WHO STOLE THE TARTS?

“Stupid things!” Alice began in a loud indignant voice…

From Reader #4

What would happen if we could sprinkle Work of Human Hands all over with pixie dust? Then suppose we could wish away its countless blunders, artless paragraphing, laughable conclusions, and wiseacre observations. What would be the result?

The answer is simple. We still could not take the book seriously owing to the presence of the meretricious characters “Father Chuck,” “Ms. Gauleiter,” and “Father Retreaux.” Anthony Cekada is evidently as pleased as Punch with his creatures because they are entered in the index [!] and figure in a few footnotes. These imaginary staffers of a Novus-Ordo parish were certainly drawn from real-life acquaintances and incidents in Father’s life. We also have met such types in our own unhappy contacts with New Church: the laid-back, glad-handing pastor; the domineering, hyper-politically-correct feminist worship director; the earnest, “conservative” assistant.

Admittedly Father’s drab characterizations are amusing after a smart-alecky, prepubescent fashion (“Ms. Gauleiter in bib overalls,” p. 368); they are even satisfying in a mean-spirited way (“Father Chuck’s jailed predecessor,” p. 376). However, caricature is not the stuff of a sober critique of the New Mass. (Clearly, it appears as though Fr. Cekada himself never imagined an educated readership in the first place, since he clumsily felt the need to make obvious the allusion behind the name Retreaux [“pronounced ‘retro,” p. 197].)

Personal portraiture like this (known generically as hypotyposis) belongs to a special class of literature called character-writing, which originated in ancient Greece. The literary form was further developed in seventeenth-century France. In the following century, it was perfected in England, where it met with popular success in satiric or humorous informal essays touching upon, in Addison’s words, the “folly, extravagance, and caprice of the present age.”

Our quibble here is that the “publisher” doesn’t hustle Work of Human Hands as satire or social commentary. The book’s back cover tells us that it’s a “scholarly work” and a “thorough and methodical study.” Message-board posts, online forums, and Father’s own church bulletin make wanton claims for its place in the history of liturgical studies and in Scholastic tradition. Yet this is no summer’s day dish of tarts, nor is it a fancy Christmas pie. We’ve stuck in our thumb and pulled out three slatternly stick figures instead of a rounded plum. What’s worse, these burlesque personalities, sketched with a dull crayon rather than a sharp pencil, fail as satire. They are no more than maladroitly traced cartoons inserted at random to give Father’s handful of slack-jawed fans an excuse for having raided the grocery budget. Bottom line: Don’t you be tricked into spending good money on this trumpery.

Feast of St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal