The Eternal Pilgrim:
A Life of Saint Norbert
by dominique-marie dauzet,
translated by norbert j. wood
sophia institute, 240 pages, $18.95
Kevin James and Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke rarely appear side by side, even in print—the back-cover endorsements to this biography of St. Norbert being perhaps the only exception. The former calls his life “the kind of material from which both great saints and great movies are made”; the latter lauds the “deep faith and scholarly precision” with which Fr. Dauzet relates the stages of St. Norbert’s conversion. These two sentiments go hand in hand. For we like to imagine the medieval, in all his austerity, faith, and chivalry, as a completely foreign creature. Reading medieval forms of writing—legal cartularies, hagiographical vitae, and historical chronicles—one easily believes that it is so. Outlines and metaphors bury the narrative-form tale that the novel-conditioned modern craves.
Like any good academic biographer, Fr. Dauzet knows every available external detail of his subject’s life. But through his Norbertine profession, living a life according to his subject’s spirit, he has additional insight into how these details animate a human person. Here, a historian annexes the novelist’s art, recounting a narrative that lay latent in the sources, thereby elucidating, with his subject, the political strife and ecclesial reform in which our twelfth-century saint was enmeshed.
The Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey in Orange County, California, are to be thanked for having translated this first English edition of The Eternal Pilgrim from the French, bringing the life of their spiritual father and the historical, literary adroitness of Fr. Dauzet to the English-speaking world.
—Cosmas DeReuil
Kingdom of Verse:
A Children’s Introduction to English Language Poetry and Rhyme
by owen cyclops
owen cyclops illustration, 77 pages, $34.99
Owen Cyclops gives children and adults an engaging way to share time-honored poetry in his latest fully illustrated book, Kingdom of Verse. Cyclops’s bold, brightly colored drawings complement the poems, from the prominent frog of Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” to the detailed visual storytelling of Shakespeare’s “Ariel’s Song.”
Some pictures remind me of Richard Scarry’s children’s books or Martin Handford’s Where’s Waldo—children can spend several minutes on a page hunting for a red-hatted carrot, four strawberries, or a waving ant, as in Thomas Edward Brown’s “My Garden.” Calmer colors, simpler illustrations, and different styles, such as in Frost’s “Canis Major,” Byron’s “Solitude,” and the folk rhyme “Crooked House,” provide welcome variations.
Whether or not they’re mentioned in the poem, Cyclops often includes cats. A clowder munches on the crescent in “The Moon” by Vachel Lindsay. A cat and a child gaze at the night sky in Sara Teasdale’s “The Falling Star.” In Wordsworth’s “The Kitten and the Falling Leaves,” an animated bunch fling themselves off the wall in somersaults. Though not cats, the adorable owls perched around a table sipping tea in Lear’s “Man of Dumbree” are my favorites.
The volume include works by well-known poets, such as Milton, Blake, and Millay, lesser-known poets, and folk rhymes. I found some poems difficult to explain, but with seventy-six choices, it’s easy to return to favorites and explore new ones as children get older. Kingdom of Verse is a book to return to again and again.
—Midge Goldberg
