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How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic
How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic is a sweeping survey of some of the finest literary works ever written by our fallen and yet redeemed race. Joshua Hren takes readers on a tour that spans centuries and explores our broken path to salvation, passing through stories known to many but perhaps understood by few, and others that merit a broader readership.
With appeals to staples of the Catholic literary tradition such as Flannery O’Connor and Evelyn Waugh, to the often-sidelined works of Léon Bloy, Caroline Gordon, and Christopher Beha, to the masterpieces of even those who were distanced from the Church—Flaubert and James Joyce and Chekhov; Hemingway and David Foster Wallace and George Saunders—Hren sheds light on stories that grapple with matters essential to Catholics.
His intrinsically Catholic approach to the study of literature examines the presence of conversion in great literary texts, and considers the way in which writers dramatize the workings of grace upon nature . His analysis also bears a sacramental vision, articulating the ways in which seen images point to unseen realities. How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic searches out the persistence of Catholic ideas, images, and concerns in purportedly secular and postmodern stories. It is a love letter to the Christic imagination which incarnates human nature as having its final end not in the characters’ self-actualization, but in their salvation, giving readers of this work a deeper understanding of how the power of story can lead them closer to Christ.
Includes a section for aspiring writers devoted to the techniques and devices that make good fiction, as well as a list of must-read literary works by which all Catholics can be enriched.
With appeals to staples of the Catholic literary tradition such as Flannery O’Connor and Evelyn Waugh, to the often-sidelined works of Léon Bloy, Caroline Gordon, and Christopher Beha, to the masterpieces of even those who were distanced from the Church—Flaubert and James Joyce and Chekhov; Hemingway and David Foster Wallace and George Saunders—Hren sheds light on stories that grapple with matters essential to Catholics.
His intrinsically Catholic approach to the study of literature examines the presence of conversion in great literary texts, and considers the way in which writers dramatize the workings of grace upon nature . His analysis also bears a sacramental vision, articulating the ways in which seen images point to unseen realities. How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic searches out the persistence of Catholic ideas, images, and concerns in purportedly secular and postmodern stories. It is a love letter to the Christic imagination which incarnates human nature as having its final end not in the characters’ self-actualization, but in their salvation, giving readers of this work a deeper understanding of how the power of story can lead them closer to Christ.
Includes a section for aspiring writers devoted to the techniques and devices that make good fiction, as well as a list of must-read literary works by which all Catholics can be enriched.
480 pages, Hardcover
Published May 4, 2021
23 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Hren
11 books27 followersJoshua Hren is an novelist and critic, a father and husband. He is founder and editor of Wiseblood Books and co-founder of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. Joshua regularly publishes essays and poems in such journals as The Los Angeles Review of Books and First Things, America and Public Discourse, New Polity and The Hedgehog Review, Plough and Commonweal, National Review and The University Bookman, and Religion and Literature and LOGOS.
Joshua is the author of ten books: the short story collections This Our Exile and In the Wine Press; a book of poems called Last Things, First Things, & Other Lost Causes; Middle-earth and the Return of the Common Good: J.R.R. Tolkien and Political Philosophy; How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic; the novel Infinite Regress; and the theological-aesthetical manifesto Contemplative Realism. Joshua's More than a Matter of Taste: The Moral Imagination and the Spirit of Literature and Faith in the Furnace of Doubt: Dana Gioia's Poetics of Belief, are forthcoming. His second novel, Blue Walls Falling Down, was published in October of 2024.
Joshua is the author of ten books: the short story collections This Our Exile and In the Wine Press; a book of poems called Last Things, First Things, & Other Lost Causes; Middle-earth and the Return of the Common Good: J.R.R. Tolkien and Political Philosophy; How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic; the novel Infinite Regress; and the theological-aesthetical manifesto Contemplative Realism. Joshua's More than a Matter of Taste: The Moral Imagination and the Spirit of Literature and Faith in the Furnace of Doubt: Dana Gioia's Poetics of Belief, are forthcoming. His second novel, Blue Walls Falling Down, was published in October of 2024.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 7, 2025
I've read my share of books aimed at aspiring writers. None have been quite like this. First and foremost, this is a class on Catholic (or Catholic-adjacent as the case often, annoyingly was) literature, with the aim to show what it looks like to read the Catholic worldview. Most of what he references is high literature (is that a thing people say? I mean stuff above my non-English major head). Now is as good of time as any to mention that if you love Flannery O'Connor, you'll love this too, because you're in good company with the author. He also often references Balzac, Gogol, David Foster Wallace and Leon Bloy. He gives a chapter to Kerouac and F Scott Fitzgerald oddly enough. I'm not saying he didn't make points, but is that how shallow our Catholic novelist pool is?
