A Stroll Down Memory Lane!

AUTHOR GARRY WILLS, ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN, SHRINE OF FATIMA, JOHN WAYNE and A STORY!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© May 26, 2014

A READER WRITES:

Greetings Jim,  

Very nice missive.  Do you read Garry Wills?  

In his latest he dismantles the papacy in large bites, chewing on notions and showing how power works.  This can be overlaid with any organization.  Sad that all of mankind's woes arise from power grabs.  We need to remember this as we reflect on current events.  

How history is written would be a great topic to tackle.  Always the view of Academics.  That is why I loved the books by Stephen Ambrose and young Douglas Brinkley.  

You write often, pondering the future loss of thinking skills.  I wonder about writing skills, both the physical action and skill: the spelling, grammar.  I read from the annals of Iowa, many of the Wisconsin journals from their state histories and other states.  Also the contents of the different Presidential Libraries provide fodder.  Also another is to read authors' books then read their biographies and scholarly papers.  

Rita

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Rita,

Do I read Garry Wills?  Indeed, I do.  Fourteen books and counting I have read of his, but I have read many more of his contributions to The New York Review for years.  He is a prolific author with very catholic tastes.

It was in the NYR that I first was introduced to Wills, as I am addicted to the essay, and he is an accomplished essay writer of the first ilk.  

I read Wills' Papal Sin (2000) when I was writing a book and decided on calling it "Corporate Sin" (2000), so that is where I got that title.  

So I can see you've made the same connection between the Papacy and other complex organizations.  

They all pretty much behave the same as the German economist and sociologist Max Weber alerted us a century ago.  

I've also read Stephen Ambrose, who wrote like he was talking to you, but my comments here are directly related to Garry Wills, alone.

*     *     *

Wills makes some of the charges you allude to in Papal Sin, but you say his "latest book," which is The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis (2015), which I have not read.  

A couple of years ago, Garry Wills was here in Tampa, promoting What Paul Meant.  I had read his What Jesus Meant, along with those other books.  An independent bookstore advertised in the Tampa Bay Times that it was to feature him for a book signing.  I called and asked if the author would sign copies of his other books if brought to the signing.  The owner said, "Yes."

After the author's brief lecture, when it was my turn at the book signing, Wills looked at my stack of his books, then looked at me, then inside several books -- to see if they had been read I suppose.  

Most books, and all of my London Reviews, New York Reviews, Foreign Affairs, and nearly every nonfiction book that I have read has been highlighted, but not Wills.  Instead, I turn the corner of the page over when a passage strikes my fancy.  I do the same for most novels, but I even highlight some them as well.  

BB says no one will want my books when I’m gone because of all this highlighting business, and I suppose she is right.  She doesn't like to read my books that have been highlighted.  She says it gets in her way.

In any case, I had a conversation with Wills.  I told him that I had met Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in Portugal at the Shrine of Fatima.  

Wills made a rather remarkable response, "Were you surprised how short a man he was?"

It stopped me for a moment.  Sheen who wrote about 300 books in his lifetime, and I've read about a tenth of them, was another early hero of mine going back to my high school days.  "I thought he was a giant," I said, which kind of startled Wills. Then I told him a story.

THE SHRINE OF FATIMA

"It was a tour of sailors of the US Navy Sixth Fleet that brought us by accident to the Shrine of Fatima in Portugal the same time the Archbishop was there.  I kissed his ring, and told him that I had read several of his books.

"He looked at me puzzled, I thought even condescendingly, 'What books might they be?' he asked.

"I told him -- Peace of Soul, Lift Up Your Heart, Seven Words to the Cross ...

"He put his hand up, 'Yes, I see,' he said and then was ready to move on, but I asked if he would allow a picture of him with me, and he did

“I have the picture on a slide.  One of my shipmates said afterwards, ‘How did you feel about the way that priest talked to you?’

“True, it was somewhat condescending, but I explained.  Archbishop Sheen had every right to ask me what books of his I had read.  If I were the author, I'd have asked the same question (I was twenty-two and had not yet written anything).

