Book Review: Disgrace

Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee (New York: Viking, 1999. 224 pp)

John Maxwell (J. M.) Coetzee is a Nobel-Prize-winning author of South African descent. He attended St. Joseph’s College and later the University of Cape Town. He later earned a Ph.D. from the University of Texas. While working as an academic, Coetzee began writing novels. In his acclaimed literary career, Coetzee has won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, three CAN Prizes, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and became the first author to win two Man Booker Prizes.

Disgrace Defined Two Ways

Isn’t it funny how often people associate disgrace and shame with being caught in the act? It seems, often times, shame and sorrow proceed from the public revealing of a transgression, not from true remorse for a certain action. In a very real way, this sort of disgrace is hollow and unrewarding.

True disgrace, it seems, should occur not from being caught but from passivity—an event happening to you about which you have no power. When something shameful happens and you can’t control it, that event reaches the depths of sorrow.

I found the dichotomy between these two definitions front and center in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.

The Carnal Desires of Man

“For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well” (1).

David Laurie is a man of passion. A professor of romantic literature at a university in post-apartheid Cape Town, Laurie often submits to his carnal desires.

As the above quote implies, he’s certain of himself, his position, his charm. But oh how the mighty fall.

Photo by Tourist at Home

Laurie’s descent into disgrace begins on a sine qua non day on a walk through campus. He happens upon a student. She’s adequate, though quiet, in class but her looks are as stunning as the late evening sun.

Turning on the charm, Laurie commences his seduction. With ample amounts of power and a disposition for the romantic, Laurie soon conquers his student, engaging in adult relations.

Ravished by her beauty, David ignores his ethical code and sets aside reason. Soon after, news of the relationship spreads and scandal erupts. While damning, David only needs to issue a public apology, enroll in counseling—water under the bridge in the minds of university administration.

But, Laurie considers himself a man of principle—too old to change.

“’And are you so perfect that you can’t do with a little counseling?’
‘It reminds me too much of Mao’s China. Recantation, self-criticism, public apology. I’m old-fashioned, I would prefer simply to be put against a wall and shot. Have done with it’” (66).

To him, an apology and counseling equals guilt and admission of immoral activity; he would rather end his life. In an odd way, David thinks he possesses a moral right to enjoy the beauty of the opposite sex.

The Impact of Carnal Desires of Men

Unsurprisingly, Laurie’s brash behavior results in the termination of his academic position. With nothing better to do and a desire to avoid the scandal’s spotlight, David travels to the South African countryside to spend some time with his daughter, Lucy.

Living alone, Lucy farms and runs a dog inn. Seeing Lucy refreshes David.

“They walked back along an irrigation furrow. Lucy’s bare toes grip the red earth, leaving clear prints. A solid woman, embedded in her new life. Good! If this is to be what he leaves behind—then he does not have to be ashamed” (62).

The good times in the presence of his daughter soon turn ugly when some bandits rob Lucy’s house, assault David, and rape his daughter. The violence of the event—with no rhyme, reason, or motive—shakes father and daughter to the core. The countryside is ground zero for post-Apartheid aggression.

“A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a packet of cigarettes. Not enough to go around, not enough cars, shoes, cigarettes. Too many people, too few things. What there is must go into circulation, so that everyone can have a chance to be happy for a day. That is the theory; hold to the theory and to the comforts of theory. Not human evil, just a vast circulatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant. That is how one must see life in this country: in its schematic aspect. Otherwise one could go mad. Cars, shoes; women too. There must be some niche in the system for women and what happens to them” (98).

Moreover, the disgrace Laurie felt during his university scandal pales in comparison to the disgrace of his daughter.

“She would rather hide her face, and he knows why. Because of the disgrace. Because of the shame. That is what their visitors have achieved; that is what they have done to this confident, modern young woman. Like a stain the story is spreading across the district. Not her story to spread but theirs: they are its owners. How they can put her in her place, how they showed her what a woman was for” (115).

Disgrace Experienced 

Photo by Porsche Brosseau 

In comparison to what happened to his daughter, Laurie reveals himself to be selfish and self-destructive. He experiences disgrace for living under passion. His daughter encounters disgrace by having something extremely personal and sacred taken from her. 

While both characters experience something we can define as “disgrace”, Lucy’s experience of disgrace is truer. David brought disgrace upon himself; Lucy found disgrace through sins against her.

