Return of the Book Report

I have stacks of books to read and report on. Actually, I have several I've read of late, so what we're going to have is, I hope, an almost daily Book Report this week.

First up, Ghost Empire by Philip Marchand, which I read on the way down I-75 on Thursday. I was absolutely taken with this book. Loved it.

Here's the gist: Marchand, of French-Canadian origins, but born in Massachusetts, and now living and working in Toronto, takes us along the route of 17th century explorer LaSalle. So the book is part contemporary travelogue, part history, and part spiritual and theological meditation. Really.

LaSalle, trained by Jesuits and, for a time, one of them (not ordained, but in formation), came to Canada, like most others, to make money in the fur trade, but, being an inveterate explorer, could not sit still. So he ended up traversing present-day Ontario to Detroit, up to Macinack Island, then down the Mississippi to its mouth. On a return trip, intending to find the Mississippi Mouth again, he ended up in Texas instead, where he was eventually killed by one of his own men.

What Marchand is after, as the title indicates, is ghosts - the French hoped to hem in the British east of the Allegheny Mountains, and if they had succeeded, the land claimed by LaSalle would have, at least for a time, remained in French hands. It is the "ghosts" of this empire, this French presence that Marchand is looking for, finding it in obvious places like Ste. Genevieve, MO, and not-so-obvious ones like Monroe, Michigan, where French was widely spoken until the mid-20th century and muskrat was an approved food for Fridays.

So he tells the story of LaSalle - a not uncontroversial figure - with sympathy. part of the sympathy with LaSalle and all he represents is rooted in their shared Catholic faith. And Marchand is no recovering, nuanced Catholic. His faith, as it articulates it, reminds me much of Walker Percy's Dr. Thomas More. It is matter-of-fact, humble, straightforward, and the unifying principle in his life.

In this book, the unifying principle impacts everything Marchand experiences, and links him to the past, and the past to him. He offers reasoned and fair accounts of so many things that seem odd to the modern reader - the passion for evangelization, the sacrifices of the missionaries, LaSalle's insistence on chastity among his men, practices of corporal mortification. And it is often lovely and moving. You might find it difficult not to shed a grateful tear, even, near the end, as Marchand meets a Mississippi man, one of whose far distant ancestors was a baby born on a ship on the Atlantic to one of the group accompanying LaSalle to Texas.  Both of his parents died, one at the Indians' hands, the other through hardship, and miraculously, he survived, in captivity, until he and his siblings were rescued in Mexico.

And today, a man in Mississippi is here because of the strength and small miracles suffusing one life, four hundred years ago. Which reminds us, of course, that all of our lives fall in exactly the same category, and that each of our lives is a miracle, and that wordless gratitude is the honor we owe God and the saints..and sinners of the past.

Of course we are all fellow pilgrims on this earth, and as such all owe each other a warm abrazo. That goes for you, too, Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, who could be such a bastard, and who, for your sins, met a violent end and lay unburied on the earth. By now, we trust, your faults have been purged in the fires of purgatory and your soul has found rest. Send a blessing on this book. Help us to realize that nothing in the universe is lost and that our existence is richer than we know.

Food for thought and for the spirit on these days we remember all the saints and all the souls, pilgrims with us on the journey.

Comments

[Lickona]

Interesting timing - you getting to this right as Manney posts about reading Black Robe over at People of the Book...
Good to see you back on the book beat.

[Jules]

OK, so this book is officially on my Christmas list now.

[scotch meg]

One for your pile, Amy, if it's not already there -- Elizabeth Marquardt's book on the inner lives of children of divorce. Not an accusing book, and a huge study sample (1500). Very good.

[Richard W. Comerford]

Amy:

Thank you for your review of Ghost Empire. It struck quiet a cord in my heart.

Here in Massachusetts and Rhode Island we also have the reamins of the old French Catholic Empire.

In the 19th Century the Yankee industrialists imported thousands of French Canadians to work the water powered mills. They settled in places like Woonsocket R.I. and Lowll MA. Twenty years ago the Boston Globe described them in an article as the second largest ethnice group in New England. However the Globe went on in Massachusetts only one French Canadian had ever been elected to State wide office. The Globe seemed puzzled by this lack of political activity.

I think that the reason for this was that the French Canadians in New England were very poor but very devote and poured their energies into family and parish. French parishes had womb to tomb Catholicism...clinics, schools, credit unions with names line "Holy Rosary" cemetaries adn very strong soladalities like the St. Francis DeSales Association to care for the poor.

When I was a boy most adults spoke French regularly, many could not speak English. On holidays we took buses to visit Quebec. We did not assimulate. On Holy days we regularly marched in procession in the city streets.

I do not think that either the Yankee Mill owners or Irish Bishops knew what to do with us.

All that is gone now...but it is amazing how the faith was kept alive in a hostile land by the sacrafices and bravery of very humble priests and people.

God bless them.

I am sorry for teh long post.

Richard W. Comerford

[amy]

Richard:

My mother, a Bergeron, was born in Manchester NH and grew up in Maine. Her experience was yours. Years ago, we visited relations in Sayabec, Quebec, women who had lived in Lewiston Maine for something like 12 years and never once had to speak English..

[Richard W. Comerford]

Sorry for the typos - darn technology.

[Richard W. Comerford]

Amy:

As you know the so-called "Quiet Revolution" hit Quebec during the 1960's and within a generation the faith had collapased in the French speaking Catholic communities in Cannada and New England.

One of my Godson's a fine young man, did not even bother to become confirmed in the faith.

However blogs like yours seem to be a great helpin rallying the faithful.

Thank you for your efforts.

God bless

Richard W. Comerford

[George]

Being introduced to Philip Marchand is the intellectual gift of a lifetime for this Franco-American.

Thanks, Amy!