By Steve Pfarrer
THE POPE’S LEFT HAND
By Friedrich Christian Delius
Translated by Robert A. Cantrick
Noumena Press
noumeanpress.com
“The Pope’s Left Hand,” a novella translated from the original German (“Die linke Hand des Papstes”), begins with a seemingly innocuous moment. A retired German archaeologist, who now works as a tour guide for German sightseers in Rome, ducks into a Lutheran Church to wait for his next group to arrive. He notices a famous figure sitting pretty close by, dressed “like a simple parson or bishop” in a black suit suit and starched white collar: the Pope.
Once he’s seated, the narrator can see little of the pontiff except for his left hand, which leads him into an extended reverie, given the Pope’s hands “for once [were] not being used for one of the centuries-old rituals of his office and rank, not raised in greetings or to bless, not pressing other hands, inking signatures, praying … they invited me, they provoked me to reflect, they enticed me to discover the secret, if in fact there was a secret … They asked me riddles.”
“The Pope’s Left Hand,” published by Noumena Press of Whately, is by Friedrich Christian Delius, described by the publisher as an acclaimed writer in Germany who has won numerous awards there but whose work is not well known in the U.S.
Delius offers a satirical but also critical look at the Catholic Church in his novella, as the narrator’s thoughts range across centuries of Papal, Roman, and Catholic history, while also reflecting on art, politics, religion and the sights and sounds of Rome. For instance, he looks at the question of what responsibility the Pope and the Catholic Church had to oppose the Nazis — even as he notes that Germans over the centuries repeatedly “invaded Italy … and defiled Rome, no doubt about it.”
The author also riffs on more modern developments, such as the visit Muammar Gaddafi, the former “oil dictator” of Libya, made to Italy in 2010 to meet former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi; Gaddafi, seeking closer economic ties with Italy, brought an entourage of Berber horses and female bodyguards that became a media spectacle at the time.
Those Berber horses in turn prompt the narrator to recall the 80 Numidian stallions that Augustine presented to the Roman emperor Honorius, in exchange for the Church accepting Augustine’s doctrine of original sin — which leads him to remember a one-night stand he had years earlier.
Delius also offers some satirical sketches of Rome and its heavy tourist visitation, where places like the Sistine Chapel are overrun by people “jammed together side by side, in sandals in summer and reeking of sweat and perfume, in winter in heavy jackets, wet coats and running shoes, under the Last Judgment…. You think you smell the mass pizza breath and see it seeping like mold into the frescoes below the creation of Adam…. Ten thoroughbreds could not drag me there.”
As publicity notes for the book put it, “The Pope’s Left Hand” is at once “a timeless tale of Rome and the birth of a modern legend: how the Pope became a Lutheran.”
AT HOME: HISTORIC HOUSES OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS
By Beth Luey
Bright Leaf/University of Massachusetts Press
umass.edu/umpress/brightleaf
Betl Luey, who lives in Fairhaven, near New Bedford, is a former editor of the Adams Family Papers in Boston and also previously directed the Scholarly Publishing Program at Arizona State University. She’s put her knowledge of both writing and history to work in “At Home,” a profile of 11 historic homes in eastern Massachusetts and the families that made them famous.
The places Luey surveys have some distinguished lineage, like the Quincy homes of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the nation’s second and sixth presidents, respectively, and Louisa May Alcott’s “Orchard” house in Concord, the place where Alcott wrote her famed novel, “Little Women,” in the late 1860s. The author has sorted though architectural and genealogical texts, wills, letters and diaries to construct her narrative.
Luey also writes in depth about the families and people who called these historic houses “home,” such as the fact that the Alcott family moved 30 times before they finally settled in the Orchard house in 1858 — and that Louisa, who in 1858 turned 26, avoided the place “as much as possible, living there only when she was ill or her parents needed her care.”
“At Home,” published by University of Massachusetts Press, contains a number of period photographs of these various homes and also information on visiting them (all are open to the public and have websites with additional information). One reviewer says of the book, “Impeccably researched and brilliantly written, At Home reintroduces us to old characters with new ideas when we least expect them.”
In other book-related news: Bill Wells, author of the short novel “Uno,” will be at Broadside Bookshop in Northampton Sunday, June 23 from 11-3 p.m. to sell copies of his book; all proceeds will go to Safe Passage, the Northampton organization that provides services for victims of abuse. Wells, of Wilbraham, wrote the book after learning his daughter was involved in an abusive relationship.
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.