Aiming at Heaven, Getting the Earth: The English Catholic Novel Today

by Marian E. Crowe

Although many literary critics assert that the Catholic novel is in decline, Aiming at Heaven, Getting the Earth: The English Catholic Novel Today argues that there is still vitality in the English Catholic novel at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Marian Crowe relates this fiction to recent developments in the post-Vatican II Church and elucidates intriguing possibilities for future Catholic fiction. In addition to discussing the theory and history of the Catholic novel, the book provides an in-depth study of four contemporary English Catholic novelists: Alice Thomas Ellis, David Lodge, Sara Maitland, and Piers Paul Read, who are among the most talented and original Catholic novelists writing in England today. Three novels by each writer are analyzed with particular attention to Catholic themes.Aiming at Heaven, Getting the Earth is of great interest to scholars as well as general readers in contemporary literature.

420 pages, Paperback

First published June 28, 2007

Reviews

[Peter Mongeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Crowe is retired from the University of Notre Dame and one of the few who have studied the Catholic novel and wrote about it. Ms. Crowe’s work defines the Catholic novel as “. . . a work of substantial literary merit, in which Catholic theology and thought have a significant presence within the narrative, with genuine attention to the inner spiritual life, often drawing on Catholicism’s rich liturgical and sacramental symbolism and enriched by the analogical Catholic imagination.” She examines the history of the Catholic novel and help authors understand where they fit into the literary world and tradition all around them. If you want to know about the Catholic novel’s potential in the future – this is the book.

[sch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Planning to read only the first 100 and final 30 pages, because I'm more interested in 'yesterday's' Catholic novelists.

Chapter 1: The Theory of the Catholic Novel
Chapter 2: The History of the Catholic Novel in England
Chapter 3: The English Catholic Novel Today
Chapter 16: Conclusion: A Future for the English Catholic Novel?

Update: Did as planned; underwhelmed. I didn't find myself disagreeing much, but most of her claims just weren't enlightening. It's a shame that I can't read more of the book though, because the author's prose lights up a bit when discussing the four novelists who are the subjects of chapters 4 - 15: Ellis, Lodge, Maitland, Read. (I've only read one of Lodge's novels, and none of the others'. Avoiding spoilers.)

Here's her rough definition of the "Catholic novel": "For me then a Catholic novel is a work of substantial literary merit, in which Catholic theology and thought have a significant presence within the narrative, with genuine attention to the inner spiritual life, often drawing on Catholicism’s rich liturgical and sacramental symbolism and enriched by the analogical Catholic imagination." (24) She disqualifies novels that are fundamentally or exclusively hostile to the Church, and at the end of the book calls the whole definitional enterprise into question: "The Catholic novel partakes of the capaciousness of Catholicism. There is a place for the realistic novel describing the day to day life of ordinary Catholics; the novel that foregrounds the inherent drama of the faith by using exotic settings, odd or eccentric characters, and highly exceptional situations; and the novel that makes little explicit use of Catholicism but through symbolism, imagery, or simply invoking the paradigmatic Christian stories to shape its narrative expresses Catholic beliefs. The most problematic part of the phrase "the Catholic novel" is the article the" (372).