The Wine of Certitude: A Literary Biography of Ronald Knox. By David Rooney, Ignatius Press, 2008.
Monsignor Ronald Knox (1888–1957) was a prolific writer, working in theology, nonfiction, fiction, satire, and detective novels. Knox’s literary career lasted for nearly half a century and consisted of scores of publications. It is not surprising that with such a vast body of work that some of these books might become classics, while others remain largely obscure. In David Rooney’s The Wine of Certitude: A Literary Biography of Ronald Knox, Knox’s entire literary corpus is listed, described, and explored in the hopes of introducing his work to a new generation of readers.
In his introductory pages, Rooney writes:
“The time then may be auspicious for an overview of the full range of the mind of Ronald Knox, a fifty-year-later retrospective of a fifty-year career in letters, which commenced at Eton College in 1906 and was stilled only when death from liver cancer overtook him on August 24, 1957. The present work is an intellectual portrait of the kind that I flatter myself might have qualified for the English Men of Letters series of a century ago. The following pages do not attempt to add anything to the story of Knox’s life. The first chapter is included merely to provide the reader who has not read either Waugh of Fitzgerald with a framework within which to peg chronologically Knox’s literary endeavors, which are segregated largely by subject matter in the remaining chapters. Likewise, it does not purport to address his place in modern theology, a subject Father Walsh is far better equipped to analyze than I am. It is instead a purely armchair survey of what Knox wrote in a variety of genres, with the attendant advantages and disadvantages of such an exercise. The seasoned historian, and even more so the student of theology, who scans the footnotes will no doubt find too frequently the reference to a less-definitive study on some topic, read and cited merely because it happened to occupy a more convenient place on a home or institutional bookshelf. On the other hand, armchair readers will find that most of the references are to books available in reasonably large university libraries, and none to manuscripts or letters rendered practically inaccessible to them because they repose in out-of-the-way archives, or for that matter to books written in tongues the author is insufficiently conversant in to read more rapidly than at the pace d’un escargot.”(9-10).
Understandably, in order to describe Knox’s work adequately, Rooney has to quote Knox extensively. Rooney is fully aware of how much of his book are his subject’s words and not his own. Indeed, The Wine of Certitude is as much an anthology of “the best of Knox” as it is a criticism or synthesis of the man’s work. Rooney explains his approach to the material, writing that:
“The reader will observe too that around one-quarter of this book was actually written by Knox himself, so frequent and so lengthy are the quotes included in the text. Indeed, in writing and assembling it, I have often considered the work in light of the “mosaic” approach used by the great contemporary historian Emmet Larkin, who so skillfully has patched together extensive extracts from Irish bishops and other personages to make the period from 1850 to the early twentieth century in Irish ecclesiastical history emerge so vividly from the printed page in his multivolume series.” (10).
One of the major problems with writing a review of a massive literary career is that it can be very difficult for readers unfamiliar with the subject’s work to follow all the references to books they have never read, and possibly never will read. Rooney circumvents this potential stumbling block by refraining from crafting his book as a series of capsule summaries, and instead develops the book as the gradual development of Knox’s literary corpus. A large portion of this book is devoted to finding Knox’s place in the canon of twentieth century literature, and Rooney compares Knox to numerous other Catholic writers, particularly those who are members of the clergy.
“Evelyn Waugh insisted on seeing in Knox’s career many similarities to that of John Henry Cardinal Newman, but Knox himself seems to have regarded the life of Robert Hugh Benson as a more suitable template for his own. Yet whichever of these convert priests is chosen as a yardstick, one is at a loss to find a parallel in the writings of either of them with Knox’s use of the light novel as a literary vehicle. The historical novel, to be sure, was Benson’s staple, and Newman composed a few of them himself, but such works as Loss and Gain were written with an evident apologetic aim. Of the three novels Knox wrote in the 1920’s (not counting the detective fiction he would soon become an adept at writing), two of them appear at first glance to be pure fantasy, while the third is a conscious imitation of a nineteenth-century classic. The fantasies revolve around subjects of topical interest in that decade and no doubt were read simply as such by some devotees of the imaginative novel. But they are all in fact expressions of Knox’s willingness to use any genre, however popular, to nudge even the casual novel reader to serious reflection.” (81).
A book like this cannot succeed if the author does not demonstrate real enthusiasm for his subject, and Rooney has a knack for always making Knox appear like someone who is worth reading. Rooney fills his book with quotes from Knox not to merely take up space, but to offer the reader little samples of Knox’s work in order to whet the reader’s appetite for discovering more about the author.
“There are over forty thousand words taken from Knox’s writings in the present book, but they represent well under 1 percent of his published output. The other 99 percent is of the same quality. The reader need only randomly consult any of his books to verify that assertion. He was a consummate writer: every word in its place, every sentence carrying forward an argument or an image, every thought intelligible and, far more often than not, compellingly persuasive. If the present work does not encourage the reader to seek out and read a book written by Knox, and not just a book aboutKnox, it will have failed in its intent.” (11).
The ultimate goal of a work such as The Wine of Certitude is to make readers aware of a widely overlooked literary treasure and to encourage people to read Knox’s work. The best way to make people appreciate a writer is to describe how good he is, and Rooney certainly succeeds in helping people appreciate a man with a great power for the written word. Personally, Rooney made me anxious to start reading more of Knox’s books, particularly his mysteries. Therefore, Rooney has succeeded in his intent in writing this book.
–Chris Chan
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