Natives React To Rod Dreher's Ruthie Leming Book
Kudos to Keith for this valuable link. Kathleen predicted this last year, maybe even a year ago, that not all was going to be hunky dory with the natives of Starhill and St. Francisville once the book came out. Here are some highlights:
I don't think people in Starhill & SF realize how Rod is painting them to the rest of the country on his AmConMag blog. Basically as quaint, eccentric goobers from Hooterville, or Honey Boo-boos in the making, or the next Buck Wild. Rod's pals all over the north and easy coast eat this stuff up & he's feeding them all they can chow down. Nothing like the ever changing adventures of the little wogs in their native environment. Reading about SH & SF is like visiting the zoo. Heck, maybe others can get a swamp people reality show and make some big bucks clowning for the nation like Rod has.
Woah! Feel the love there. Then the commenter, billfr, is pressed for a link to support his claim and he posts this one, which I guess is supposed to be a picture of countrylad, one of Rod's cheerleaders and the original poster of the Topix thread. Billfr goes on:
I just kind of feel bad for the people. I grew up in a parish not far east of you but I've spent many a happy day fishing False River and Old River and camping out up over Thompson's before they put all those houses out there & been through SF a bunch of times. It's just too bad the people there don't get portrayed as the good solid people they are rather than having some carpetbagging blogger paint them as one-legged strippers and goofballs just to score Ripley's believe it or not points with the east coast university crowd.
It's your town CL you do what you want with it. Maybe you can make some money off of Ruthie Leming too.
Then we have Openyoureyes:
And making so much money by portraying the community to look like a bunch of backwoods rednecks. Says something about a person who exploits the death of a loved one for a pocket full of money.
Ten pockets full, more like. I'm telling you, this is the way all normal people view this book, especially those who know a little about Rod Dreher. Ruthie's death is a vehicle to transport the standard Dreher sermons and get a big paycheck in the process. Commenter readthebook concurs:
I too thought the book was a little "preachy". It seems he took his sisters death and his popularity with the right people and made a book deal. People lose loved ones everyday but books aren't made about it. She wasn't gone long and he had already had a book ready to be published.
Figure it out chimes in:
I have been seeing Rod Dreher in various print and just this morning I heard a story about "him" on National Public Radio (83.9 FM). It appears to me that Rod is more interested in promoting himself than he is in eulogizing his sister or trying to promote his little book. He has always had a high opinion of himself. I just didn't realize that it has reached stratospheric proportions.
You realize that this following comment from beenthere is accurate if you read the book. There is a lot of tattling of this sort under the guise of "showing the human side" or whatever.
Yeah, everything he's blogging now is about how he was so misunderstood by his daddy and sister. Now he gets to try her in the court of public opinion without having to worry about her talking back. A few faint praise compliments. A lot of how human and not a saint. Backhanding her with sweet faint praise.
Of course we know this isn't the first time that tendency has been exposed by Dreher. Finally...
He is making money off of a terrible situation. He didn't have a relationship with his sister and anyone else as I recall. He always thought he was better than anyone else in school. I am in awe that he is being promoted with this book about a wonderful and loving person. Ruthie was a piece of St Francisville and a piece of our school. Rod would never know that. He left because he was BETTER than the hicks here. Everyone loved Ruthie and Mike. They are Good people and represented what a REAL family looks like. It absolutely disgusts me and makes me sick in my stomach to think one would use a family members passing to make money. I guess old relationships don't change.
We're in awe, too, selfishRod.
Pauli,
ReplyDeleteI think Rod explains Rod better than anybody else ever could:
"Christ is risen from the dead, and he’s brought back bacon!"
Did Christ, or Ruthie for that matter, really die to serve your tongue and tummy needs, brand new homeboy?
I'm sorry, this guy just waddles through the world like a smug, oblivious little skunk, never even realizing the mist of vulgarity he leaves everywhere in his wake.
Keith
I guess Rod had been around during the time of Christ, and if Our Lord had come to him instead of St. Peter saying "Arise, kill and eat!" he would not have hesitated or have been perplexed about the bacon as St. Peter was. But those dang Jews have their kosher laws, and those Popes don't appreciate good food (otherwise they'd be tougher on child molesters.)
DeleteLater on, St. Peter realized that the primary point of his dream is that "all nations" are included in God's family, not just those in your own little clique. If it had been Rod, he probably would be too busy helping himself to seconds to notice that the church isn't supposed to remain small, local or particular to your little clique.
