Subject
Re: ADA's grim Vincent Veen,
Bishop: A Note on a Brian Boyd anno tation. (fwd)
Bishop: A Note on a Brian Boyd anno tation. (fwd)
From
Date
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From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
Dear List,
Your EDITOR's identification of "a grim Vincent Veen, Bishop of Balticomore
and Como" with Norman Vincent Peale (whose name and most famous book I at
least knew of, though not that he was a clergyman) and Bishop Fulton Sheen
(of whom I had never heard) is exactly the sort of priceless little gem I
hoped others would notice I had overlooked in the dirtpile each time, every
six months, I sift through another layer of ADA's hard earth.
I just wish more readers of ADA (other than the Krug circle) would spot what
I haven't noticed in each instalment of the annotations and send it to
Nabokv-L, the Nabokovian, or me. ADA is much too complicated for one person
to crack: as in the case of Vincent Veen, you often don't know where to look
(or that you need to look anywhere) unless you already happen to know the
answer.
My friend and fellow annotator Alfred Appel, Jr. felt that Nabokov's last
three novels marked a creative decline, partly because he thought Nabokov
had isolated himself in Switzerland and had therefore cut himself off from
the rich vein of American popular culture mined so colorfully in LOLITA,
PNIN and PALE FIRE (the last of which, though written in France and
Switzerland, Appel deemed the product of memory banks still green with
American currency). Quite why Appel supposed Switzerland offered less life
to an observant eye and less space to an imaginative mind than other
countries, I'm not sure; but in any case Norman Vincent Peale and Bishop
Sheen's presence in ADA-and Log knows how much more Antiterran
Americana-suggest Appel was wrong.
Thanks, Don.
Brian Boyd
-----Original Message-----
From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
Sent: Wednesday, 29 January 2003 6:18 p.m.
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: ADA's grim Vincent Veen, Bishop: A Note on a Brian Boyd annotation.
EDITOR's NOTE. Brian Boyd's biannual "Annotations to ADA" in THE NABOKOVIAN
are always a pleasure to read and, indeed, essential for the ADA buff. (Also
to be noted here is the ADA annotations of the Kyoto Reading Circle that
publishes its findings [in English] in KRUG, the publication of the Nabokov
Sociey of Japan.) The latest installment (The Nabokovian #49) covers chapter
20 of ADA' s Part I.
The lines to be discussed (page 124, lines 21-22) describe Van coming down
the stairs to breakfast after the Night of the Burning Barn. The staircase
is lined with Veen family portraits: "he hurried down, past a pleased
looking Prince Zemski and a grim Vincent Veen, Bishop of Baltimore and
Como." Boyd convincingly explains why Prince Zemski might well look pleased
and goes to write "Vincent Veen is otherwise unknown, and presumably looks
'grim' in a clergyman's judgement upon Van's sexual activities with Ada."
(TN 39). Boyd is even more right about the Bishop's disapproval than he
realizes.
Bishop Vincent Veen is a blend of two sanctimonius American religious
figures that were omnipresent in the 1950s. Norman Vincent Peale and Bishop
Fulton Sheen. No American in the Eisenhower Fifties could remain innocent of
these figures who were the founding figures of TV evangelism. Even I, a
college student militantly indifferent to religion, was familiar with their
images and voices. Nabokov who was a keen student of American popular
culture of the fifties must have found them vastly entertaining. Below are
some cribbed notes on Bishop Vincent Veen's prototypes.
-----------------------------------------
Norman Vincent Peale was one of the most influential clergymen in the United
States during the 20th-century. ... Peale's simple, optimistic, and dynamic
sermons, in which he offered a positive outlook on modern living brought
increasing numbers of parishioners and increasing fame to Peale. His sermons
were regularly broadcast, first on radio and later on television. In
addition, Peale published a weekly newsletter for businessmen, Guideposts,
which reached two million subscribers at its apex. Peale also published
several best-selling books, including The Power of Positive Thinking which
was published in 1952 and has sold nearly 20 million copies and in 41
different languages. With the exception of the Bible, from 1952-1956 his
The Power of Positive Thinking was the best-selling book in America. For 54
years, Peale's weekly radio program, "The Art of Living," was on the air.
