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Our friend from Parnassus wishes that Hansen had "brought Bridges more into the work as a foil for Father Hopkins." I take this to be exemplary of the kind of trouble he had with Exiles, because he notes later that in his previous historical novels "Hansen excels at subordinating the history to the drama."It is with this crisp observation in mind that I would make a brief comment on Amy's well-crafted question: "Do writers striving to live as disciples of Jesus confront the challenge of writing imaginatively about real people -- either contemporary or historical -- in any kind of unique way?"

 

In his essay "Afflictionand Grace: Religious Experience in the Poetry of Gerard Manly Hopkins,"found in A Stay against Confusion (thank you, Amy, for prodding my memory in some mysterious way to scan my bookshelf for my copy), Hansen invites us to consider his own profound respect for Hopkins and his literary and spiritual debt to him. I suggest it invites us also to consider how that same respect might have affected this novel.

 

Speaking for myself, I could not write a story about Blessed Miguel Pro, S. J. (someone to whom I feel I owe a great deal), without sensing strongly the need to present the story in a way that did not get in the way of a reader's contact with the man himself. In such a writing, my first precept would be "do no harm."And I would not want to read a story about Miguel Pro that I suspected was enhancing the drama, for it would disappoint me to think the drama needed enhancing. I have no such scruple when reading a story about Hitler -- and here I readily admit that affect has its effects. Hence, to respond to Amy briefly, let me say: It depends on the person of the main character.

 

Mariette in Ecstasy and The Power and the Glory have this in common: They conjure an era in images and give us much detail and drama. Each in its own way makes it possible for us to think about Thérèse of Lisieux and about Miguel Pro, respectively. But the stories are not about them, and thus we are mercifully spared having to imagine these two blessed souls as this particular dramatic novelist imagines them. As a reader this is important to me, and were I more of a writer, I would let this kind of consideration bear on the unfolding of the tale.

 

 

There is a danger of too much specificity when dealing with a revered character. Had Hansen devised a novel about a poet in the time of Hopkins, a story that invited us to explore similarities and differences with what we know about Hopkins himself, than the dramatic intensity Joseph speaks about would be more in order.

 

But as a reader I would not have preferred the subordination of history to drama in this story. The addition of foils to this novel would have created a different kind of story, more like Evelyn Waugh's Helena, a novel I enjoyed, but not too much. I hold the figure of Hopkins in too high regard, both for his literary prowess and for his fidelity to his vocation, to prefer a dramatization.

 

Perhaps Hansen placed upon himself a literary burden greater than we initially imagined. He chose not to write about a poet like Hopkins (who could be like Hopkins?), and he chose to write about the Hopkins he (and we) love and admire. Reticence is called for, even before the computer is turned on and the first word written.

 

Given the choice between a dramatic story about someone like Hopkins, or a reticent story about Hopkins himself, I would prefer an austere narrative. In this way I can at least consider the limits of my interpretative abilities. (Elaborating on those limits will have to wait another day.)