I feel like smoking a cigarette after reading that. ahhhhh
ReplyDeletethe phrase that comes to mind now is "snowball effect". what a show.
Dollars to doughnuts says "countrylad" is a Dreher sock-puppet, not a cheerleader. He's tried to hide himself before, mainly during his foray into OCA episcopal manueverings a couple years ago (this after proclaiming loudly during his conversion that he was done with internal church politicking).
ReplyDelete-The Man From K Street
TMFKS,
DeleteI don't know. Chances are just as good countrylad = Ronnie Morgan = "the king of Starhill" has figured out he was king there when mopey Rod first spurted out of town and that he'll still be king there when mopey Rod, now with Daddy's land, decides to cut and run again and wants a quick buyer he can feel good about.
True, it's probably just a small piece, but land really counts for something to those real life country lads who don't aspire to The View. Rod's going to have more new best friends weaving in and out between his legs now than a dairy farmer has cats.
Keith
Ohhhhh... nice. The moping begins. Boo, hoo, neither Walmart, TV nor evangelical Christians are interested in Rod's book.
ReplyDeleteIt keeps getting funnier. Check out this post from Saturday. Well, gee, some people move to the city, and that's OK. Or the country, and that's great too. And everything is great, and everybody is wonderful....
ReplyDeleteHere's the really insightful comment from "J":
"Reading your blog, Rod, it’s hard to miss that your heart lies in writing sermons and homilies and scoldings, that you find excuses to speak curses and blessings and absolutions, to speak prayers and song, and to quote your Scriptures, and that you love taking confessions (and, at times, making them). You greatly prefer a seminegotiable, subjective, emotional notion of reality that formulates in words written or spoken and sentimental gestures.
In short, it’s obvious- from afar- that priest is what you are at heart.
I have to admit, the problem supposedly addressed and solved by TLWORL is one I had and essentially solved as a teenager. I knew I didn’t really belong in the ethnic group, religion, extended family, and town(s) and professions I was raised and guided into. Staying on and pretending to fit would be, and was, the grinding misery of being elsewhere in your heart.
When I was a teen I in fact had patronizing idiot older relatives who wrote grandiose letters containing assertions almost word for word ‘(name): these are your people’. I was not amused at their efforts to keep an an oppressive socialism of misery and vainglory and hollow religiosity imposed on me, to put it mildly. As they have died much of that has passed with them.
My solution, contra TLWORL, is probably succinctly stated in the Oath of Ruth. Which is a change of memberships. You settle all your business best as you can, quietly turn over the keys, and take the road that leads to where the people you actually belong to are."
My wife and I have a friend who loves to preach sermons also. Anywhere he finds himself he stands up and begins a homily containing a lot of the same platitudes each time. Some of these are basically pessimistic and overlap with Dreherism about how nobody cares about anybody else anymore, etc.
One Rod claim that I absolutely reject is that he was shy in school. I think he was maybe shy about sports or hunting, but I can't imagine he ever shied away from moving his mouth.
Well, my hubby taught at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts precisely at the same time that Rod was there. Rod was in the charter class, and that's when we joined the school as well.
DeleteHubby does not remember Rod. I think that probably means he didn't have him in any of his classes. (Hubby taught World History, a requirement, as well as Latin, Greek, and History of Philosophy.)
This doesn't mean Rod wasn't a loudmouth back then, but it was a small school, so you'd think a loudmouth might have crossed hubby's path at some point. OTOH, from a teacher's POV, if a kid isn't in any of your classes, he doesn't necessarily register on your radar screen.
Hi, Pauli! Did you see my comment re bouillabaise vs. gumbo? Tried to post it twice this weekend but kept getting caught in the spam filter. :) I think it belongs here rather than in that funny-papers thread, where I tried to post it. (Hint, hint. :))
ReplyDeleteIf you can't find it, I will re-send. (It's at home, though, so will have to wait till I get home this evening.)
Not that it's particularly deathless or anything, but it does relate to what rod's critics are saying here re his portrayal of the locals as benighted rednecks.
Diane, I didn't see it. Please post it later, and mail the late fee to my attention. Thanks.
DeleteLOL, re that "late fee": Seeing as the University of Alabama literally *just* emailed my son demanding a whopping $145 in library late fees, that is a very sore subject. Ouch!!