“What I didn't tell my shipmate is that the priest was a theologian, read books in ancient Latin with facility, and was a scholar not only in theology but also epistemology, or the study of knowledge itself.   

“How could Archbishop Sheen know by looking at me that I was a college graduate with a Phi Beta Kappa key?  

"My shipmate knew and mockingly called me 'professor' for all the times he would be forced to listen to me pontificate my angst and wondering of an evening on the fantail of the USS Salem (CA-139) in the Mediterranean Sea as the sun went down.

“What the good archbishop saw was a ‘white hat’ or an enlisted man in the navy, and, unfortunately, associated the uniform with the man, instead of inquiring what I had learned from the books that I had read of his.

“Submissively, he dispensed with me with a wave of his hand, and ‘Yes, I see,’ when clearly he didn't.”  

Author Wills took this in and simply said, "Interesting," as his eyes told me I was dismissed, collecting my books in two bags and moving on.

*     *     *  

I didn’t mention to author Wills that I wrote books.  I didn’t think it was relevant.  Nor did I tell him that all these years later that I have tried to remember that particular episode with Archbishop Sheen.

Consequently, when people ask me about my writing, or write me about what they think about my writing, or post it on Amazon or elsewhere, I try to answer as I like to be answered when I ask a question of a writer.    

Fledgling authors or writers not yet well known often submit their works to me.  I respond to only about one-tenth of one percent of them; otherwise I would have no time to write myself.

When I do respond to their works, often critically, as I am likewise critical of my own work, it is clear they were looking for an endorsement, not an evaluation. Writers of such a mind I am unlikely to hear from again, which is sad.  

Anyone that goes to the trouble of taking the time, expanding the energy, and emotions to put her or his thoughts in writing back to an author is doing that author a great service whether the comments are positive or negative.  Making the effort pays that author a compliment. 

We that write and have the audacity to put our ideas, thoughts, and yes, biases out there for readers to consider should recognize that without such responses we would not grow, would not improve in our ability to express ourselves, and therefore owe those readers who go to that trouble to write a deep sense of gratitude.     

You can't know a book by its cover and you certainly can't know a person by his uniform or appearance, but an author cannot write without revealing himself.  

*     *     *

Author Garry Wills, during the signing of my stack, picked up a copy of his book John Wayne's America, and turned to the picture of John Wayne in the book resplendent in the man's youth, and said, "What do you think of this picture?" And before I could answer, he said, "I love this picture.  It seems to embody the man."

I waited for him to ask for my comment, but he kept signing my books, smiling, then thanking me for coming.  

Never a fan of John Wayne, I don't watch his films, and have had little respect for him as he made "war movies" during WWII instead of serving his country in the military as many of his fellow actors and actresses did.  

Many college graduates of my generation gave up two years or more of their young careers to be on active duty in the US Navy or some other branch of the U.S. Military, as I did and as I thought I should.  

Indeed, nearly every one of my generation did as well.  There was the United States Selective Service or draft still in place.  John Wayne chose not to serve, and to make movies instead.  

Wills is too good a writer to make John Wayne's America a hagiography, which is verified in this description: 

"He (John Wayne) embodies the American myth.  The archetypal American is a displaced person -- arrived from a rejected past, breaking into a glorious future, on the move, fearless himself, feared by others, a killer for cleansing the world of things that 'need killing,' loving but not bound down by love, rootless but carrying the center in himself, a gyroscopic direction-setter, a traveling norm."      

I wanted to tell Wills that although this described Wayne it also described an America that I hated, an America I loathed in my bones, and yet had to admit something of it I carry in my cultural DNA, and one of the reasons I think we Americans are our own worst enemy.

When I told BB later what I wanted to say about John Wayne to Garry Wills,  she rolled her eyes, "You're something else.  Give it a rest, Fisher, nobody cares!"

So, you can see your question generated a bit of a stroll down memory's lane for me.  Thank you, and thank you for your comments.

Jim.