When a Poem Becomes Prose

  

And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver

Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death

Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty's self and beauty's

giver.

See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair

Is, hair of the head, numbered.

 

When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,

Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept

Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder

A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—

Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder, Yonder.

Gerald Manley Hopkins, “The Leaden Echo and The Golden Echo”

Allen Levi is an alchemist[1] in the vein of Gerald Manley Hopkins. His debut novel, Theo of Golden, is a Hopkins’ poem become prose; their philosopher’s stone, a vision of heaven.[2]

 

Gerald Manley Hopkins works as an alchemist in his poetry, and in particular, in the poem “The Leaden Echo and The Golden Echo.” In the first of this two-part poem, The Leaden Echo, Hopkins shows our faltering attempts that transform natural sorrow over beauty’s decay and loss into despair when we try to find a key to hoard, to “keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty…from vanishing away.”  He does not leave us in in inevitable despair. His second part, “The Golden Echo”, shows there is “such a key, …such a place” for beauty where inevitable sorrow’s only end is not despair, but hope. It is found when we “Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s / giver”. God keeps it “Yonder,” in His heaven, with “Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it”, never hoarding it and beckoning us to “…follow, now we follow” to live wisely and generously in the beauty He gives and keeps.

 

Allen Levi works his alchemy through his title character Theo, and Theo’s work and vision of heaven, as he lives for a year in the small Southern college town of Golden. We meet him greeting an early morning sunrise in the newborn days of a Southern spring after escaping New York City’s leaden wintery weather. After an early morning spent strolling down Broadway, lingering at whatever captures his attention, he wanders into The Chalice, a local coffee shop, where “the aroma of caffeine” is inviting and portraits of patrons adorn the walls. It is in these portraits that he discovers another part of his purpose, “his life’s work” in Golden.

 

In each skillfully wrought portrait, Theo sees with long-trained eyes and hard-earned sadness, a glimpse of leaden sorrow, “like a weariness or unmet longing or a disappointment”, “the universal affliction”. He also sees, with the generosity grown by heavenly vision, a glimmer of their beauty, their “chalice of gold.” He decides to unite patrons and portraits, and when he does, he also gives back to them their beauty, a particular “potential of saintliness” he sees in their portraits. Reminding them, when they protest that saintliness, that they are raw materials, lead becoming gold and “great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended.” Theo’s patient attentiveness to each and to their stories, which they entrust to him, allows friendships and their own beauty to grow and to be shared.

 

This is not your typical Christian fiction.[3] Allen Levi does a masterful job as he “steal[s] past those watchful dragons.”[4] The sadness born of evil and brokenness is portrayed in both subtle and aggressive ways, as it is in the world. Levi’s portrayals of these, whether in the mental illness of Ellen, the ghost of Vietnam that haunts Tony, or the abuse of the vulnerable Claris, and other stories, are never used gratuitously to make a moralistic point. His characters suffer from evil and brokenness at the hands of others, the consequences of their own faulty decisions, the fallen world, and sheer wanton evil. Theo's reactions to evil and brokenness are as varied as the forms they take. He meets their stories of sorrow and failure with patient attentiveness, that “rarest and purest form of generosity”[5],  and with empathy and compassion. But when wanton evil presents itself, it is met with a resounding “Stop!” and, in doing so, reminds us such a response will be necessary, godly, and costly.

Levi, like Hopkins, does not leave his characters, or his readers, without hope in the sorrow that loss brings. As you read of Theo’s patient attentiveness and generosity that reflects his “clear conviction of [heaven’s] reality and beauty”, you are also given glimpses of the patient attentiveness and generosity of other characters in ways that are small, mundane, sometimes motivated by “bad mercy.” You see the characters, settings, and stories participating in and embodying the Good as they were created to and using their sorrow as a “seedbed of creativity.”[6]  They act on the belief, conscious or not, that the beauty they can offer, and not hoard or fear its loss because it is kept safe, as Hopkins shows us, is part of  “May your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” can mean.  They can act even if, in the midst of their doubting, they ask the question that Tony does, “Heaven?, My god, you don’t believe in that sort of thing, do you?” This question, while asked with incredulity and in good-natured ribbing, offers us the opportunity to ask it of ourselves, recognizing the sorrows from loss that often prompt the question, and patiently attend to the answers we find.

 

With names like Theo, Ponder House, The Chalice, and Golden, I initially wondered if the book would be an over-the-top allegory. It proved to be something better, something akin to a philosopher’s stone, as it acts on “the fertility of [your] imagination.” Allen’s descriptive, lyrical prose and attention to both mundane and sublime beauties encourage us to experience the story as it unfolds. Paying careful attention will reward you with passages that draw you in when describing natural beauty, the delightful quirks and strengths of characters and places, and with allusions to Augustine, C. S. Lewis, and others. The stories are parables in their own right, and I look forward to his next book,  “Ellen.”

 

 

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[1] One of alchemy’s practices was to turn a base material, such as lead, into a noble one, such as gold. It was long considered unattainable until this.

[2] I have no inkling if Allen Levi knew of or intended to turn this poem into prose, but their similarity in vision is remarkable. Consider them as you would a pairing of fine wine and an elegant meal, one enhancing the other. 

[3] I've stayed away from all reviews of the book and interviews with the author, save for one small snippet in which he explains he did not set out to write a particular kind of Christian fiction with certain buzzwords and predictable plots. His short mission statement is simply “Use creative gifts to provoke Godward thought.” In this writer’s opinion, he succeeds here. 

[4] “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said” C. S. Lewis

[5] Simone Weil in Gravity and Grace

[6] Andy Crouch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URZBI7ycJa0