This book is in depth, scholarly, interesting...
but definitely made me feel like I could probably never write a Catholic (or any other kind of) novel.
This book is in depth, scholarly, interesting...
but definitely made me feel like I could probably never write a Catholic (or any other kind of) novel.
August 25, 2021
The first section of this book, synthesizing Newman and O'Connor's views on literature, is alone worth the price.
October 30, 2024
Not exactly what I expected from this book, but still very interesting. Shows a lot of examples of different books and how they show Catholic ideas. Also, really highlights the importance of fiction imitating the redemption of suffering and need for grace in life in order to relate well and call higher the human experience.
December 29, 2022
Written in a high register of literary technical vocabulary which PhD students taught by leftist professors in English would understand more than the average man or woman, Hren’s collection of essays is still worthwhile as substantial reading to understand the idiocy of much contemporary fiction.
Although the 463 pages contain few mentions of fictional literature concerned with the pro-life issues (my central research concern), Hren’s essays can help readers who are forced to suffer through LGBTQ and transgender accounts of quasi-fictional gender dysphoric literary diarrhea. Moreover, readers will appreciate that the bizarre, sinful, and often laughable elements of those two categories of fiction (among others in the leftist realm of American publishing) are topics which Catholic readers must analyze, evaluate, and even teach.
Hren relies heavily on major Catholic saints and literary figures to justify why not only Catholics, but even secular persons should read novels exploring ideas contrary to ingrained natural law beliefs, including Dana Gioia, Jacques Maritain, St. John Henry Newman, and Flannery O’Connor.
For example, Hren quotes St. John Henry Newman often: “literature is largely a record ‘of man in rebellion’” (2; internal quotes in original), and another quote soon after expands on this idea: “You cannot have a sinless literature of sinful man” (4-5). With such assertions, it is easy for Hren to conclude that “Catholic thinkers should and even must analyze and teach, appreciate and criticize the sinful literature of man. Why? Because most men are not destined for the cloister” (5). The most significant words from Newman for Catholic writers which Hren quotes may be the following: “Take things as they are, not as you could wish them” (29).
O’Connor’s words about writing fiction can assuage the horror that many moral and righteous readers may feel when they delve into novels deemed important new works by young authors, but which to them seem not merely naughty, but often outright pornographic. Hren cites O’Connor’s “pious trash” (33) comment, and one can understand how many “religious” novels are often boring, making their hero characters flaccid caricatures or allegories instead of fictional characters meant to represent living human beings. This is especially true if the “good” characters end the novel with a “come to Jesus” moment, Evangelical Christian fiction being particularly disposed to resolve plot conflicts with such a righteous yet saccharine denouement.
On these bases, for example, the good priest’s famous (for me), infamous (for some) masturbation scene in Brian Moore’s novel Black Robe as he witnesses coitus by two youths is justified. Whether a reader delights in the prurience of the scene or not is something which he or she should consult with his or her priest in the confessional. For me, Moore’s novel goes beyond pornography to bring my attention to God’s deeper truths about not only sexual sins, but also sexual delights which should obtain between a married man and woman (since they are unmarried, the young people are committing the sin of fornication). While it’s odd that Hren doesn’t cite Moore’s novel as a solid example of Catholic fiction which depicts challenging matters, perhaps a future edition will include this novel and others.
Hren does, however, examine works by many twentieth- and twenty-first century authors, Catholic all (whether devout, lukewarm, or fallen-away), and his criticism of the various works can overwhelm readers with a literary load that seems insurmountable. Reading Evelyn Waugh’s Love Among the Ruins: A Romance of the Near Future (which concerns euthanasia); Katherine Anne Porter, a “sometimes-Catholic writer” (133); David Foster Wallace, who “took his own life in 2008” (139); James Joyce, whose work includes short stories about altar boys most likely molested by priests—a topic considered long before the current pedophile and pederast scandals; Walter M. Miller, another suicide, whose major work, A Canticle for Leibowitz, examines euthanasia; Christopher Beha’s What Happened to Sophie Wilder, which also contains a euthanasia element; and Michael Chabon’s short story about abortion may seem suitable only for those lucky English professors who achieved early retirement ten years ago and have time to sit back, crack open a book from interlibrary loan that no one reads, and annotate at his or her leisure. (Ahem!). Hren, however, thinks we all should read these works to show the great expanse of Catholic fiction.
And why we should read such works is answered well. Hren argues that “Good fiction helps us better grasp the fact that everything we deliberately do—from amusements to our acts of mercy—assumes moral significance” (2). Thus, “we ought not dismiss or underappreciate the importance of well-rendered sin in good literature” (4)—the phrase “well-rendered” not being ironic.
