Normally, to say that a novel, especially a romance novel, is about religion and the meaning of life is an invitation to failure. But if you dislike discussions about religion and the meaning of life, you wouldn’t be reading this blog. I want to tell you about a romance novel that is anything but formulaic: Meet Me in Strasbourg, a novel by Stan Rice.
Here is the author’s summary, taken from the Amazon site:
“When the university-bound Native American science student Tony encounters the brilliant and painfully shy French humanities student Aimée in California, he has no idea that their love would drag him halfway around the world.
Tony and Aimée discover their shared passion for music, particularly the love-lieder of Schubert, and then for one another. Tony quickly leaves the social circle that scorned Aimée for her plainness and quietness and becomes her defender and protector. And does she need protection—from the poverty and malnutrition of living alone with her unlucky father, and from her father’s unscrupulous associates in the shadowy world of smuggling. Aimée (French for beloved) finally discovers what it is like to be loved. Just when her joy seems inevitable, she and her father disappear. Tony alters the entire course of his life to go look for her in France.”
This novel includes a lot of experience with music, as I explain in the next essay. One of the pieces of music that is central to the plot is a band performance (both of the protagonists are musicians) of the medieval hymn Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, which you may know as a Christmas song. The climax line is, “And the powers of Hell shall vanish, as the darkness fades away.”
My question, which the author does not and cannot answer, is, is this true? Will it ever be true? Is it possible for the powers of Hell to vanish away? In an evolved world, bad things are not caused by an evil Satan but are the by-products of amoral natural selection. Unlike the fantasies of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, evolution has no Christ-centered goal. You could summarize evolution as, Shit happens, and then you die; if you are lucky, you become an ancestor.
Rather than to say more, I will simply tell you to read the novel and keep this question in mind.
Another example is that, from a sidewalk after a rain, Aimée rescues a dying earthworm. Tony points out that St. Francis of Assisi did the very same thing. But there is no point in it; the worm has no soul, or consciousness, and the death of one more worm will mean nothing to the overall pattern of evolution. Tony wonders if Aimée did it because of love for the worm. She explains that she did not do it for God, or for St. Francis, but for herself. She was the kind of person who would do something like that—to rescue a worm, not caring what anyone else might think.
If you think religious questions are important, whether you accept a religious answer or reject it, you will enjoy reading this novel. If you don’t think these questions are important, then why are you reading this blog?
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