There was also a weekly TV show.His sermons were said to be mailed to over
750,000 people per month and in 1964 a movie was made of his life entitled
"One Man's Way. He was the author of 46 inspirational books including "The
Art of Living," "A Guide to Confident Living," "The Tough-Minded Optimist,"
and "Inspiring Messages for Daily Living." A biography is aptly entitled
God's Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking. He
is regarded an the forefather of the motivation and self-esteem movements.
His theology was liberal and he co-founded a post-Freudian, Jungian-leaning
psychiatric clinic in NY. Died: 12/24/93.
----------------------------------------------------
Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Educator, author, radio and television apologist, archbishop.? He was born
Peter Sheen (May 8, 1895) the first of four sons to Newton Morris Sheen and
Delia Fulton Sheen on the second floor of the family hardware store, Elpaso,
Illinois.? He died in New York City on Dec. 9, 1979.
He was ordained to the priesthood, (Sept. 20, 1919) and earned his Ph.D. at
the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium (1923), one of the foremost
centers of scholastic studies in the Catholic world. In 1925 Sheen received
the Agrege en Philosophe for his doctoral dissertation, ?God and
Intelligence in Modern Philosophy: A Critical Study in Light of the
Philosophy of St. Thomas. ?While teaching dogmatic theology at St. Edmund's
College, Ware, England, he met the renowned apologist G.K. Chesterton, whose
weekly radio broadcast over the BBC inspired Sheen's later work as the
feature speaker on the NBC broadcast ?The Catholic Hour (1952).? His
dissertation with Chesterton's introduction was acclaimed to be a
masterpiece in which ?The Catholic Church comes forward as the one and only
real champion of Reason and earned Sheen the distinction of being the first
American to receive the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International
Philosophy.? Sheen set the pattern for what followed in his own career in
what he saw as a task to make St. Thomas functional, not for school, but for
the world? a remedy against the anarchy of ideas, riot of philosophical
systems and breakdown of spiritual forces.
Preacher and Convert Maker-
His intellectual stature remains arguable, but the success of his
apologetical career is indisputable.? The contribution of Archbishop Sheen
to the Catholic world and the general American public was incalculable.? His
preaching career included: annual Lenten homilist at St. Patrick's Cathedral
(1930-1952) and Paulist Church in New York City, preacher at summer
conferences at Cambridge, England; Westminster Cathedral in London
(1925-31); Cardinal Spellman's 1948 Pacific Tour; and countless retreats for
priests and religious congregations, which by his own report, was his most
gratifying experiences and occupied his agenda to the very end of his life.
His no fewer than 92 books were invariably repetitive reworkings of his
public addresses and were designed to foster one's spiritual growth rather
than to deepen intellectual enrichment. His book Peace of Soul, rose to
sixth place in New York Times best seller list and was considered his finest
next to Preface to Religion (1946).? His most financially successful was
Life of Christ, which was based upon 15 addresses given on his program "The
Catholic Hour."
Television Personality-
Sheen spoke on the first televised religious service on Easter Sunday,
1940.? But it was the 129 broadcasts of "Life is Worth Living" on ABC
Network and Admiral Corporation on the Dumont that established Sheen as the
best known Catholic priest in 1950's America.? For many he represented the
movement of Catholicism into mainstream American Life.? His talks redefined
the Church within larger society by telling stories of Catholics in Terms of
their own heritage.? His telecasts had ecumenical appeal to non-Catholic
audiences.? He emphasized the importance of reason in sorting out problems
of the day especially of American confrontation of Communism.? The infusion
of anti-Communism into his talks recast its social meaning as a spiritual
component of the postwar religious revival of the 1950's America.? He
forty-two programs he treated evils of atheistic Communism, yet at the same
time he argued the need for love of the Russian people.? His program on The
Death of Stalin aired live one week before Stalin's death (March 5, 1953),
which drew enormous media attention and clinched Sheen's role as the premier
Catholic ant-Communist.? He also attacked Freudian psychology.
At the end of the twentieth century, historians increasingly note the
prophetic quality of Sheen's ecumenical ambition.? To be sure, no other
American Roman Catholic churchperson has matched the popularity and
influence of this mediagenic bishop whose apologetic touched the lives of
millions of Catholics and non-Catholics.