Coetzee’s prose in Disgrace is minimal but powerful. Disgrace reads quickly but the content is heartbreaking and worthy of contemplation. How am I causing disgrace in other people’s lives? Am I more like David or Lucy? Such questions are painful but worth consideration.

If you’re interested in a deep, thought provoking, and painful book, Disgrace is for you.

Verdict: 5 out of 5

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

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Book Review: 1Q84: Book One

1Q84: Book One by Haruki Murakami (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 1184 pp)

Born in 1949 in Japan, Haruki Murakami studied drama at Waseda University. He began writing fiction at the age of 29, inspired to write a novel while watching a baseball game. Murakami earned literary fame with his best-selling novel, Norwegian Wood. In the wake of its success, he earned writing fellowships at Princeton University and Tufts University. Murakami has won the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize, the Yomiuri Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, and the International Catalunya Prize.

Quizzical 

Do you remember the last time you didn’t know that answer to a question? Did it bother you, your state of unknowing? I’m a big fan of knowing. I seek clarity; I need answers. As such, I’m thankful for my iPhone.

A question mark. It is the “Q” in Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and the underlying premise in the foundational narrative of Book One. 1Q84 highlights two protagonists connected in ways still uncertain.

Assassin Aomame 

Photo by Jesslee Cuizon

On one side, Aomame is a reserved young woman with dark secrets. She grew up in a cult and ran away from home at a young age. Her best friend committed suicide in the wake of domestic violence. Ever since the suicide, Aomame seeks vengeance. Collaborating with a wealthy benefactor possessing the same goals, Aomame removes aggressive and violent men from this earth.

“This was an easier death than you deserved, Aomame thought with a scowl. It was just too simple. I probably should have broken a few ribs for you with a five iron and given you plenty of pain before putting you out of your misery. That would have been the right kind of death for a rat like you. It’s what you did to your wife. Unfortunately, however, the choice was not mine. My mission was to send this man to the other world as swiftly and surely—and discreetly—as possible. Now, I have accomplished that mission. He was alive until a moment ago, and now he’s dead. He crossed the threshold separating life from death without being aware of it himself” (37).

Interestingly, this assassin hates men yet holds a strong affinity for one-night stands with middle-aged, receding-hairlined men.

Trickster Tengo 

On the other sides exists Tengo, a math instructor at a cram school and wannabe literary genius. Tengo desires recognition but his stories lack the panache necessary for a bestseller.

Luckily, Tengo uncovers a startling debut, Air Chrysalis, from a teenager in a new writer’s competition. Despite a stunning narrative, this young woman’s prose is poor. An editorial friend, Komatsu, devises a plan where Tengo re-writes Air Chrysalis, publishing under the teenager’s name, Fuka-Eri.

“Reasoning, common sense, instinct—they are all pleading with me to pull out of this as quickly as possible. I’m basically a cautious, commonsensical kind of person. I don’t like gambling or taking chances. If anything, I’m a kind of coward. I just can’t bring myself to say no to Komatsu’s plan, as risky as it is. And my only reason is that I’m so strongly drawn to Air Chrysalis. If it had been any other work, I would have refused out of hand” (118).

If everything goes well, Komatsu, Tengo, and Fuka-Eri stand to make copious amounts of money. If the plan fails, professional ruin lies ahead.

A Questionable World 

While Tengo places the finishing touches on the re-written Air Chrysalis, Aomame begins to perceive strange alterations to her environment. The police—her enemy given her line of work—have new uniforms and weapons out of the blue; the moon gains a companion in the sky, less shiny but strikingly moon-like. She labels this world “1Q84”.

“Like it or not, I’m here now, in the year 1Q84. The 1984 that I knew no longer exists. It’s 1Q84 now. The air has changed, the scene has changed. I have to adapt to this world-with-a-question mark as soon as I can. Like an animal released into a new forest. In order to protect myself and survive, I have to learn the rules of this place and adapt myself to them” (110).

An Orwelian Narrative? 

Photo by Trey Ratcliff

Clearly a reference to Orwell’s 1984, Murakami’s 1Q84, especially Book One, builds setting through a question mark. The reader doesn’t know what is real and what is fiction. Yet through dazzling prose and remarkable ideas, we are drawn into this question mark. In particular, Murakami introduces mysteries characters known as “the Little People.”

