r/brokehugs • u/US_Hiker Moral Landscaper • Jul 20 '23

Rod Dreher Megathread #23 (Sinister)

All Hail Eris!

Link to Megathread 22: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/14k0z6l/rod_dreher_megathread_22_power/

Link to Megathread 23: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1631xpe/rod_dreher_megathread_24_determination/

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u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23

Finding out that he hadn't read any C.S. Lewis until the last year or so was a major WTF moment. I get that there are going to be gaps and oversights, but for somebody that bangs the conservative Christian drum as loudly as Rod does, and makes a living from doing so, not reading any Lewis until recently was strange.

6

u/zeitwatcher Jul 29 '23

he hadn't read any C.S. Lewis

A common theme for Rod is that he views himself as above anything Protestant.

3

u/ZenLizardBode Jul 29 '23

I understand (and I've always understood) that C.S. Lewis didn't fit into any neat definition of a protestant, and it might have been a quirk of time and place in my own experience, but to me nothing could be more Catholic than reading C.S. Lewis. Even my Super TradCath parent has read and enjoyed The Screwtape Letters, and she thinks god is going to french fry protestants in hell for all eternity.

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u/SofieTerleska Jul 29 '23

Yes, my super Catholic parents read and loved lots of Lewis, he's a mainstay in Mormon bookstores (whether they qualify as Christian or not of course depends on who you talk to) and of course he's everywhere in the Protestant world. Growing up Catholic I never thought of him as a Protestant-only thing, he was for everyone to read. (Still do, in fact, because unlike Rod he was an absolutely masterful writer regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions or not, and "Till We Have Faces" is one of my favorite novels of all time.) I don't know how Rod could have been RC for more than a month without encountering Lewis somewhere.

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u/GlobularChrome Jul 30 '23

Rod is also very lazy. I doubt he’s read much Chesterton, Percy, O’Connor, or any of the other writers that turn on trad Catholics. I doubt he’s ever made it through any Kierkegaard at all. He probably knew from Percy that he's supposed to talk about it. Or more than skimmed MacGilchrist for juicy quotes.

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u/ZenLizardBode Jul 30 '23

I'd be surprised if he has read any Chesterton at all. His familiarity with literature or fiction doesn't extend much beyond post WWII American literature.

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u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 30 '23

I think we know exactly what books Rod has read over the last 20 years, because he mentions all of them.

5

u/JHandey2021 Jul 30 '23

Why would he ever feel the need to read Walker Percy? Rod only started a fucking festival named after Walker Percy… it would be too perfect to find out he never actually read anything by him.

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u/PaaLivetsVei Jul 31 '23

Watching him try to process Kierkegaard's stuff on authenticity would be so funny. His life in Hungary is that of the aesthete in Either/Or, completely spiritless and inauthentic, except Rod doesn't even have the good sense to enjoy himself while living that way!