Mr. Mustich's Thoughts on This Month's Nominees

[Chuck]

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler:
Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh, a scorching semi-autobiographical novel, doesn’t ring many bells today; you might struggle to find it in a bookstore (if you could first find a bookstore). Yet, at the dawn of the twentieth century, The Way of All Flesh crashed onto the English literary scene with the impact of a meteor; for the intellectual and artistic vanguard of a generation it stood as a brave, galvanizing indictment of a society the new breed was only too happy to see fading away. Skewering the Anglican church, the bourgeoisie, the universities, and above all the sclerotic Victorian class system, Butler’s novel follows several generations of the Pontifex family: prosperous, middle-class, religious, well-intentioned, and ultimately monstrous. While The Way of All Flesh has largely disappeared from view, its literary influence remains pervasive, from George Orwell, who was quite conscious of his debt to Butler, to any number of contemporary novelists who might not be aware of the roots of the irony in which they couch their tales. More importantly for readers, Butler’s understanding of the perils of pious convention has much to teach our own impious age.

Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journey by Michael Collins:
An unrivaled account of the greatest adventure of our time—perhaps of all time—told by one of its protagonists, Carrying the Fire remains too little known. Collins was a member of the three-man crew of Apollo 11 on the first lunar landing mission, in July 1969; while his colleagues Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin explored the moon’s surface, Collins remained aboard the command module, circling in space and preparing for the critical re-docking maneuvers. Alert to the anxieties and apprehensions of both astronauts and engineers, Collins tellingly communicates the human drama of the historic flight even as he commemorates the heroic dimensions of a feat of physical, technological, and personal daring that the vagaries of modern wonder still keep us from aptly honoring. A man on the moon—imagine that!

Beowulf by Unknown (translated by Seamus Heaney):
Surviving in one manuscript dating from around AD 1000, and believed to have been composed some two or three hundred years earlier, Beowulf is a poem composed in Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon, a language worlds apart from even Chaucer’s Middle English. Although written in England, the poem’s action is set in Scandinavia; it centers on the human warrior Beowulf’s courageous encounters with three foes: the beast Grendel, whose fierce attacks have been terrifying the Danes; Grendel’s mother, whom Beowulf battles in an underwater cavern; and, some fifty years on, an unnamed dragon who threatens Beowulf’s homeland in southern Sweden and whom the hero dies defeating. The drama of these battles enlivens the heroic atmosphere the poet conjures: Beowulf’s adventures unfold against a backdrop of stories and loyalties that, together with the monstrous nature of his adversaries, give this tale an ahistorical strangeness and power. Throughout his marvelous rendering, Seamus Heaney captures and holds fast the human feelings that animate this stirring saga.

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