In Aomame’s timeframe, the Little People cryptically influence a 10-year old rape victim from a countryside cult. In Tengo’s narrative, the Little People play a crucial role in Air Chrysalis and Fuka-Eri claims they exist from her time in this same secretive cult. Murakami notes the connection to 1984:

“George Orwell introduced the dictator Big Brother in his novel 1984, as I’m sure you know. The book was an allegorical treatment of Stalinism, of course. And ever since then, the term ‘Big Brother’ has functioned as a social icon. That was Orwell’s great accomplishment. But now, in the real year 1984, Big Brother is all too famous, and all too obvious. If Big Brother were to appear before us now, we’d point to him and say, ‘Watch out! He’s Big Brother!’ There’s no longer any place for a Big Brother in this real world of ours. Instead, these so-called Little People have come on the scene. Interesting verbal contrast, don’t you think” (236)?

Book One introduces many questions. I eagerly look forward to answers in Book Two and Book Three. Murakami is a brilliant writer and I am enjoying my introduction to him in 1Q84. I enthusiastically urge you to give this book a read!

Verdict: 4.5 out of 5

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

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Book Review: The Law of Love and the Law of Violence

The Law of Love and the Law of Violence by Leo Tolstoy; translated by Mary Koutouzov Tolstoy (Mineola: Dover Publications, 2010; originally published in 1948. 128 pp)

Leo Tolstoy is a late nineteenth century Russian novelist known best for War and Peace and Anna Karenina. In his youth, Tolstoy studied law at Kazan University. Tolstoy gained massive wealth from his fictional writing, and as a result, developed into a social reformer and Christian anarchist in his later years. Tolstoy died in 1910.

Letter from Birmingham Jail 

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” represents the most influential document from my undergraduate years. Read in conjunction with an ethics class, King’s words resonated in ways I had previously never felt. Penning the words behind iron bars, King urged his disciples to stand against injustice through non-violent resistance. He claimed people ought to speak against immoral laws and perhaps even break those laws in order to illustrate injustice. But, he argued, people must break those laws nonviolently, and must also accept the consequences of the laws they’ve broken. To fight evil with evil is to lose the principles you fight for.

King’s principles of nonviolent resistance trace back to the famed Mahatma Gandhi. Even though Gandhi receives justified attention for his philosophies of non-violent civil disobedience, his views trace back to the writing of Leo Tolstoy. Similar to tracing modern guitar players to the nimble fingers of blues musician Lead Belly, I am intrigued to trace the roots of an idea to its source.

Christian Anarchy: Love Instead of Violence 

With The Law of Love and the Law of Violence, Tolstoy promotes a society where love replaces violence. To be clear, Tolstoy views violence as an all-encompassing word. Violence certainly means bloodshed, but it also refers to any source of conflict occurring by force. Tolstoy observes a world specialized in violence:

“The mistake of all political doctrines, from the most conservative to the most advanced, which has brought men to their present lamentable condition, is the same: to keep men in society by the aid of violence so as to make them accept the present social organization and the rule of conduct that it imposes” (18).

For Tolstoy, no part of society escapes the rot of selfishness. Whether the Church, the marketplace, or government, society seeks violence to approve the way of life.

The law of violence has governed society for centuries, according to Tolstoy. Historically, humanity never ventures far from yet another war. Interestingly, Tolstoy points to the printing press as the foundation for a potentially pivotal change in society. He writes,

“In proportion as education has spread, as printing has replaced writing, the Scriptures have become more accessible. Men cannot help but perceive the striking contradiction between the order of existing things upheld by the Church, and the evangelistic doctrine that it acknowledges as being holy. Read and understood as it is, the Scriptures appear to be a frank and explicit denial of both the State and the Church” (26).

Finding accessibility to the written Word, the individual congregant uncovers alternative doctrines to the established Church. With the rise of Protestantism comes competing claims to the truth of Scripture. Because the Church no longer carries the exclusive right to biblical interpretation, the theological foundations for absolute love found in Scripture become known to the masses.

By properly understanding Scripture, Christians can challenge the status quo. Where violence surrounded Christian doctrine in the institution of the Church, the Gospel urges Christians to reconsider.

“The Christian doctrine, the real significance of which we are grasping more and more, teaches that man’s mission is to manifest ever better and better the Rule of all; and it is love that proves the presence of this Rule in us” (32).