DeleteThanks! I will email my deathlessly perceptive comment tonight. :D
Pauli, I saw the "moping" entry, too, and I wonder whether the author of Crunchy Cons should really pine for big-box stores like Wal-Mart to carry his book.
ReplyDeleteTo acknowledge coverage from the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR, and Christianity Today, but then to lament how the book is being insufficiently covered seems a bit ungrateful.
To then speculate that the reason is the media's parochialism rather than any problems with him or his writing -- Catholics maybe aren't covering it because he's ex-Catholic, evangelicals because he converted to Catholicsm then Eastern Orthodoxy -- is entirely self-serving.
"Never having been Evangelical, I asked my friends why [the Mary and saints references] should matter, given that the heroine of the book, Ruthie Leming, was a Methodist who went to her death holding firm to her plain Protestant faith in the salvation given to her by Jesus Christ."
Was that "plain" faith central to the book? It's something I sincerely wonder, because I truly doubt the author of The Shack would have endorsed a book that pointed emphatically to small-o orthodox faith in the Christ of Scripture.
The first commenter retorts, "i think of the religion of ‘little way’ as sort of ‘moral therapeutic sacramentalism’. but who knows how these things work"
"Well, gee, some people move to the city, and that's OK. Or the country, and that's great too. And everything is great, and everybody is wonderful...."
ReplyDeleteThat's a more respectable position for Rod to take, but it seems to be a step back from his writing a few weeks back at Beliefnet, about how people need the stability in place to fulfill God's will for their lives.
But notice the claim he makes on the way.
"...any positive change that comes out of Little Way will be because Ruthie did what God had for her to do, living in the country, and I did what God had for me to do in the city … and was therefore able to be in a position personally and professionally to bear witness to Ruthie’s deeds, and the deeds of her community. I couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t moved to the city, and then moved back to the country."
(Wasn't his decision to move back subsequent to the main narrative? If he had decided to put down Ruthie-style roots in Philly, would that have precluded him from writing this book?)
Ruthie's Little Way and Rod's Big Way were both equally important, because they were both being directed by God, who moves in mysterious ways, big and little.
Don't forget medium-sized!
ReplyDeleteThat's a more respectable position for Rod to take, but it seems to be a step back from his writing a few weeks back at Beliefnet, about how people need the stability in place to fulfill God's will for their lives.
ReplyDeleteHe's always using extreme rhetoric and then taking a step back from it. Nothing new there.
He doesn't notice that some people have stability in their lives no matter now many times they move, and others have no stability even if they've lived in the same town their whole life.
Rod replies in the comments about the (relative) lack of media coverage.
ReplyDelete"It’s strange, though, that I got on TV and did lots of talk radio with 'Crunchy Cons,' which was a much narrower book in terms of its audience than 'Little Way,' but have done comparatively little radio for Little Way. The book has been out almost a month, and the publicity window is closing; I’m trying to sort out why the book didn’t catch on with the MSM (and the Christian broadcast media), and what, if anything, I could have done differently."
Jonah Goldberg rightly diagnosed that Crunchy Cons adopted the Left's negative stereotype of mainstream conservatives, that we're "uptight, blue blazered, two-dimensional men motivated by greed" and "Godless materialists, unthinking dupes of Madison Avenue, with no connection to spirituality or religion unless, that is, you think being an idolatrous votary of the free market counts as being religious."
Can't imagine why the media would have been interested in that.
A book about a movement that could save America (or at least the Republican Party) has a much narrower audience than a book about Rod Dreher? Solipsize much?
DeleteHe begins that comment with: "Oh gosh, sorry if this sounds like whining! Forgive me. I’ve had great notice from some serious sources, for which I’m grateful."
ReplyDeleteHe concludes with: "I apologize if this sounds like complaining. I don’t mean for it to be. And yes, I am neurotic!"
It's getting too funny.
HE ACTUALLY WROTE: "I would have thought this narrative was tailor-made for The View" LOL!!!!
ReplyDeleteOf course he did; he's the tailor, after all. It's looking like some publishers bought a dud.
DeleteOK, here it is, fwiw. The bouillabaisse post. :D
ReplyDeleteA tad off-topic, but ... re that whole bouillabaisse story: I call BS. I'm not saying it absolutely didn't happen, but I'm having a hard time believing that a south Louisiana woman would be so insistent on "simple country cooking" and so averse to anything the least bit exotic.