Hren further claims that the purpose of Catholic fiction differs greatly from a purely secular understanding of the art. If “the Catholic literary tradition has been marked by writers who understood that human nature finds its final cause not in mere beauty, not in mere inclusion, but in salvation” (48), then, he states, “a Catholic literary culture that works in continuity with its rich heritage will give us a contemporary literature that both gazes unflinchingly at the messiness of our present moment and artfully works out its characters’ salvation or damnation” (48). This conclusion is necessary because “Christian love is never aimed at the neighbor in-and-of-herself, but at the Imago Dei that is found in every human being” (199).
To bolster his conclusion, Hren quotes Dana Gioia at length about a “Catholic aesthetic”:
Catholic writers tend to see humanity struggling in a fallen world. They combine a longing for grace and redemption with a deep sense of human imperfection and sin. Evil exists, but the physical world is not evil. Nature is sacramental, shimmering with signs of sacred things. Indeed, all reality is mysteriously charged with the invisible presence of God. Catholics perceive suffering as redemptive, at least when borne in emulation of Christ’s passion and death. (342)
Unfortunately, the volume does not have an index, so the reader must guess that the various chapters may contain what he or she is seeking. Sometimes, the content of a chapter is obvious; sometimes, chapter contents are ambiguous from the title. The volume does contain two reading lists which can help the reader, whether faculty member or student, check off those items which Hren suggests as required reading to appreciate the depth of contemporary Catholic fiction.
Finally, since Amazon collaborates with cancel culture zealots and bans conservative and pro-life material, purchase this book from TAN Publishers directly: https://tanbooks.com/products/books/l.... Instead of paying $34.95, purchasing it from TAN through its $5 a book program makes this scholarly tome a deal.
Although the 463 pages contain few mentions of fictional literature concerned with the pro-life issues (my central research concern), Hren’s essays can help readers who are forced to suffer through LGBTQ and transgender accounts of quasi-fictional gender dysphoric literary diarrhea. Moreover, readers will appreciate that the bizarre, sinful, and often laughable elements of those two categories of fiction (among others in the leftist realm of American publishing) are topics which Catholic readers must analyze, evaluate, and even teach.
Hren relies heavily on major Catholic saints and literary figures to justify why not only Catholics, but even secular persons should read novels exploring ideas contrary to ingrained natural law beliefs, including Dana Gioia, Jacques Maritain, St. John Henry Newman, and Flannery O’Connor.
For example, Hren quotes St. John Henry Newman often: “literature is largely a record ‘of man in rebellion’” (2; internal quotes in original), and another quote soon after expands on this idea: “You cannot have a sinless literature of sinful man” (4-5). With such assertions, it is easy for Hren to conclude that “Catholic thinkers should and even must analyze and teach, appreciate and criticize the sinful literature of man. Why? Because most men are not destined for the cloister” (5). The most significant words from Newman for Catholic writers which Hren quotes may be the following: “Take things as they are, not as you could wish them” (29).
O’Connor’s words about writing fiction can assuage the horror that many moral and righteous readers may feel when they delve into novels deemed important new works by young authors, but which to them seem not merely naughty, but often outright pornographic. Hren cites O’Connor’s “pious trash” (33) comment, and one can understand how many “religious” novels are often boring, making their hero characters flaccid caricatures or allegories instead of fictional characters meant to represent living human beings. This is especially true if the “good” characters end the novel with a “come to Jesus” moment, Evangelical Christian fiction being particularly disposed to resolve plot conflicts with such a righteous yet saccharine denouement.
On these bases, for example, the good priest’s famous (for me), infamous (for some) masturbation scene in Brian Moore’s novel Black Robe as he witnesses coitus by two youths is justified. Whether a reader delights in the prurience of the scene or not is something which he or she should consult with his or her priest in the confessional. For me, Moore’s novel goes beyond pornography to bring my attention to God’s deeper truths about not only sexual sins, but also sexual delights which should obtain between a married man and woman (since they are unmarried, the young people are committing the sin of fornication). While it’s odd that Hren doesn’t cite Moore’s novel as a solid example of Catholic fiction which depicts challenging matters, perhaps a future edition will include this novel and others.
Hren does, however, examine works by many twentieth- and twenty-first century authors, Catholic all (whether devout, lukewarm, or fallen-away), and his criticism of the various works can overwhelm readers with a literary load that seems insurmountable. Reading Evelyn Waugh’s Love Among the Ruins: A Romance of the Near Future (which concerns euthanasia); Katherine Anne Porter, a “sometimes-Catholic writer” (133); David Foster Wallace, who “took his own life in 2008” (139); James Joyce, whose work includes short stories about altar boys most likely molested by priests—a topic considered long before the current pedophile and pederast scandals; Walter M. Miller, another suicide, whose major work, A Canticle for Leibowitz, examines euthanasia; Christopher Beha’s What Happened to Sophie Wilder, which also contains a euthanasia element; and Michael Chabon’s short story about abortion may seem suitable only for those lucky English professors who achieved early retirement ten years ago and have time to sit back, crack open a book from interlibrary loan that no one reads, and annotate at his or her leisure. (Ahem!). Hren, however, thinks we all should read these works to show the great expanse of Catholic fiction.