Love: The Basis for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience 

Tolstoy purports if love becomes the singular governing rule, the relationship with society must fundamentally change. No longer can we operate businesses under mendacious principles; no longer can we seek warfare as a mode of justice; no longer can we seek change in light of injustice by replacing violence with violence.

Therefore, a Christian guided by love seeks to right injustice through non-violent means. Recognizing the consequences of non-violent disobedience, a Christian will gladly accept the injustice of jail time for the sake of exposing violence in the system.

Does such an example work? It is hard to say. Jesus willingly accepted the injustice of the Cross and the gospel found completion in the resurrection. The work of Martin Luther King resonates deeply in the American psyche. Yet, many Christians adhere to the long-standing tradition of just war theory. As for me, I align with King, Gandhi, and Tolstoy. Fight violence with love and courageously accept the consequences. If you are interested in non-violent disobedience as an ethical stance, I suggest reading The Law of Love and the Law of Violence.

Verdict: 4.5 out of 5

Where do you stand? Is violence ever admissible? Is the law of love too extreme? Do you agree with Tolstoy’s biblical interpretation?
Share your thoughts below.

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

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Film Review: Sin Nombre

Sin Nombre directed by Cary Fukunaga (Scion Films, Canana Films, and Creando Films, R, 96 min)

Starring Paulina Gaitan, Edgar Flores, and Kristian Ferrer.

35,000 Feet between Cultures

An airplane flies overhead as the characters look up in awe, dreaming of the day that they too can board a passenger plane. This scene is a brief but defining moment in Sin Nombre. It expresses the distance between the life of the viewer and the life depicted on screen.

Shot in Mexico and with dialogue in Spanish, Sin Nombre depicts the intertwining lives of two characters, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) and Willy “El Casper” (Edgar Flores), as they escape the poverty and gang culture of Honduras.

Strikingly Different People, Strikingly Similar Pursuits

Sayra, with her father and uncle in tow, seeks refuge in the United States. With only a small amount of money to share between the three, the group stows away on the top of a train heading from Honduras through Mexico to the United States.

Meanwhile, Willy, a gang member known as “El Casper” flees his brethren after a fatal fit of rage left a homie dead. You see, Willy’s fellow gang member killed the love of his life when it was revealed that Willy shirked his duties to spend time with her.

As such, Willy finds himself on the same train knowing full well that his quest to escape his gang is an uphill battle since the price on his head is astronomical.

Through the adventures of escaping Border Patrol and vindictive gang members, Sayra and Willy grow close as they emigrate to the land of hope and plenty.

Entertainment in the Misfortune of Others

Although the plot intrigues, what really rattled me while watching Sin Nombre was the disconnect between my life and the lives of these characters. Most evidently, despite my fears regarding my economic standing, I have a roof over my head, food always a moment away from my belly, and the continual hope for job prospects.

In contrast, both characters possess little. For them, the idea of opulence is access to America and a minimum wage job. The difference is most evident in the scene where the characters dreamingly long for the possibility of flight—a phenomenon most individuals in our culture take for granted.

Sin Nombre provides compelling cinema not only through a pulse-racing plot, but also by its socio-economic implications. Those in the middle class too often get caught in the rat race comparing their lifestyles to those in higher classes. Yet in truth, the middle class is highly luxurious to the rest of the world.

Of course, watching a movie like Sin Nombre offers the danger of complacency in thinking “at least our situation is not as bad as theirs.” But I believe Sin Nombre is well worth watching to be reminded of the perils in the developing world and hopefully it urges you to consider ways in which we can make a difference.

Verdict: 3.5 out of 5

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

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Film Review: Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds directed by Quentin Tarantino (Universal Pictures, Weinstein Company, A Band Apart, R, 153 minutes)

Starring Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, Mélanie Laurent, and Christoph Waltz.

Dual Duels

Set in France during World War II, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds tells the story of two separately planned attempts to assassinate the leaders of the Nazi party.

In one storyline, Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) – nicknamed “The Jew Hunter” for his ability to locate Jews in hiding – interrogates a dairy farmer learning that he is harboring a Jewish family under the floorboards. While Landa’s men shoot through the floor, teenage daughter Shosanna Dreyfus escapes the carnage.

Three years later, Shosanna hides in plain sight as a cinema owner in Paris under the identity, Emmanuelle Mimieux. While changing the marquee, she meets Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a decorated German sniper and star in an upcoming German propaganda film. Smitten, Zoller convinces Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to move the premier of the film to Shosanna’s cinema.

