Brendan (1987)
Winner of the Christianity and Literature Book Award
for Belles-Lettres, 1987
Book Description
The birth of Saint Brendan the Navigator, so the legends say, was announced to the world by a miracle, as a nearby copse sprang unbidden into flame. Convinced that this spectacular event augurs greatness, Bishop Erc—an early convert of Saint Patrick—raises the child in preparation for an extraordinary future.
Tasked with taking the “new faith” to the old world, the adolescent Brendan sets out with his friend, Finn, across the mist-covered and mysterious landscape of ancient Ireland. Accompanied by a rag-tag group of friends and followers, and inspired by a childhood vision of Tir-na-n-Og (the land of the blessed), Brendan devotes himself to a vocation as a “curragh martyr”: a life at sea in search of paradise. His voyages bring with them marvellous and terrible discoveries, experiences of tragedy and joy, moments of spiritual clarity and a dark night of the soul. He converses with a giant whale, sees a vision of hell in a volcanic eruption, and is tormented by memories of his past and uncertainty about his future.
With doubt and faith as his constant companions, Brendan returns to journey through Ireland and Wales meeting Kings and Princes, building monasteries, and ordaining monks who have been brought to faith by the tales of his exploits.
Reviews
“Ribald humor, piercing sorrows, and miraculous moments join seamlessly in Buechner’s literary feast.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Strikingly convincing... sinewy and lyrical.”
— The New York Times Book Review
“A grand, gaudy tale.”
— The Atlantic
“Exuberant… proves the power of faith to lift us up, to hold us straight, to send us on again.”
— The Washington Post Book World
“[A] lusty, bawdy, teeming, festooning, dancing marvel of a book. Within its crafty interlacings, we can read its buoyant meaning: that life, for all its woes, is essentially a comedy.”
— The Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Thematically speaking, much of the masterfulness of Brendan has its source in Buechner's imagining the resounding clash between paganism and Christianity in the youthful days of the Christian faith in Ireland... yet, with the several explorations into new territories, essential Buechnerian themes such as the mixture of false and true and the possibility of God's involvement in the human experience remain in Brendan. […] [It] is a stew of Dante and Homer, the northern mythologies, and even a dash of Malory and Tolkein. There is much more here of the fanciful and fantastic.”
— W. Dale Brown, The Book of Buechner
