miserable ingrates

7 Responses to miserable ingrates

1. Andrew Conway says:

   January 8, 2005 at 12:39 pm

   Well, if you look at your referrer logs you’ll find that at least one of your faithful readers has been checking back every day since 1 Jan.

   There is something peculiarly horrible about the idea of the eucharist as the agent of destruction — like that horrid piece of 1890s Anglo-Catholic necrophilia, JF Bloxam’s story ‘The Priest and the Acolyte’, where the priest and the altarboy consummate their forbidden love by drinking poisoned wine from the chalice. (But that is a piece of ripe decadence, whereas Lagerlof’s story has an austere clarity about it, like looking into a very deep pool of very cold water.)

   Incidentally, there is something a bit off about the priest’s eucharistic theology if he thinks he can use plain water in place of wine. The story would make more sense, to me anyway, if it was water in the mixed chalice.
2. Robert Nowell says:

   January 8, 2005 at 4:18 pm

   I was merely waiting for you to finish it. Have you got a publisher lined up so that in due course we can enjoy them (if that is the right verb) in book form?
3. acb says:

   January 8, 2005 at 8:39 pm

   I imagine there is something wrong with his theology — but if you can use grape juice, as many Swedish pentecostalists do, why not water? This may not be much help. the priest is clearly a member of the established church (I think I had better change him to “vicar” throughout) and they are more orthodox, though I know very little about Lutheran eucharistic theology.

   Robert: I don’t think anyone would actually pay for these. I just do them as finger exercises when I don’t seem capable of Deep Thought. But they are fun, and I wish I could get vol 2 of Människor och Troll from somewhere othr than the London Library.
4. quinn says:

   January 9, 2005 at 3:16 am

   loyally. reading. every. post. i’ve noticed it even has another subscriber in bloglines.

   much creepier than the last. and i’m struck by the fact that the priest wasn’t wrong about the spirits, just about who their agent was. and the whole feeling like this was also thespirit’s way of getting rid of their meddlesome priest. once again, creepy.

   in other news, d and ada and i will be visiting soon. we should try again to meet up.
5. acb says:

   January 9, 2005 at 9:59 am

   I know. this is much less cuddly than the last one; and much truer to how one feels in the countryside. The last one was about humans. This is about the unhumans.
6. Samstag says:

   January 10, 2005 at 1:43 pm

   Gosh. I thought you might have got over Scandinavia by now. I guess one never does….
7. Andrew Conway says:

   January 10, 2005 at 3:49 pm

   I second Robert Nowell’s suggestion that you ought to get these published. If you can’t find a mainstream publisher then you could always try the Ash Tree Press, who specialise in classic supernatural fiction (M.R. James et al); I’m sure they’d snap it up. Anyway, thank you: these are wonderful stories.

   I suggest ‘pastor’ rather than ‘priest’ (too Catholic) or ‘vicar’ (too Anglican).

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