Understanding that this premiere will provide an occasion for all of Germany’s high ranking officers to be in the same room, Shosanna realizes that she has an opportunity for revenge.

Killing Nazis

In the second storyline, 1^st Special Service Force First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) assembles a team of Jewish-American servicemen to go undercover in France with the sole mission of inflicting terror on the Nazis.

A sadistic killer, Raine insists that his soldiers kill Nazis and scalp them as proof. In fact, he requires each soldier to personally give him 100 scalps. Through the information provided from a double agent, the Allied Forces learn that the Nazi leaders will all attend the premier of a propaganda film in Paris. With the help of the informant, Raine and some of his men gain entry to the event with the sole intention of wreaking havoc. Of course, none of this actually happened in real life. But Inglourious Basterds is a film that ponders the “what-if”.

In the Midst of Bloody Carnage, We See Compelling Characters

At its core, Inglourious Basterds is about the characters.

Waltz, playing Colonel Landa, is brilliant and deserving of every award bestowed on him for the performance. Landa is complex; ruthless on one hand, he possesses a sinister intelligence with no loyalties on the other. In every scene, he hovers over the rest of the characters as if he knows the whole plot and is only playfully toying with the other characters.

Pitt, playing Lieutenant Raine, represents the opposite of Landa. His sense of retribution trumps all other human emotions. For Raine, if a person wears the Nazi uniform, he deserves death and/or public humiliation. Although the Allied Forces are the film’s protagonists, their actions are more violent and less forgiving.

If Everyone Dies, Who Is the Protagonist?

Ultimately, the bloodshed in the film portrays the senselessness of war on both sides. As with every Tarantino film, everyone dies. But in this instance, death shows us how retribution can be, in itself, deadly. The Nazis killed millions of Jews and Inglourious Basterds allows us to watch them suffer for their crimes once more.

Yet, our desire for retribution can create psychopaths no different than the Nazis. Inglourious Basterds reminds us to be careful what we wish for.

The film represents another signpost in the Quentin Tarantino canon. Stylistically, it is everything one comes to expect from Tarantino films. However, the acting of Christoph Waltz and the juxtaposition of Nazis and retributive psychopaths makes for an excellent movie.

Verdict:  4 of 5.

Book Review: Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009. 604 pp)

Born in 1952, Hilary Mantel is a novelist, short story writer, and critic. Mantel began studying at the London School of Economics before transferring to the University of Sheffield where she graduated with a degree in jurisprudence. While employed as a social worker after her studies, Mantel began writing. After a decade of travel with her husband, Mantel published her first novel, Every Day is Mother’s Day, in 1985. On the heels of her first novel, Mantel found employment as a film critic for The Spectator. Over the course of her writing career, Mantel has won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for Fludd, the Sunday Express Book of the Year for A Place of Greater Safety, the Hawthornden Prize for An Experiment in Love, the MIND “Book of the Year” for Giving Up the Ghost, and the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Wolf Hall. In 2006, Mantel was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

A Consideration of Death

Whether we admit it or not, humanity holds a complicated relationship with death. It hovers as a dark cloud over life. When ignored, death feels abstract and distant; when considered, it ominously taps its fingers and reminds us that every second brings us one step closer to that point of no return.

Despite these feelings of dread, many simultaneously wish death on those who “deserve it”. When Obama announced the death of Osama Bin Laden, the Twitter-verse created two camps. On one side, people rejoiced in justice but mourned the loss of life. On the other, bloodlust boiled over as retribution found the light of day. For most in current times, this sort of death feels like just deserts.

Henry VIII from the Eyes of Cromwell

With these themes swirling through my mind, I read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. In this tome, Mantel exhaustively – in both senses of the word – chronicles the beginning stages of Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine, separation from the Roman Catholic Church, and marriage to Anne Boleyn from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell.

The book begins with a young Cromwell receiving the brunt of his father’s unjust punishment. This passage sets the stage for what Thomas becomes – a self-starting lawyer who climbed the ranks of England.

Cromwell vs. More

As much as Wolf Hall tells the story of Cromwell’s connection to the monarchy, it also portrays the complicated relationship between Cromwell and Thomas More. Where Cromwell wryly plays the “royal game” yet understands the value of human decency, More lives under a principle-based philosophy at home and in court.

