Catholic fiction is an elusive thing. It evades all easy attempts at definition. It’s not fiction about Catholicism. It’s not fiction that promotes Catholicism. And, to make matters worse, Flannery O’Connor, perhaps the foremost American Catholic fiction writer, said that “the Catholic novelist doesn’t have to be a saint; he Read more…
A good story is like Belgian chocolate. Everybody likes it. And, further, most everyone can agree it’s worthwhile. True, there are nay-sayers out there whose dads never read The Lord of the Rings to them, but enjoyment (and endorsement) of stories is a fairly universal thing. Many different people have Read more…
There are two kinds of allegories. There are loose allegories and strict allegories. That’s a bold statement. What, exactly, is an allegory? It’s a work of art (visual, literary, or plastic) that points to something beyond itself. Take, for example, the encounter with the dragon in Beowulf. Beowulf, the titular Read more…
Deep Reading #5 In an age flooded with media, the cinema industry wields enormous influence. In a little more than a century, movies have evolved into a highly consumerist market based almost entirely on entertainment. Given this (not really) innocent intention of allowing us a little bit of amusement, it Read more…
Deep Reading #4 The news, the media, and the internet are full of “buzzwords” or “hot topics.” Meant to quickly grab and hold our attention, this can be anything from “racism” to “left-wing” to “traditional Catholic.” Others we might see—especially recently—are “biotechnology,” “biological warfare,” and “bioethics.” Usually, these words are Read more…
**Warning: This article contains major spoilers** The world of Literature is not the same as it was a century ago. While there are many momentous changes that could be highlighted, one of the major ones is the introduction of the genre of speculative fiction—usually divided into the three subcategories of Read more…
This is my son, Daniel’s second post at Building Catholic Culture focusing on literature. He’s reviewing the newest volume of The Glaston Chronicles, which he has followed since the publication of the first book. -Jared Writing a book for teenagers is not an easy task. The challenge of creating a Read more…
Merry Christmas! This is Building Catholic Culture’s first guest post, written by my son, Daniel, who is a sophomore in high school. He is an avid reader of Dickens and writes his own science fiction novels. Everybody knows the story of A Christmas Carol. When we get to the later Read more…
What’s the point of reading fiction? Wouldn’t it just be better to read works of theology and the spiritual life? Well, I wouldn’t replace spiritual reading with fiction. Novels and shorts stories, however, do make a contribution to Catholic life and culture by engaging our imagination in a vicarious engagement Read more…
Yesterday Pope Francis met with participants from a conference on the arts jointly organized by La Civiltà Cattolica and Georgetown University, offering remarks on the importance of the arts and literature: I have loved many poets and writers in my life, among whom I think especially of Dante, Dostoevsky and Read more…