------------------------------------
Dear List,
Your EDITOR's identification of "a grim Vincent Veen, Bishop of Balticomore
and Como" with Norman Vincent Peale (whose name and most famous book I at
least knew of, though not that he was a clergyman) and Bishop Fulton Sheen
(of whom I had never heard) is exactly the sort of priceless little gem I
hoped others would notice I had overlooked in the dirtpile each time, every
six months, I sift through another layer of ADA's hard earth.
I just wish more readers of ADA (other than the Krug circle) would spot what
I haven't noticed in each instalment of the annotations and send it to
Nabokv-L, the Nabokovian, or me. ADA is much too complicated for one person
to crack: as in the case of Vincent Veen, you often don't know where to look
(or that you need to look anywhere) unless you already happen to know the
answer.
My friend and fellow annotator Alfred Appel, Jr. felt that Nabokov's last
three novels marked a creative decline, partly because he thought Nabokov
had isolated himself in Switzerland and had therefore cut himself off from
the rich vein of American popular culture mined so colorfully in LOLITA,
PNIN and PALE FIRE (the last of which, though written in France and
Switzerland, Appel deemed the product of memory banks still green with
American currency). Quite why Appel supposed Switzerland offered less life
to an observant eye and less space to an imaginative mind than other
countries, I'm not sure; but in any case Norman Vincent Peale and Bishop
Sheen's presence in ADA-and Log knows how much more Antiterran
Americana-suggest Appel was wrong.
Thanks, Don.
Brian Boyd
-----Original Message-----
From: D. Barton Johnson [mailto:chtodel@cox.net]
Sent: Wednesday, 29 January 2003 6:18 p.m.
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: ADA's grim Vincent Veen, Bishop: A Note on a Brian Boyd annotation.
EDITOR's NOTE. Brian Boyd's biannual "Annotations to ADA" in THE NABOKOVIAN
are always a pleasure to read and, indeed, essential for the ADA buff. (Also
to be noted here is the ADA annotations of the Kyoto Reading Circle that
publishes its findings [in English] in KRUG, the publication of the Nabokov
Sociey of Japan.) The latest installment (The Nabokovian #49) covers chapter
20 of ADA' s Part I.
The lines to be discussed (page 124, lines 21-22) describe Van coming down
the stairs to breakfast after the Night of the Burning Barn. The staircase
is lined with Veen family portraits: "he hurried down, past a pleased
looking Prince Zemski and a grim Vincent Veen, Bishop of Baltimore and
Como." Boyd convincingly explains why Prince Zemski might well look pleased
and goes to write "Vincent Veen is otherwise unknown, and presumably looks
'grim' in a clergyman's judgement upon Van's sexual activities with Ada."
(TN 39). Boyd is even more right about the Bishop's disapproval than he
realizes.
Bishop Vincent Veen is a blend of two sanctimonius American religious
figures that were omnipresent in the 1950s. Norman Vincent Peale and Bishop
Fulton Sheen. No American in the Eisenhower Fifties could remain innocent of
these figures who were the founding figures of TV evangelism. Even I, a
college student militantly indifferent to religion, was familiar with their
images and voices. Nabokov who was a keen student of American popular
culture of the fifties must have found them vastly entertaining. Below are
some cribbed notes on Bishop Vincent Veen's prototypes.
-----------------------------------------
Norman Vincent Peale was one of the most influential clergymen in the United
States during the 20th-century. ... Peale's simple, optimistic, and dynamic
sermons, in which he offered a positive outlook on modern living brought
increasing numbers of parishioners and increasing fame to Peale. His sermons
were regularly broadcast, first on radio and later on television. In
addition, Peale published a weekly newsletter for businessmen, Guideposts,
which reached two million subscribers at its apex. Peale also published
several best-selling books, including The Power of Positive Thinking which
was published in 1952 and has sold nearly 20 million copies and in 41
different languages. With the exception of the Bible, from 1952-1956 his
The Power of Positive Thinking was the best-selling book in America. For 54
years, Peale's weekly radio program, "The Art of Living," was on the air.
