From The Solace of Leaving Early

A Milano Book Club Selection
From The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel
Amos stared out his study window at the clear night. The pups had quieted down. He remembered (tonight and often) one of the most important classes he took as an undergraduate English major, British Literature: Beowulf to Pope. He hated it at first, hated Beowulf, Chaucer, Sir Gawain, the Faerie Queene, all of it, really, even though the professor, Dr. Hempel was gifted and passionate and funny. Then they read Marlowe's Faustus, and there was something from the beginning so perfectly...what was it? When they finished the play, the professor asked the class, "What was Faustus's real sin? Where did he really fall?" And there had been the standard answerss: He ws greedy. He desired power, knowledge. He was lustful and blasphemous. Dr. Hempel agreed that Faustus had been all those things, but that Marlowe had very carefully planted a clue in the first scene in the play; he had revealed the trap from the beginning.In the text, Faustus is reading the vulgate of Saint Jerome, and comes to Romans 6:23: "The wages of sin is death," he quotes, and stops right there, despairing, without turning the page. Dr. Hempel looked out at the class. "You're all good Christians, right? What's the rest of the verse? What would Faustus have seen if he'd turned the page?" There had been no answer. "'For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Don't you understand? Faustus was eternally damned because he was a bad reader."

Posted by cindy at 11:02 PM, May 11, 2006