11-27-2006, 08:26 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Nov 26 2006, 08:29 AM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Nov 26 2006, 08:29 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->I am curious about this Guy Fawkes guy? Who was he? What was his point of view? Are there Englishmen still with the name Fawkes? Is it related to Fox or other variants?
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Ramana garu, here is something
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Det gode selskab</b>
(Review)Â
September 22, 2000Â
Author: Isaacson, Lanae HjortsvangÂ
Hans Lyngby Jepsen. Det gode selskab. Copenhagen. Lindhardt & Ringhof. 1999. 235 pages. 298 kr. ISBN 87-595-1246-6.
HANS LYNGBY JEPSEN has followed his first novel, Krudt under Parlamentet (Gun-powder under Parliament; 1971), on the <b>5 November 1605 plot against the English monarch and Parliament devised and led by Guy Fawkes and a contingent of lay Catholics and members of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits, with a second work, Det gode selskab (The Good Society</b>). Narrated by a Jesuit co-conspirator, Oswald Tesmond, Det gode selskab <b>records the failure of a revolution; of an effort to reestablish Catholicism in government, in schools, and as the state church; and of a coup d'etat against King James I and the reactionary Protestant Parliament</b>.
Tesmond's story is one of loneliness, wandering, institutional and individual cruelty and intolerance, and, finally, of anonymity and ghostlike disappearance within the fabric of an increasingly rigid, vindictive English society bent on erasing all traces of Catholic heritage and individual Catholics. Tesmond himself comes across as a rather idealistic, well-meaning young Jesuit sent home to England from Spain and immediately engulfed in the conspiracy. He strikes us as a lonely soul, condemned to a life in hiding, eventually forced to separate from his brothers, his mentors, and his own small congregation. A survivor of sorts, Tesmond escapes England to become a teacher in a small, obscure continental village: "I was on the earth where I once again dared be what I was, one of the Brothers of the Society of Jesus."
In addition to focusing on the Gun-powder Plot led by Robert Catesby,<b> Guy Fawkes, and the Jesuits</b>, Jepsen offers the reader a careful depiction of the Jesuit Society and the fate of English Catholics in Protestant England: for their faith, Jesuits and lay Catholics endure trials, confinement in the dreaded Tower, torture, and death on the decree of James I and Parliament, and particularly on the orders of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury and leader of the government. <b>The Gun-powder Plot, an idealistic but ill-conceived and unrealistic project at best, suffers from poor and inadequate planning, from confusion concerning goals and objectives, and from betrayal. The ambitious plan to reconvert England seems doomed from start to finish</b>. Open combat between the Catholic conspirators and the soldiers of Parliament at Holbeche leads to the uncovering of the plot, then to the trial, conviction, and execution of eight conspirators, among them Catesby, Fawkes, John and Kit Wright, and the Winter brothers, Thomas and Robert.
The trail of blood -- and of hatred and persecution -- <b>eventually leads the government to the leader of the Society of Jesus in England</b>, Henry Garnet, a kindly, sincere elderly man who shares the same tragic fate as the active conspirators, becoming a martyr and winning "what was worth winning, divine and earthly love, eternal salvation, undying recognition, his star." By contrast, Tesmond escapes the repercussions of the failed Gunpowder Plot but only reaps hatred in his own land and loneliness and despair abroad. His life is one of "unhappiness and longing," so much so that he would gladly have traded places even briefly with Garnet. Tesmond has escaped torture and death, but he has failed to escape the bitterness, loneliness, and anonymity that have become his companions.
Det gode selskab is an accurate account of troubled lives, troubled times, troubled people, remembered by a participant who ends up on the sidelines of the fray, in permanent exile and obscurity. It presents a fine picture of early seventeenth-century England, the Society of Jesus, an age of political and personal conspiracies, and one very lost and lonely protagonist, Oswald Tesmond.
Lanae Hjortsvang Isaacson San Jose, California
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[right][snapback]61358[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ramana garu, here is something
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Det gode selskab</b>
(Review)Â
September 22, 2000Â
Author: Isaacson, Lanae HjortsvangÂ
Hans Lyngby Jepsen. Det gode selskab. Copenhagen. Lindhardt & Ringhof. 1999. 235 pages. 298 kr. ISBN 87-595-1246-6.
HANS LYNGBY JEPSEN has followed his first novel, Krudt under Parlamentet (Gun-powder under Parliament; 1971), on the <b>5 November 1605 plot against the English monarch and Parliament devised and led by Guy Fawkes and a contingent of lay Catholics and members of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits, with a second work, Det gode selskab (The Good Society</b>). Narrated by a Jesuit co-conspirator, Oswald Tesmond, Det gode selskab <b>records the failure of a revolution; of an effort to reestablish Catholicism in government, in schools, and as the state church; and of a coup d'etat against King James I and the reactionary Protestant Parliament</b>.
Tesmond's story is one of loneliness, wandering, institutional and individual cruelty and intolerance, and, finally, of anonymity and ghostlike disappearance within the fabric of an increasingly rigid, vindictive English society bent on erasing all traces of Catholic heritage and individual Catholics. Tesmond himself comes across as a rather idealistic, well-meaning young Jesuit sent home to England from Spain and immediately engulfed in the conspiracy. He strikes us as a lonely soul, condemned to a life in hiding, eventually forced to separate from his brothers, his mentors, and his own small congregation. A survivor of sorts, Tesmond escapes England to become a teacher in a small, obscure continental village: "I was on the earth where I once again dared be what I was, one of the Brothers of the Society of Jesus."
In addition to focusing on the Gun-powder Plot led by Robert Catesby,<b> Guy Fawkes, and the Jesuits</b>, Jepsen offers the reader a careful depiction of the Jesuit Society and the fate of English Catholics in Protestant England: for their faith, Jesuits and lay Catholics endure trials, confinement in the dreaded Tower, torture, and death on the decree of James I and Parliament, and particularly on the orders of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury and leader of the government. <b>The Gun-powder Plot, an idealistic but ill-conceived and unrealistic project at best, suffers from poor and inadequate planning, from confusion concerning goals and objectives, and from betrayal. The ambitious plan to reconvert England seems doomed from start to finish</b>. Open combat between the Catholic conspirators and the soldiers of Parliament at Holbeche leads to the uncovering of the plot, then to the trial, conviction, and execution of eight conspirators, among them Catesby, Fawkes, John and Kit Wright, and the Winter brothers, Thomas and Robert.
The trail of blood -- and of hatred and persecution -- <b>eventually leads the government to the leader of the Society of Jesus in England</b>, Henry Garnet, a kindly, sincere elderly man who shares the same tragic fate as the active conspirators, becoming a martyr and winning "what was worth winning, divine and earthly love, eternal salvation, undying recognition, his star." By contrast, Tesmond escapes the repercussions of the failed Gunpowder Plot but only reaps hatred in his own land and loneliness and despair abroad. His life is one of "unhappiness and longing," so much so that he would gladly have traded places even briefly with Garnet. Tesmond has escaped torture and death, but he has failed to escape the bitterness, loneliness, and anonymity that have become his companions.
Det gode selskab is an accurate account of troubled lives, troubled times, troubled people, remembered by a participant who ends up on the sidelines of the fray, in permanent exile and obscurity. It presents a fine picture of early seventeenth-century England, the Society of Jesus, an age of political and personal conspiracies, and one very lost and lonely protagonist, Oswald Tesmond.
Lanae Hjortsvang Isaacson San Jose, California
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