Page 36 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 3 Spring 2013

REVIEWS
In the Shadow of Time
by George Nolthenius
de Man ’57
St. Johann Press,
203 pages, $19.95
Reviewed by Alan N. Hall,
master emeritus (1952-92)
In the preface to In the Shadow of Time,
George de Man writes “ . . . the theme of
time and shadows moving in time, as well
as that of poems composed of time and
shadows, has been set as a unifying arch
over, hopefully appropriately, the whole
enterprise.”
This new work, subtitled “new and
selected earlier poems,” is a powerful
panoply of poetic variety, a collection
of thoughtful prose essays and personal
reflections on life lived to the fullest, a
paean of praise for devotion to a craft
or an art.
In all, de Man presents 182 titles, divided
into 10 sections – the titles of which are
often brief phrase-compressions of im-
age and idea – “Love, Loss, and Longing”
or “In Other Tongues” (a group of poems
in various languages, part of the poet’s
ever-experimental nature) or “Coda:
Towards Finality, Infinitude, Darkness,
and Light.” The collection is indeed a
gathering of representations of youth,
adolescence, maturity, and skillful aging
as de Man himself has developed as a
man and a poet.
There are some brash but delightful
moments; my favorite is an early effort,
“Squash Courts” (with its onomatopoetic
“pock” of a good shot and “leaden thud”
of a low shot on the tin). How could any-
one write a poem about squash? Only a
young poet with eye and ear alert!
In a series of poems about artists of
differing media, de Man brings alive
that moment of recognition for an
alert reader or listener. In “Munch”
he writes:
Screaming into the blue universe,
into that hard northern night
afraid of the sunset the sex and the sin . . .
and in “Joyce” he writes:
Rivers of words and words made of rivers
rush over us
his words flow over us like rivers . . .
We will run with his rivers
and flow home to his Irish Sea
– yes, we will yes –
There are tender, thoughtful poems
about loss almost too hard to bear (that
“shadow of time” overarching image
again). But in some of the later poems
appear recurring images of light –
firelight, candlelight, starlight – light
philosophical, theological, practical –
of just light at the end of the day.
In “The Candle – Closure,” the final
poem, de Man skillfully draws together
most of what we can know and say and
dream about the flames of time and
tribulation of life and love:
“ . . . hold your hand just close enough
For warmth, and yet not close enough
to burn the hand –
or quench the flame.”
Woman, Man, and God
in Modern Islam
by Theodore Friend ’49
Wm. B. Eerdmans,
464 pages, $39
Reviewed by Candice Dale,
SPS humanities faculty
In Woman, Man, and God in Modern Is-
lam , Theodore Friend takes his own form
of Jihad to better understand the “striv-
ings of women” in five different Muslim
countries, each with distinct cultures
– Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran,
and Turkey.
In his long journey across the globe,
Friend has conversations with religious
leaders, political decision-makers, female
Muslim activists, representatives of
various Islamic organizations and intel-
lectual centers, and ordinary citizens, all
of whom help him to gain a rich under-
standing of the varying challenges faced
by Muslim women.
Friend’s extensive research into, and
firsthand experience with, the education,
poverty, religious and cultural practices,
and governmental structures of these five
countries enable him to shape thoughtful,
informative ideas about the “veil and the
vote” of the Muslim women who live in
these vastly differing cultures.
Each chapter begins with colorful
photographs of primarily Muslim women
in both modern and traditional cloth-
ing – professors, humanitarians, prime
ministers, feminists, students, brides,
pilgrim girls, and women in the park.
Friend’s accessible writing, which in-
cludes a glossary of useful Arabic words,
enables both the experienced student of
Islam and the novice to learn much about
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