And why we should read such works is answered well. Hren argues that “Good fiction helps us better grasp the fact that everything we deliberately do—from amusements to our acts of mercy—assumes moral significance” (2). Thus, “we ought not dismiss or underappreciate the importance of well-rendered sin in good literature” (4)—the phrase “well-rendered” not being ironic.
Hren further claims that the purpose of Catholic fiction differs greatly from a purely secular understanding of the art. If “the Catholic literary tradition has been marked by writers who understood that human nature finds its final cause not in mere beauty, not in mere inclusion, but in salvation” (48), then, he states, “a Catholic literary culture that works in continuity with its rich heritage will give us a contemporary literature that both gazes unflinchingly at the messiness of our present moment and artfully works out its characters’ salvation or damnation” (48). This conclusion is necessary because “Christian love is never aimed at the neighbor in-and-of-herself, but at the Imago Dei that is found in every human being” (199).
To bolster his conclusion, Hren quotes Dana Gioia at length about a “Catholic aesthetic”:
Catholic writers tend to see humanity struggling in a fallen world. They combine a longing for grace and redemption with a deep sense of human imperfection and sin. Evil exists, but the physical world is not evil. Nature is sacramental, shimmering with signs of sacred things. Indeed, all reality is mysteriously charged with the invisible presence of God. Catholics perceive suffering as redemptive, at least when borne in emulation of Christ’s passion and death. (342)
Unfortunately, the volume does not have an index, so the reader must guess that the various chapters may contain what he or she is seeking. Sometimes, the content of a chapter is obvious; sometimes, chapter contents are ambiguous from the title. The volume does contain two reading lists which can help the reader, whether faculty member or student, check off those items which Hren suggests as required reading to appreciate the depth of contemporary Catholic fiction.
Finally, since Amazon collaborates with cancel culture zealots and bans conservative and pro-life material, purchase this book from TAN Publishers directly: https://tanbooks.com/products/books/l.... Instead of paying $34.95, purchasing it from TAN through its $5 a book program makes this scholarly tome a deal.
July 27, 2023
I really appreciated the beginning of this book. Hren presents a powerful defense for the perceived darkness and sinfulness found in great literature, and I found new language to discuss my field to folks who simply want stories to be about virtue. Many of the essays in this book were well worth reading. But not all. The essays about books I haven’t read (and some that I had) were so difficult to follow. I do not doubt the author’s expertise in the literary field, but he could work on clarity and concision.
And for that, it could have been a 4 star book, except for one thing: Hren included ZERO citations. Right off the bat, he heavily quoted from a John Henry Newman essay that I wanted to read immediately. Did he name the essay? Nope. To not cite your materials in a book of literary criticism is ABSURD to me. It communicates a lack of generosity in scholarship to me. Hopefully further projects will do better on that front.
And for that, it could have been a 4 star book, except for one thing: Hren included ZERO citations. Right off the bat, he heavily quoted from a John Henry Newman essay that I wanted to read immediately. Did he name the essay? Nope. To not cite your materials in a book of literary criticism is ABSURD to me. It communicates a lack of generosity in scholarship to me. Hopefully further projects will do better on that front.
June 23, 2024
How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic is an insightful and passionate guide for readers (and writers) who may already be in touch with the Great Tradition's literary masters - Dante, Newman, Undset, Tolkien, O'Connor, Hopkins...a litany of excellence certainly rich enough to feed the imagination for a lifetime. Yet we may also wonder about our own time. Who is speaking into the "mood and mode of [this] fatigued age" (as one of David Foster Wallace's characters aptly put it)?
Read this book (and Hren's manifesto Contemplative Realism) before you read anything else. Beginning with the traditional canon, Hren moves to contemporary Catholic literary writers and secular storytellers infusing our current moment with soul (Toni Morrison, Christopher Beha, Oscar Hijuelos, George Saunders and Michael O'Brien among them). This book is a first-rate introduction to the contemplative life of the mind. Penetrating moments of spiritual direction provided at no extra charge.
Read this book (and Hren's manifesto Contemplative Realism) before you read anything else. Beginning with the traditional canon, Hren moves to contemporary Catholic literary writers and secular storytellers infusing our current moment with soul (Toni Morrison, Christopher Beha, Oscar Hijuelos, George Saunders and Michael O'Brien among them). This book is a first-rate introduction to the contemplative life of the mind. Penetrating moments of spiritual direction provided at no extra charge.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews