Through a Glass Darkly

"This uneven collection of essays ranges from a handful likely to interest readers concerned with religion and literature to the majority aimed at limited, parochial audiences. The most intriguing of the 15 pieces are those by Jo Ellen Parker on the "typological imagination" in George Eliot; Andrew Greeley on his own controversial novels; William Franke on Milton; Christiaan Theodoor Lievestro on irony and paradox in Erasmus; and Jane Kristof on the "mystique of suffering" in the work of artist Georges Rouault and the Roman Catholic revival in France. The more theoretical essays--Edward T. Oakes on "type and pattern in historical narratives," in which techniques of "internal cohesion" are perceptively treated and an eschatological approach to myth defended, Gavin D'Costa on the "tyranny of the secular imagination," or Terrance R. Wright on Derrida--range from astute to self-serving. Most remaining essays focus on odd, obscure topics or figures. One cannot necessarily quarrel with some of the contributors' a priori assumptions; few, though, are as perceptive as Paul Crowley's statement (in the essay on Loyola) that "a religious imagination thoroughly grounded in concrete human experience ... can only conclude to a God who is correlatively real and liberating," but the collection as a whole only fitfully rises to defend such an imagination. For large undergraduate and advanced collections only." -Choice "Gives serious attention to the relationship between the religions and literatures of the East (a feature no other anthology like this can claim)...a welcome addition to books exploring the boundaries of art, literature, and religion." -Publishers Weekly