There was also a weekly TV show.His sermons were said to be mailed to over
750,000 people per month and in 1964 a movie was made of his life entitled
"One Man's Way. He was the author of 46 inspirational books including "The
Art of Living," "A Guide to Confident Living," "The Tough-Minded Optimist,"
and "Inspiring Messages for Daily Living." A biography is aptly entitled
God's Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking. He
is regarded an the forefather of the motivation and self-esteem movements.
His theology was liberal and he co-founded a post-Freudian, Jungian-leaning
psychiatric clinic in NY. Died: 12/24/93.
----------------------------------------------------
Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Educator, author, radio and television apologist, archbishop.? He was born
Peter Sheen (May 8, 1895) the first of four sons to Newton Morris Sheen and
Delia Fulton Sheen on the second floor of the family hardware store, Elpaso,
Illinois.? He died in New York City on Dec. 9, 1979.
He was ordained to the priesthood, (Sept. 20, 1919) and earned his Ph.D. at
the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium (1923), one of the foremost
centers of scholastic studies in the Catholic world. In 1925 Sheen received
the Agrege en Philosophe for his doctoral dissertation, ?God and
Intelligence in Modern Philosophy: A Critical Study in Light of the
Philosophy of St. Thomas. ?While teaching dogmatic theology at St. Edmund's
College, Ware, England, he met the renowned apologist G.K. Chesterton, whose
weekly radio broadcast over the BBC inspired Sheen's later work as the
feature speaker on the NBC broadcast ?The Catholic Hour (1952).? His
dissertation with Chesterton's introduction was acclaimed to be a
masterpiece in which ?The Catholic Church comes forward as the one and only
real champion of Reason and earned Sheen the distinction of being the first
American to receive the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International
Philosophy.? Sheen set the pattern for what followed in his own career in
what he saw as a task to make St. Thomas functional, not for school, but for
the world? a remedy against the anarchy of ideas, riot of philosophical
systems and breakdown of spiritual forces.
Preacher and Convert Maker-
His intellectual stature remains arguable, but the success of his
apologetical career is indisputable.? The contribution of Archbishop Sheen
to the Catholic world and the general American public was incalculable.? His
preaching career included: annual Lenten homilist at St. Patrick's Cathedral
(1930-1952) and Paulist Church in New York City, preacher at summer
conferences at Cambridge, England; Westminster Cathedral in London
(1925-31); Cardinal Spellman's 1948 Pacific Tour; and countless retreats for
priests and religious congregations, which by his own report, was his most
gratifying experiences and occupied his agenda to the very end of his life.
His no fewer than 92 books were invariably repetitive reworkings of his
public addresses and were designed to foster one's spiritual growth rather
than to deepen intellectual enrichment. His book Peace of Soul, rose to
sixth place in New York Times best seller list and was considered his finest
next to Preface to Religion (1946).? His most financially successful was
Life of Christ, which was based upon 15 addresses given on his program "The
Catholic Hour."
Television Personality-
Sheen spoke on the first televised religious service on Easter Sunday,
1940.? But it was the 129 broadcasts of "Life is Worth Living" on ABC
Network and Admiral Corporation on the Dumont that established Sheen as the
best known Catholic priest in 1950's America.? For many he represented the
movement of Catholicism into mainstream American Life.? His talks redefined
the Church within larger society by telling stories of Catholics in Terms of
their own heritage.? His telecasts had ecumenical appeal to non-Catholic
audiences.? He emphasized the importance of reason in sorting out problems
of the day especially of American confrontation of Communism.? The infusion
of anti-Communism into his talks recast its social meaning as a spiritual
component of the postwar religious revival of the 1950's America.? He
forty-two programs he treated evils of atheistic Communism, yet at the same
time he argued the need for love of the Russian people.? His program on The
Death of Stalin aired live one week before Stalin's death (March 5, 1953),
which drew enormous media attention and clinched Sheen's role as the premier
Catholic ant-Communist.? He also attacked Freudian psychology.
At the end of the twentieth century, historians increasingly note the
prophetic quality of Sheen's ecumenical ambition.? To be sure, no other
American Roman Catholic churchperson has matched the popularity and
influence of this mediagenic bishop whose apologetic touched the lives of
millions of Catholics and non-Catholics.
------------------------------------