Two From the Wish List

 

The Light Invisible/ A Mirror of Shalott: The Supernatural Stories of Monsignor Robert H. Benson

Two collections of short stories, each volume's tales linked by a framing device. In The Light Invisible (1906) the stories are told by an elderly priest who recounts instances (many that happened to him) in which many everyday experiences are revealed to have deeper significance when viewed by 'the Light Invisible', supernatural insights granted to the viewer by a supernatural grace. In A Mirror of Shalott (1907), a gathering of priests, in an effort to analyze the purpose and nature of supernatural occurrences, each tell their own best personal tale of such encounters. I got it in the mail yesterday, and have only as yet read most of the first part, but I am finding it quite engaging. Benson, a Catholic priest, has proved to be a very interesting writer; his Lord of the World (1907) is a great mixture of science fiction/dystopian/apocalyptic genres and a very early example of such; it is available for free on Kindle.

A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems, by Joy Davidman; Edited by Don W. King (2015)

And I got this book just today, so I know very little about it (in an intimate sense). I do know that I always enjoyed the little bits of Joy's poetry that I did read and was always interested to see more. Until quite recently (well, the last decade or so) many of her papers had been in the care of her old friend Jean Wakeman, who in the light of her failing health passed them on to Joy's son, Douglas Gresham. Thus many of Davidman's poems are finally published here for the first time. Perhaps the most interesting is the cycle of sonnets (some of them in fact recycled and repurposed) which she presented to C. S. Lewis. They are certainly (if their prominence in the title of the volume is any indication) presented as a major selling point, though they take up only a tiny sliver of the book. But a quick riffle through the pages assures me that there is much more to be seen here. I let Amazon take up the tale:

"Although best known as C. S. Lewis's wife, Joy Davidman was a gifted writer herself who produced, among other things, two novels and an award-winning volume of poetry in her short lifetime.

"The first comprehensive collection of Davidman's poetry, A Naked Tree includes the poems that originally appeared in her Letter to a Comrade (1938), forty other published poems, and more than two hundred previously unpublished poems that came to light in a remarkable 2010 discovery.

"Of special interest is Davidman's sequence of forty-five love sonnets to C. S. Lewis, which offer stunning evidence of her spiritual struggles with regard to her feelings for Lewis, her sense of God's working in her lonely life, and her mounting frustration with Lewis for keeping her at arm's length emotionally and physically.

"Readers of these Davidman poems -- arranged chronologically by Don King -- will discover three recurring, overarching themes: God, death, and immortality; politics, including capitalism and communism; and (the most by far) romantic, erotic love. This volume marks Joy Davidman as a figure to be reckoned with in the landscape of twentieth-century American poetry." – Amazon.