We lived in Louisiana for three years -- in north Louisiana, but in a town (Natchitoches) that was closer culturally to south Louisiana. (It had been founded by French people; all the old families were French; the older downtown buildings had "iron lace" balconies, just like in New Orleans; etc. etc.)
Say what you will about Louisiana (and I could say a lot, believe me)...the food is fabulous. Even the food at the divey little holes-in-the-wall. And, while you can definitely get "country cooking" in Louisiana, it doesn't tend to be very "simple." Louisianans love their seasonings! They've got spices, and they know how to use them.
Moreover...they've got gumbo. And what is gumbo? It's Poor Man's Bouillabaisse. It's how the French settlers of Louisiana made bouillabaisse when they couldn't get the classic ingredients for bouillabaisse but they could get shrimp, oysters, and crawfish. (And okra for the roux.)
You gonna tell me that Ruthie never tasted gumbo? She lived in south Louisiana, capital of spicy Cajun cuisine, but she subsisted entirely on the kind of "simple country cookin'" you'd expect to find in the Appalachian hill country? You gonna tell me she wouldn't look at bouillabaisse and think, "Hmmm, it's like gumbo, but with fish and clams"? I mean, seriously??
Another thing. St. Francisville is just half an hour away from Baton Rouge, I'm told. Baton Rouge -- state capital, university town, fairly large and cosmopolitan city. I'm sure there are tons of good restaurants in Baton Rouge, including French ones. I am having a hard time believing that someone who lived so close to Baton Rouge -- and not all that far from N'Orlins, either -- was such a clueless redneck hick that she'd never been exposed to any cuisine more complex than country fried steak.
Something smells about this story. And it ain't the bouillabaisse.
Yeah, who knows. My theory is that Rod said bouillabaisse one too many times and his family had it. I think it gave them a sense of comfort to pan Rod for his quirks, and he was the perfect foil. The story is over the top though; I mean, not eating the food? And not just Ruthie, but Maw and Paw too? (That's how he spells their names....)
DeleteLOL, maybe so. I haven't read the book, so I don't know to what extent Rod presents his relatives and the townfolk as benighted bumpkins. My only point was: They aren't, really. Louisiana's not like the rest of the South. In fact, it's not like anywhere on earth. It's...different. Heck, the place even has its own law code, based on Napoleonic Law.
DeleteIMHO, it simply doesn't ring true to portray a south Louisiana town (much less a town close to Baton Rouge) as just plain "countreeeee."
Quote: "Nothing like the ever changing adventures of the little wogs in their native environment."
ReplyDeleteI think someone coined the term "Crimsonism" to describe a work where an author makes, in effect, a kind of anthropological expedition to observe the primitive natives running around naked in their native "sky above, mud below" environment. The color "crimson" is drawn from the "Flyover Country" or the "Red States" aspect of this, hence crimson for red. The emphasis of Crimsonism is to make the natives look "quaint" or "naïve" or "unsophisticated" yet nonetheless charming in their own innocent and bumpkinly ways. A crimsonist likes to point out their strange customs and folkways, and he tries to provide some anthropological explanation for them.
Crimsonism is a kind of counterpart to "Orientalism". Eventually, I will get around to reading Rod's magnum opus, and I will see for myself if Rod is indulging in Crimsonism. I have read examples of Crimsonist writing elsewhere.
Back in my groovy band days, one friend was drumming for a band which he described as having "completely delusional" members. One thought he was Jim Morrison, other guy thought they were about to "make it big time", etc. My friend said he hated it, but he was going to stay in a little longer for amusement. "I've been accepted as a member of their tribe which will greatly assist me in my anthropological research into their lifestyle and belief system." Or something like that. We got a big kick out of it.
DeleteIt does seem to me like Rod has this tendency. If billfr is correct, his biggest fans will be the extroverts looking for reality show-style attention like that "King" guy.
Looks like we are starting to see a few like "Bobby" from this movie clip. (NFSW)
DeleteIf TV won't touch Rod's stuff he should just say "F it!" He can do something like Glenn Beck "The Blaze" or PJ Media -- just do a show with a camcorder and some locals like Ronnie Morgan shootin' pool or fishin' or what-have-you. Put it up on that there YOUTUBE. Hell, be's good or better than some Yankee damn show.
