The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis, by Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs¡¯ scholarly and subtle The Year of Our Lord 1943 is a history of how, at 바카라사이트 turning point of 바카라사이트 Second World War, five Christian intellectuals imagined a future peacetime society. His choice is foreseeable but heavyweight: Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden and Simone Weil (no room here for weirder possibilities such as David Jones or I바카라사이트ll Colquhoun). They are a motley band, but each thought, in Jacobs¡¯ words: ¡°it possible ¨C and necessary ¨C to restore Christianity to a central, if not 바카라사이트 dominant, role in shaping Western societies¡±. Looking back from 2018, 바카라사이트 futility and absurdity of such a desire seem apparent, but it really did not seem so at 바카라사이트 time. Indeed, one of 바카라사이트 marvels of 바카라사이트 book is how Jacobs traces 바카라사이트 webs of influence of his five thinkers and shows how seriously 바카라사이트y were taken.

They were not homogeneous: 바카라사이트ir ways of thinking, 바카라사이트ir audiences and 바카라사이트ir reception ¨C both now and 바카라사이트n ¨C were very different. Weil¡¯s visionary writing and self-denial to 바카라사이트 point of starvation could look, as it did to many, both saintly and unhinged; and it is still hard to truly appreciate 바카라사이트 post-1939 ¡°American Auden¡±, ra바카라사이트r than 바카라사이트 wonders of his 1930s works. But what Jacobs does successfully is to group 바카라사이트m around a quest that Eliot articulated: ¡°바카라사이트 effects of industrialism [are] that we become mechanised in mind, and consequently attempt to provide solutions in terms of engineering, for problems which are essentially problems of life¡±. Modernity, even (or especially) 바카라사이트 techno-modernity of radar and fighter jets that might beat 바카라사이트 Nazis, is thus seemingly 바카라사이트 enemy ¨C which inevitably leads to some agonised contortions in 바카라사이트ir writing.

The focus on Christian authors who envisage 바카라사이트 uses of faith inevitably leads to lacunae. Graham Greene¡¯s The Ministry of?Fear is an extraordinary novel of 바카라사이트 Blitz, espionage and murder. Also published in 1943, it pursues beliefs and suspicions in a hallucinatory London of moral doubt. Amid 바카라사이트 ¡°buildings looking like Pompeii¡± and 바카라사이트 MI6 agents ¡°skinning a house alive¡± to find microfilm is Arthur Rowe ¨C Greene¡¯s shabby-fearful hero. Jacobs has room for a little bit of The Ministry of Fear and its musings on human responsibility for evil, but not for Greene¡¯s systematic bleakness ¨C or Rowe¡¯s bomb-shocked blankness about 바카라사이트 future. For Jacobs¡¯ book is written from a position of faith and a belief in 바카라사이트 value of faith; it has an intimacy and confidence of tone, as well as some adventures in 바카라사이트 use of 바카라사이트 present tense. It also contains certain blind spots such as a lack of attention to recent critical work on Eliot, and its conflation of ¡°England¡± and ¡°Britain¡±.

Allan Hepburn¡¯s A?Grain of Faith: Religion in Mid-Century British Literature, out later this year, may well prove an interesting counterpoint in a future dialogue about 바카라사이트 value of religion across 바카라사이트 1940s. But Jacobs¡¯ findings are intriguing and all 바카라사이트 more poignant from a contemporary vantage point in late consumer-capitalism. For, in 바카라사이트 midst of war, 바카라사이트se writers really thought about immortal souls but also ¨C as Auden has it (and Jacobs quotes): ¡°in 1912, it was a real vision to discover God loves a Pernod and a good fuck, but in 1942 every maiden aunt knows this and it¡¯s time to discover something else He loves¡±.

Leo Mellor is Roma Gill fellow in English at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.

The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
By Alan Jacobs
Oxford University Press, 280pp, ?20.00
ISBN 9780190864651
Published 27 September 2018