Rory Dedalus' Religious Phase
In which the Voice of His Generation dismays his greatest fan
Then, for the first time showing a little fire in the belly, The Thing Christine said: “What’s so terrible about Rory leaning on God a little bit?”
“Because he’s a lie.”
“Says you.”
“Yeah. Says me. Says the one who’s been on the receiving end of the lie.”
Daisy couldn’t believe those words had just come out of her mouth. She had never said them to anyone outside of her most private journal. Wilder still, she kept going…
TODAY I am very pleased to present my short story,
“Rory Dedalus’ Religious Phase”
You’ll find the text of the story just below, but if you prefer to listen to an audio version of the story, read by the author, just click the PLAY button on the audio player just above the image at the top of this post.
But before we begin, it’s time for this week’s…
McINERNY’S MUSINGS
The academic semester finished last weekend, with graduation, and so this week I’ve shifted into summer mode, in which I will pursue, beyond my writing (and more performing) here on The Comic Muse, two other writing projects: one literary, one scholarly. The right-hemisphere of my brain has asked me not to say anymore.
Speaking of scholarly projects, my book, Beauty & Imitation: A Philosophical Reflection on the Arts, will officially appear from Word on Fire Academic on June 3, 2024, though the order page is now fully operational here on the Word on Fire Bookstore. You can also pre-order the book here on Amazon.
The birds who had been making their home this spring underneath the roof of our front porch have left the nest. They had seemed happy enough there, but on the Comments Card they left at the front desk they wrote: “Next time more towels. And why did you think we wanted to listen to your movies?”
So we must be heading into summer. For last night we enjoyed the first of the summer lettuces (arugula) from Amy’s and her dad’s kitchen garden. Scrumptious!
What am I reading? Recently I picked up a biography of Chaucer that I’ve had on my shelves for years, along with, for fiction, Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End. Too early to tell what I think of the latter. But I must say I’m most enjoying our family’s sporadic read-aloud of Jane Austen’s Emma. Her mastery of the techniques of comic fiction—especially in this novel the technique of “free indirect style,” in which Austen inflects her third-person narration so that it identifies with the voice of the character being described—is masterful. On the scholarly side I’m reading several things simultaneously as I work on the new book I’m not talking about.
What about you? What are you reading? If you’re at loose ends, maybe you’d enjoy “Rory Dedalus’ Religious Phase.” And so, without any further ado…
“Rory Dedalus’ Religious Phase” (Part 1)
It was the false spring, that balmy weekend we always got in February which dissipated winter’s low-ceiling perma-cloud and teased you into thinking that maybe you still had a soul, that this year happily coincided with the university’s annual Battle of the Bands (affectionately known as the “BOB”). Even at ten o’clock on the Saturday night, the temperature was still in the high 40s, and so fifteen or twenty mostly coatless students, all musicians and their “roadies,” stood underneath the street lamps outside The Catacomb (the basement of the student center). They collected in groups of two and three, smoking, assessing the competition, and steeling their nerves for what could well be the most significant fifteen minutes of their aesthetic lives.