ReplyDeletePauli wrote above
ReplyDeleteOhhhhh... nice. The moping begins. Boo, hoo, neither Walmart, TV nor evangelical Christians are interested in Rod's book.
Commenter bwsmith gently explains to Mopey Rod as only a grandmother can why whiners reap what whiners sow
Dear Mr. Drehr,
Upon the recommendation in the Dallas Morning News I purchased and read your book – and commend you for writing a moving account of your sister’s illness and death. Living through consequences of our own choices and influences, cultural, spiritual, and emotional is hard work, and you were not afraid to let it many details hang out, as it were.
Based on the review in the DMN’s review, though, I expected more of an understanding of how your sister coped.
However, what resounded more throughout your heartfelt account was your story – your coming to terms with your issues, many of which I can empathize with.
It wasn’t “theological issues” that backed me off – it really was the feeling that the book was more about you and your pain. “Whining” – is an ungracious word, but alas, that is the impression that overrides many important scenarios you presented – and now permeates this blog piece.
But, I thank you for it because it reminds me that coming to terms and writing about loss, and grief, and my own considerable contribution to the fixes into which I get myself, in the midst of my own spiritual journey is no small task.
Sincerely,
bwsmith
Keith
Even people who don't know Rod well enough to be absolutely appalled by him pretty much agree with us regarding the nature of the book and his promotion of it.
DeleteThe ungrateful little child screaming about the nekkid fat man on the throne in this scenario is Walmart. Walmart, which sells anything not fast enough to outrun one of its buyers. Walmart, which will fill its spaces and sell anything from big screen TV's to remaindered DVD's to Lipozene to huge bins full of cheap Chinese foam pool noodles (when was the last time you even knew anyone who needed a pool noodle?) won't touch this fraud, not even with a limited test trial stocking. According to Google, there are not 1 but 2 Walmarts within spitting distance of St. Francisville. Like any other Walmart, you better believe both of those local managers host Girl Scout cookie sales and local high school band fund raisers in their lobbies and parking lots year round. What about a famous local boy comes home and writes a tear-jerker book about his wonderful sister dying? Nuh-huh. Not interested. Not even the local business-priming asset for their stores that Lipozene, pool noodles and the kid with the tuba are.
DeleteWalmart's telling the world that, unlike the airy hollow pool noodle, Dreher's book is some combo of such undesirable provenance on the outside and soulless emptyness on the inside that even they won't touch it, not even at the level of a local manager's local promotion discretion. Creating that sort of monster takes a rare skill indeed.
Keith
A couple of thoughts on all this:
Delete1) Walmart wants to make money. If a book ain't worth the shelf space in sales, then it won't be on the shelves. And if they did pick up a book and it didn't sell, then clear some space in your warehouse, Mr. Publisher, 'cause they're a-coming back.
2) Dreher's written far more words about Little Way than are contained within the book itself. Even a casual blog reader of Dreher certainly gets the book's point by now (even assuming that he or she, somehow, isn't tired of Dreher's style).
Unless there is some sort of shocking ending to the book that readers are sworn to secrecy over, like Witness for the Prosecution. (Pauli, you can let us know if there is such a twist.)
Dreher's written far more words about Little Way than are contained within the book itself.
DeleteAnd the beatings will continue until sales improve.
Keith
In that same comment thread, one Edward Hamilton writes a few things that validate my wondering about whether Dreher's book is specifically Christian.
ReplyDelete"It feels like a book that’s striving to be generically spiritual, rather than having that slight touch of exclusion that advertises it’s willingness to embrace the devout at the expense of alienating more diffusely 'spiritual' seekers with no particular affinity for the Christian tradition.
"In particular, I think that having both Young and Elizabeth Gilbert as sources for prominently displayed quotes is potentially a red flag. Both authors do the sort of writing that appeals to progressive evangelicals, and is 'just spiritual enough' to feel threatening in a way that a truly unfamiliar secular writer would never be. Many Christian book clubs are prone to arguing about these kind of authors, and giving them a negative publicity that makes it hard for another writer to use them as endorsements without tacitly taking sides in those debates."
His comment is so down-the-middle and completely understated that I can't really tell where he stands on theological conservatism, but, yeah, there *IS* something in Christianity that has "that slight touch of exclusion."
"Have no other gods before Me."
"No one comes to the Father except by Me."
"If even an angel preaches another gospel, let him be accursed."
