The Secret Thread: Literature & Spiritual Life: Welcome to The Secret Thread!

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Welcome to The Secret Thread!

"You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words . . ."
C. S. LEWIS, The Problem of Pain

It is my distinct pleasure to introduce The Secret Thread to the "blogosphere"... I am going to keep this first post brief since I am a blogging neophyte (believe it or not -- I know, I may well be the last one, at least under the age of 40), and want to make sure all is working according to plan... but allow me to offer a few tantalizing hints with regard to the purpose of this here site. It is the latest manifestation of a life-long (and I do mean life-long) conversation that my twin brother J. and I have been conducting about great books, and how they lead us to deep truths and even (at their best) wisdom about God, the universe, and the human condition. For literally as long as I can remember, J. and I have been sharing thoughts, ideas and questions about stories and other writings that have touched our hearts and souls in one way or another, and in my adult years I have started to get interested in the relationship between literature & the spiritual life: what is it about certain books that seems to awaken in us a desire to know, to understand, to seek that which is greater than ourselves? What makes a Classic a classic, and a Great Book great? Why do the best stories always seem to provide not just entertainment, but somehow increased knowledge of our own nature? How is it that some prose and poetry can literally cause our hearts to ache?

J. and I have been kicking around and debating these questions, and many many others, for decades... but now that technology has caught up with our ability to ramble on ad nauseam about books and life and Truth, I thought it might be time to open up the conversation to anyone else out there who has been following that "secret thread" in the books they love... the one that I am firmly convinced will help lead us, if our hearts and minds are receptive, Home... to the great Author and Creator of all life.

I dedicate this blog, then, to my twin brother J., who I hope will be ringing in here very soon. And to the patronage and prayers of Saint Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers, and the future saint John Paul the Great.

Until next time, then... join us as we cast out into the deep.

Pax Christi,
Duke Altum

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Duke Altum's Recommended Films

Monsters (2010) – As many have already said, calling Monsters a movie about an alien occupation of Earth seems to do this fascinating, original film a disservice. Certainly the fact that huge, bioluminescent squid-like extraterrestrials are running amok through the jungles of Central America is an important (and entertaining) element of the plot, but anyone coming into this one looking for non-stop, Aliens-style action or special effects eye candy a la the concurrent alien invasion flick Skyline is going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, what you have with Monsters is an intriguing and meditative hybrid of road movie, post-apocalyptic thriller and surprisingly believable human drama. Director Gareth Edwards wrote, edited and created special effects for the film on his own, which gave him the freedom to make exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make - that is, a love story that just happens to feature alien life forms ominously howling and lurking in the background (this approach, by the way, gives the film its pervasive suspense and intensity, as you are as in the dark as the characters are about when the next encounter with a pissed-off, tentacled alien might occur). The many scenes of unscripted, natural banter between the lead actors as they trek across the "infected zone" and get to know one another help you, crucially, to identify with them enough to care by the final act - which provides an unexpected, subtle twist that gives the entire story added poignancy and irony. I am sure that a great many viewers of this unusual film will come out feeling somewhere between perplexed and downright cheated, and Edwards does provide so little backstory about the aliens and what they might be up to that one may well wonder why they were in the movie at all (and, justifiably, why the film was ever called "Monsters"). But I found that their mysterious, vaguely menacing presence gave the entire story a kind of haunted and other-wordly atmosphere that reminded me a bit of the best bits of James Cameron's The Abyss. I guess you could say that early encounters with new life forms - like those with potential lovers - can be both exhilarating and weirdly disconcerting at the same time.