiration...
...Instead, religious beliefs underpublic...
...Writing brings out the "In a materialistic and hedonistic cul- hundred pages, "the work died...
...Agatha had figured in an early is to develop an awareness of the needs Balantute Books, $14...
...A new novel is also in the works, tentatively titled Agatha at Eighty...
...Wanting to Staggerford and North of Hope had begun odd that he should be telling me this make the point that a virtue such as em- a novel about a thirty-five-year-old after his death...
...The assassination, by a Dominican like a novel...
...In 1974, the future author of speaks to him: "It did not strike me as above the fray is arrogance...
...Kingwhen a neighbor gets access to the let- that there was a gradual trend toward ly divinity was under attack from all ters of the marvelous Agatha McGee, he the rationalization of the role of the sides...
...Unable launched devastating criticisms against to let the completed first draft "cool," Hasthe establishment without ever bother- sler begins rewriting immediately: "I ing to root their critiques in reality or enjoy working on a second draft better to offer any credible alternatives...
...didn't seem strange until I began to plied indiscriminately, Hunter writes: But after he had completed more than a write it down...
...Kings give way to posed Henry III for accepting as his heir some tantalizing questions...
...Conservative also learn the derivation of Hassler's Christians who use therapeutic lan- My Sta99erford most famous character, the pre-Vatican guage are doing what all successful re- Journal II parochial school teacher, Miss Agatha ligious movements have done, which Jon Hassler McGee...
...His most recent book is One still can't think of a pseudonym...
...James Hunter cannot be bothered toes and tax forms need attention...
...If I had my choice I would Death of Character, although not written write nothing but second (or later) drafts...
...pleted some two dozen and had pub- dream in which a friend who has died The sin associated with standing lished six...
...on Values in Literature...
...Since then from traditional authority to rational with an impressive variety of sources...
...a writer becomes aware of a character's everyone that because the Enlighten- He determined to finish a short story power and importance...
...El retreats for "a few blissful, uninterrupted days of writing" to Blue Cloud Abbey Alan Wolfe is director of the Boisi Center in South Dakota...
...Of those "perhaps thirty who has previously specialized in the friar, highlighted a European crisis renotebooks" that Hassler describes "lying political history of England after 1688, garding the body of the king...
...rather than religious symbols...
...Hassler begins immediately on Jemmy, a Commonweal 24 June 2, 2000 coming-of-age story of a part-Native American girl...
...The cabin and its child's anguish as significant as he can...
...Clearly, it is committees...
...We learn how the oil-burning stove also recall scenes from The 1960s spawned a host of books, hero of Staggerford, Miles Pruitt, lost the later novels...
...ually replaces the personal power of sa- France in 1589...
...Henry of Navarre, who was then Protesa "selection...
...The rationalization of monarchy was a and Grand Opening, Hassler's novels trend that took varied forms...
...tober 1975 which he spent writing alone wanted...
...In September 1976 he records with exaltation, "I have human symbols of national identity, sold, ten days apart, two novels...
...Sin and For readers familiar with Hassler's The Power of Kings salvation became matters of private and career, there is a bitter sweetness in fin- Monarchy and Religion individual concern, while political and ishing My Staggerford Journal...
...100 pp, short story, which Hassler incorporates of the audience to which they presume into the developing novel, giving it new to speak...
...Monod's went out of print...
...perience nothing more significant than support himself, his wife, and three chil- The novelist's love of solitude is also the anguish of another child who didn't dren on his half-pay and the sale of his evident...
...Hassler has also published two comic authority...
...It reads almost too much In his new book, Paul Kleber Monod, tant...
...important document...
...in the 1980s, with a new publisher and While he devotes the greatest attention insistent fans, he and his novels once Carl L. Bankston III to England, France, and Spain, he also again came to prominence...
...He true aspect of things...
...He argues that Reformation Catholicism sought to reer installment that takes us through the kings were not replaced by bureaucra- turn the sacred to the church, recasting '80s and beyond...
...The Catholic League opMy Staggerford Journal leaves us with cred individuals...
...thankfully now unreadable, which wife he never had and how characters We learn the joys of revising...
...We necessarily be diverse...
...By 1975 he had com- In another place Hassler describes a their bags...
...from a left-wing viewpoint, brings those But he becomes annoyed at his family's books to mind...
...A Green jour- looks at the lands of the Holy Roman Emney became a TV special, and Dear James n the political sociology of pire, Russia, Poland, Sweden, and Denand North of Hope were followed by Max Weber, the modern- mark...
...In this intriguing reinterpretation is shocked by their candid portraits of monarch...
...Hassler recalls the week in Ocreceive all the Christmas presents she landscape paintings...
...At least Gary HOW A NOVEL HAPPENS Bauer, who operates in the real world of politics, recognizes that the moral understandings of a diverse society will emerge from recollection into life...
...I teaching in high schools acters as "the first bonewoman in all of could not find any theorist or activist of A and colleges in northern world literature," does not gainsay her character education of whom he ap- Minnesota, Jon Hassler de- mythic quality, nor the insight into how proves...
...He stands above the fray, telling cided one day in 1970 to start writing...
...And a revised stage version of Grand Opening will be presented this month at the unveiling of the Jon Hassler Theater in his hometown of Plainview, Minnesota...
...Protesaround my den," how many parts of attempts an ambitious Weberian inter- tantism challenged sacred kingship by how many notebooks went into My Stag- pretation of the transformation of royal demystifying the royal body...
...The than a first...
...Will there be like surprises beginning of early modern Europe simply give way to secular rationalizaif and when Hassler's notebooks become based their authority on a sacredness tion...
...So he to provide an answer...
...for Religion and American Public Life at "He's been at it for six month s, and he With the manuscript of Staggerford Boston College...
Vol. 127 • June 2000 • No. 11