On this day when the Benghazi cover-up hearings are front and center I think it's worth remember this great quote from Country Lad/Working Boy, Rod "It Takes A Village" Dreher: "Who gives a rat’s ass about Benghazi? Seriously, who?"
ReplyDeleteYeah, none of the Americans who died on 9/11/12 in Benghazi, Libya were from Rod's home town, so what does it matter anyway.
One of today's Dreher offerings will be right in the sweet spot for readers of this blog.
ReplyDeleteIn which Dreher connects Little Way with Crunchy Cons.
My pull quote:
While I still believe there are serious objections to the way our suburbs are designed, and ways to design them to be more aesthetically pleasing and human-scaled, I appreciate very much Keith Miller’s critique, and how he urges us to think about whether we are not simply baptizing and moralizing aesthetic preferences. Don’t get me wrong: I do believe that the material order in some real sense reflects, or should reflect, the sacred order. Aesthetics are rarely completely divorced from metaphysics or morals. On a more practical level, though, I think we ought to all give more grace to each other. . .
So it is OK if we live in a suburb, even tho it doesn't really reflect the sacred order, because of Rod's grace. Whatever.
Well, at least he concedes that suburbs are not utterly graceless and unsacramental or whatever. It's a start.
DeleteWhat the hell is "human-scaled"? Are suburbs designed for a different species? Hamsters, buffalo, or maybe pelicans?
ReplyDeleteMaybe he means "pedestrian-scaled," but A) that's not nearly so romantic, and B) between carts and beasts of burden most societies haven't been pedestrian-scaled for millennia.
LOL. Why does your response make me think of the hilarious CGI flick Over the Hedge? No hamsters or pelicans, but plenty of squirrels, turtles, and raccoons. :)
DeleteShorter Dreher: Joel Kotkin always makes me look like an idiot and I desperately need to get right with his findings chop-chop, but there's no book tie-in to be had by conceding with his more high-profile suburbia article, so how can I manage to drag Ruthie's corpse into this while at the same time giving those evangelicals another thumping for being religious bigots and not buying more copies of my book?
ReplyDeleteKeith
Lol. Here's my noting of the first instance in which he cut us suburbanites some grace.
ReplyDeleteKeith, hey, thanks for the Kotkin link. Those pesky facts.... Email me sometime, please. Then I'll can send you exclusive material that I don't always post here. (ooooohhhhh....)
Oooh, no fair! We wants it, too, precioussss!
DeleteShhh, Diane. Pauli's trying to sell Keith a paid subscription.
DeleteHa!
DeleteThanks, Pik. I almost signed up. I already got me some ginzu knives tho. And if I sign up with Dreher instead I get a map tour of where the hobbits live. Hmmm....
Keith
No one pays, no one gets paid -- you know that, Pikkumatti, you know that Est Quod Est is a co-op.
DeleteEasy . . . easy . . . just teasing . . .
DeleteP.S. Your promise of secret stuff sounded like a come-on, that's all.
P.P.S. And yes, I know that. Or at least I know I haven't seen any money yet. (JUST KIDDING!)
I don't think he is ready for the blood oath.
DeleteSpeaking of Hobbits, wouldn't it be fun to take a trip down to St. Francisville and loiter around Dreher Road? (That's the street name, not kidding...) Even better, we could pretend we're big property developers or something.
DeleteShould we pose as representatives of Walmart or perhaps a mini-mansion development. Or.. representatives of Prince Charles who want to create a neo-medieval village development of mini-mansions.
DeleteThe rumor was out there for awhile that Prince Charles wanted to convert to Orthodoxy.
Delete"Aesthetics are rarely completely divorced from metaphysics or morals."
ReplyDeleteTrue, in that one's personal sense of the beautiful is necessarily related to one's personal sense of the good, and of reality.
But aesthetics isn't metaphysics or morality. Rod's spent most of the last decade claiming that it is, and I wouldn't be surprised if he spends much of the next decade writing about his discovery -- hesitant, fitful, indirect, wandering, and no doubt marked by a number of memorable meals -- that it isn't.
In terms of aesthetics, metaphysics and morals and based on the preponderance of evidence, this is what Rod Dreher always has and always will worship.
ReplyDeleteHe's not a Methodist, Catholic, Orthodox, or even, now teasing his new local bff minister that he might just switch again, a Pentacostal. Instead, if you judge him by the most consistent long term focus of his actions, he's a hedonistic, Epicurean aesthete. Always has been and always will be.