Archaic Justice

Although Mantel details the overarching storyline or the era superbly, my thoughts continuously wandered to the antiquated forms of justice presented throughout the book. Our counterparts from the middle ages carried a vast array of creative executions from burning at the stake and boiling people alive to beheading those fortunate enough for a relatively quick and painless end.

In an ironic passage, Mantel writes,

“What lodges in his mind, Thomas Cromwell’s, is that somebody makes these instruments of daily torture. Someone combs the horsehair into coarse tufts, knots them and chops the blunt ends, knowing that their purpose is to snap off under the skin and irritate it into weeping sores. Is it monks who make them, knotting and snipping in a fury of righteousness, chuckling at the thought of the pain they will cause to persons unknown? Are simple villagers paid – how, by the dozen? – for making flails with waxed knots? Does it keep farmworkers busy during the slow winter months? When the money for their honest labor is put into their hands, do the makers think of the hands that will pick up the product?

We don’t have to invite pain in, he thinks. It’s waiting for us: sooner rather than later. Ask the virgins of Rome.

He thinks, also, that people ought to be found better jobs” (72).

Theological Justice

Although this passage hints at Cromwell’s aversion to torturous devices, he remains an individual devoted to the law and therefore, to executing the guilty. But, Cromwell’s duty to the law pales in comparison to More’s senseless joy at the expense of the heretic:

“The word is that the Lord Chancellor has become a master in the twin arts of stretching and compressing the servants of God. When heretics are taken, he stands by at the Tower while the torture is applied. It is reported that in his gatehouse at Chelsea he keeps suspects in the stocks, while he preaches at them and harries them: the name of your printer, the name of the master of the ship that brought these books to England. They say he uses the whip, the manacles and the torment-frame they call Skeffington’s Daughter. It is a portable device, into which a man is folded, knees to chest, with a hoop of iron across his back; by means of a screw, the hoop is tightened until his ribs crack. It takes art to make sure the man does not suffocate: for if he does, everything he knows is lost” (244-245).

Additionally, Mantel adds a socio-economic angle when she writes about the execution of a lowly nun:

“She has five days to live. The last person she will see as she climbs the ladder is her executioner, holding out his paw. If she cannot pay her way at the last, she may suffer longer than she needs. She had imagined how long it takes to burn, but not how long it takes to choke at the end of a rope. In England there is no mercy for the poor. You pay for everything, even a broken neck” (472).

Are We Much Different than 16^th Century England?

Again, it is imperative to remind you that Wolf Hall contains much more than vivid scenes of execution. Yet over the course of reading this book, I found myself torn. It is easy to reject these acts of violence a priori. 

From our objective thrones in the 21^st century, we rightly judge these acts of punishment to be barbaric.

But on the other hand, I want to know why humanity acted this way. Clearly, certain sections of humankind still view death in some shape or form as a just punishment. Are we really much different than 16^th century England?

This question is much more complicated.

The Role of the Church

Clearly, the differences between 16^th century England and current times are drastic. First, the view of the human body differs considerably. In the Tudor’s era, the Roman Catholic Church functioned as the sole distributor of grace in its jurisdiction. As such, many believed that salvation occurs only through the gracious actions of church leadership. Additionally, the Church believed that it, as the steward of God’s kingdom on earth, owned the bodies of the flock.

For this reason, those who question the authority of the church faced grave danger because they lived at a time where they had no legal possession of their body. In other words, the church – which carried the rights to the physical sacraments that saved the body – could decide to end a life for the sake of church unity.

Of course, such thoughts feel medieval and heinous, but they emerge from a worldview that considers unity under the one, holy, and catholic church to be the necessary requirements for salvation.

The Virtue of Dialogue and Competing Philosophies

Thus, while the easy analysis breaks down to a thank-God-we-don’t-do-that-anymore statement (if that statement is even true), a more in depth look allows us to profess thankfulness for allowing dialogue and competing philosophies to exist simultaneously.

Mantel’s Man-Booker-winning tome offers a comprehensive look at the political, theological, and romantic aspects of Henry VIII’s complicated monarchy. It provides a fresh perspective by telling the story through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell. Of the many facets running through the book, I found myself pondering the views of justice and violence during that time period. Of course, I am glad that we no longer execute citizens for theological disputes. But, I am more grateful for our ability to discuss conflicting views and live together despite our differences. Wolf Hall is well written and well worth your time.