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Title: Off the Sand Road: Ghost Stories by Russell Kirk, Pelan John ISBN: 1-55310-043-3 Publisher: Ash-Tree Press Pub. Date: October, 2002 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $45.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Otherworldly morality plays
Comment: Never mind the pretensions of the baby boomers and party-hardying Gen-Alphabeters who assume the conservative label today (why hello, P.J. O'Rourke! Hello, Ted Nugent!). Never mind the impotent "compassionate conservatism" of the frat boy in the White House
Russell Kirk, who abandoned this earthly plane in 1994, was truly the last REAL conservative - the kind that sought refuge in prescription; the kind that refused to accommodate the sansculottic evil represented by the Left. Armed with a tremendous intellect, he never let his focus stray far from his ancestral home and the body of knowledge accumulated over the eons by the generations who resided there and their contemporaries.
In "The Conservative Mind", he refers to human history as the constant unfolding of a grand Design, and he expresses conservative affection for "the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence". This latter phrase hints at Kirk's interest in the supernatural, which is more fully developed in a number of his other books, including this one.
Today, political conservatism (at least, that portion that hasn't been subsumed by the party animals) is commonly associated with fundamentalist Christianity, and fundamentalist Christianity is derisive of spiritual visitations as deceptive phenomena of satanic origin.
But Kirk accepts ghosts as part of the same grand Design that encompasses human affairs, and the stories in this book involve encounters between the human and spirit realms in which great moral issues are decided.
Ash-Tree Press has reportedly limited this issue of "Off the Sand Road" to 500 copies, and the fact that the demand is so limited is a reflection of the coarsening of Western culture - a reality that Kirk expressed concern about as long ago as 1953, when "The Conservative Mind" was first published.
That trend has obviously not ameliorated, and the audience for this book is limited precisely because the tales in them wouldn't remind anyone of "Freddie meets Jason".
Some of the stories in this volume are effectively morality plays in which Good and Evil confront one another across the Great Divide. In others, an otherwise timid or flawed protagonist's encounter with the other world requires him to decide whether he will now steel himself to meet the challenge posed thereby. Still others appear more like the artist's conception on the nature of things such as time, space, and eternity.
One problem with the concept of eternity, even in heaven, is boredom, but "Saviourgate" holds out the hope that the sober-minded among us can manufacture their own ever-pleasing conception of heaven without interfering with the Creator's Grand Design.
We also hear from Kirk on Divine Justice. "Hereafter was everything," observes the protagonist from *Lex Talionis*. "Without that prospect, all life would have been a nasty joke and men like Butte the natural lords of life. Yet the Lord is not mocked, and vengeance is His alone."
Russell Kirk doesn't pretend to have all of the answers or to even suggest that an appreciable portion of them can be discovered on this plane. In his afterward, he explains that his purpose is to unblock the keyhole so that the reader can get a partial glimpse of the mystery behind the closed door.
Both Kirk's afterward and editor John Pelan's introduction are better read after having finished reading the stories. Pelan gives too much away in his otherwise excellent intro.
Kirk is one philosopher who can weave spiritual phenomena into a comprehensive discussion of the human condition without sounding like a 900-number charlatan or an ethereal nerd.
Far from being waiflike, he is capable of creating his share of earthy moments, and, in particular, "The Princess of All Lands" is, in places, salacious enough to compare with any Charlie's Angels episode.
Kirk is as solid as the towers of Kellie Castle, as solid as the foundation of his haunted ancestral home in Mecosta, Michigan - these being among the locales where he wrote some of the stories.
If spiritual phenomena play a significant role in his vision of the universe, it is not because his judgment has been overtaken by his imagination. It is because his own personal experiences and testimony received from others give him confidence in its reality and in its importance, and Kirk does hint at having himself been a witness to such phenomena.
One need not necessarily accept Kirk's perception as accurate or give up one's own open-minded cynicism toward such matters to respect his viewpoint or to receive enjoyment and moral instruction from this collection.
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