Religion is just his journalistic "beat", and he continues to move from precinct to precinct offering the public gonzo reporting on religion, comforting greasy sausage clamped eternally in his fat little fingers.
Keith
You know, that picture is gross, but also doesn't this represent being a consumerist about food rather than sacramental? If you are walking down the street, feeding your face, it would seem to me that you are just consuming. Whereas if you sit down to a table with others, your family or friends, say grace, then serve people food, then it seems to me that you could say you are eating a "sacramental meal", even though I don't usually use that phrase. Rod has always talked this way, so it seems to me that he's going against his own teachings here, unless....
Delete....if Rod still thinks that he is treating food "sacramentally" while eating alone on the sidewalk, it means there is something about the food itself -- what it's made from or how it's made -- that makes it holy, good, sacramental, whatever. And that it just plain silly, and most likely heretical.
So I'm going to have to conclude that Keith pretty much has it nailed here. "...whose god is their belly..." Phil. 3:19
Here you go, Keith.
ReplyDeleteEpicurean aesthetics is what all the cool kids do. Figures.
P.S. The last three paragraphs are so pretentious and precious as to be vomit-inducing.
Figures he likes Diana Krall, who has the vocal chops of a rabbit.
DeleteShe's OK at what she does, I guess, but she doesn't do all that much for me. She has kind of an NPR vibe, which makes her safe for Dreher to dig.
DeleteAt any rate, she's nothing compared to the oysters at Captain Benny's on Main Street in Houston (six oysters with six boiled shrimp for $8.99!).
Oh, man, it makes me mad when people want to go to Applebees, because I'm always like, uh, I was into Applebees back in 1981 in Decator before they were big and like, before they totally sold out and went corporate. I remember running into Michael Stipe there right after REM recorded Radio Free Europe. Everything was totally cool back then.
DeletePik, this is the liturgy of pigs that would have arisen if swine had become the dominant mammal instead of humans.
ReplyDeleteBeing trapped in the Dreher home for a showing of vacation photos has got to be an all-time beating.
RD: That's me eating oysters. Click.
RD: That's me eating more oysters. A different, more expensive kind. Click.
RD: That's me eating the most exquisite duck fat, right out of the jar. Click.
RD: That's me eating a whole French chicken. The secret is not to wash away the natural bucolic barnyard flavor. Click.
Claire: What's that door with the sign "W. C. - Hommes", Uncle Rod?
RD: That's me finishing the last of the chicken on the toilet so I can come back and eat some more, honey. Click.
RD: That's me clowning around, snuffling the black truffle shavings right off my plate. The maitre d and the rest of the staff loved it. Click.
RD: Mister W.C. Hommes again. Good one. Click.
RD: That's me eating...
Keith
What struck me about the last three paragraphs in that piece (combined with the picture) is his presumption that the readers are at all interested in his favorite jam, oysters, and musical act. The start of the piece (indie food is the new indie music) could have been of interest, but Dreher uses it simply as a pretext to relive those very special Rod-posts from the past (that a normal reader didn't care about either).
ReplyDeleteThis line especially slayed me:
Remember how I would go on and on and on about the oysters at Huitrerie Régis?
Who could forget? It was a special time for all of us, non?
So I guess the intended point of the piece is "All the cool people are now into food, just like me!!!"
The unintended point is that narcissism can use any vehicle, whether taste in music, taste in food, or whatever is next.
P.S. A few fanboys care, I guess, enough to comment on the piece (largely talking about themselves). In response to one comment, Rod takes the opportunity to distance himself from ostentation -- in a self-serving way, of course.
P.P.S. I am kind of surprised that a writer of Rod's skill wasn't able to work in a connection to Little Way.
His next great work will be a musical called "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Vomitorium".
ReplyDeleteYou mean "A Funny Thing Happened on the Little Way to the Vomitorium".
DeleteYeah, that's the ticket. :-)
DeleteSpeaking of narcissists, this is likely to be worth following, as a manically ambitious Dreher now systematically tries to do to Walker Percy's legacy what he's still in the process of doing to his late sister, i.e., chop her life into pieces and then restitch it back together as a Frankensteinian re-animation of his own needs and interests. After thoroughly discussing Percy and bourbon, we're likely to find out Percy really seemed to loved exotic foods, partcularly French food, far more than people ever previously realized and was probably on the verge of leaving Catholicism for Orthodoxy late in life, although there is enough ambiguity on that last one to leave plenty of rich material for Dreher-led panel discussions. The one item that won't be left to chance or doubt is which Feliciana Parish writer is now the clear heir to Walker Percy.
