Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (1888–1957)

Knox was well-positioned to write a book like this: close enough to Trollope's world to still have a real sense of what it was like, though coloured by a glow of nostalgia which is absent from Trollope (the world of Barsetshire was already on its way out when Trollope wrote, but he is less sentimentally attached to it): the children of the Barsetshire protagonists would have been the generation of Knox's father.

It is not Trollope, though; it is Knox. Trollope was a layman who si times wrote show more about clerical matters (and clerical matters as an aspect of politics); Knox was an Anglican bishop's son and a Roman Monsignor. There are many more RCs in Knox's Barsetshire (easy to do, as I recall none in Trollope's) and inter-eccesial tensions are a theme developed by Knox which are entirely absent from Trollope. The Higher Criticism, which did not interest Trollope at all, plays a role in one story.

There are points when it feels clever, as Trollope rarely does.

Still, Knox does well at capturing the humane character of the Barsetshire milieu and pulling it forward into the 20th Century; one can with a little effort, feel that it might be authentic, in a way which fails completely in so many continuations of Nineteenth-Century novels. show less

I won't go over the plot as other people already have. I really enjoy Knox's set-ups. His characters and dialogue are usually a hoot, especially between Miles Bredon and his wife, Angela. I always think I'm embarking on a Wodehouse-esque mystery, only to have it devolve into something rather more prosaic and technical. Still, I'll keep reading them as I find them.

A clear, honest reflection on Knox's struggle to understand the history of his church (C of E) and its connection to the Apostolic tradition. He finally concludes he can do no other than leave the Anglican church for the Catholic church. But it is the journey of his mind and heart driven by his brilliant, logical mind, that provides the drama and the pain that finally leads to "paying the price of unity". I'm glad I read it before diving into some of his later work, especially Enthusiasm show more (which I just began). show less

If you need me to explain the sense of the word "enthusiasm", as it is used in this book, you probably lack the cultural suavity to get much from it. Still, in the interests of public enlightenment, it should be understood that the meaning is -- or for centuries WAS -- something very different from what it has been stretched-out to mean today, that is, a peppy and sustained approval. In earlier times it was applied pejoratively by Christian controversialists to any form of heterodox belief show more or practice, i. e., whatever they didn't like. Accordingly Father Knox applies the pandybat of his mainstream Roman Catholicism to the metaphorical fundament of any number of Protestant and Catholic thinkers alike. Despite his own wit and learning, he somehow emerges here as a high-falutin' bigot. Too bad. I mkjuch prefer to remember as the author of three of the best limericks I know, including the ones beginning, "There once was a man who said God . . ." and "Evangelical Bishop in want . . . " show less