ReplyDeleteWonder how passively Percy's real heirs will take to their new found sibling.
Different question: didn't Christopher Guest already do something similar to this?
Keith
Sorry, I'll have to pass on RodPercyFest. I'm more of a Limbaugh guy.
DeleteThe mission statement is a little heavy-handed for my tastes, too:
Folks today don’t love him and appreciate him as we should.
P.S. But maybe there will be a break-out session on Little Way!
P.P.S. I consider myself at least as well-read as the average bear, but I gotta admit that Walker Percy has never crossed my radar screen. Is he an author that I should know about? Not only for his works, but of course for his "concerns — political, literary, cultural, religious, philosophical — as well as readings and other events related to [his] sensibility".
"You people are bastard people and I'm going to go home and bite my pillow!!"
DeletePik, as a Catholic you would probably be pleasantly surprised, not the least to discover that, had Percy lived to discover Dreher, he would almost certainly have made Dreher a recurring comic foil of his far deeper and more consistent theological and philosophical sensibilities.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Percy was a physician in Covington, on the far other side of the state. He created the fictional, faw away "Feliciana Parish" as the stage upon which he trotted out the various fools, buffoons, and other victims through which he acted out his various themes and concerns about religion, modern relativism and more.
Always remember, when discussing Dreher never let the phrase "magnificently and ironically obtuse" get farther away from you than your pocket knife.
Pauli: you could have warned me. I had a mouthful of beer. Had.
Keith
Thanks, Keith. I may well check him out then. Sounds he's worth at least a sample on the Kindle.
DeleteSpeaking of which:
December 10, 2009: "I will never, ever have a Kindle or a Nook, any more than I would have a robot dog".
November 5, 2012: "I’m thinking the Kindle Paperwhite, which features a higher contrast on the page, might go a long way toward solving the problems that put me off earlier generations of Kindle."
Walker Percy was asked once why he'd become Catholic. "Well, what else is there, really?" was his reported reply.
DeletePauli, you mean Percy would not have felt this overwhelming dreherrian attraction to boutique monkabee minuscule-backyard-cult Orthodoxy? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you....
DeleteThe Moviegoer seems to be Percy's most-recommended novel. I haven't read that one, but I did read and like The Thanatos Syndrome and Love in the Ruins. Also, I thought Lost in the Cosmos had some interesting ideas.
ReplyDeleteThey're a little dated, maybe, though unfortunately not about where the errors of the 1960s and 1970s would wind up.
One thing you forget is that Roddy is a mean SOB..He was on a Blog about Orthodoxy opining and telling the Orthodox how to be Orthodox and he called a Trans-sexual woman a "over circumcised troll" which while a bit funny was very cruel and hardly BUT don't you ever make fun of him..All of us Orthodox pray he will go back to the Catholics or whatever sect he thinks will make him look good.
ReplyDeleteLove it. I'm now subbing to this blog. I need more Rod Dreher posts. LOL He's been annoying the stew out of me for years. And yes I rolled my eyes on hearing he was converting to Orthodoxy. That said he really was not off on his comment regarding the "over circumcised troll". That woman makes Rod look meek, mild mannered and down right humble. She also absolutely fabricates things about people.
ReplyDeleteI happen to know some of the people she rants about and at least SOME of them are genuinely nice people. She even claimed once that some of these people had been spotted driving in a local area and it was absolute hogwash. The accused was actually in my home at least a 1,000 miles away from where they were supposedly spotted. Either way she's at least good for a laugh. Too bad she keeps comments turned off.
Welcome, Anonymous. You should at least pick a first name like Keith or an initial. Newest post is up today right here.
DeleteStumbled across this post when I read "Little Way" in The Moviegoer and made the connection to Dreher's book title. Not a huge Dreher fan or anything, but read a review of the book and knew it was set in Louisiana. So I googled "little way Louisiana" to figure out what the hell it is. And I must say, for all the dumping on Dreher's character and faith, this place is aglow with the spirit of Christian charity. The malice is pretty astonishing. That's all.
ReplyDelete