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A review by mayajoelle
Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery
4.0
additional thoughts after much thinking, spring 2024: I stand by most of what I said, but I am beginning to see why this appeals to a broader audience. It does a good job of portraying conservatives as real, human, and interesting, but also capable of being horrifyingly wrong. I want to read it again and I want to see it performed.
2023 review:
Reading this was a terrifying and exhilarating experience. It seems like it would be very difficult to stage, and it presents a true challenge for actors. I am also not sure of the intended audience; other people of various political and philosophical persuasions seem to have enjoyed it, but my main thought while reading it was, "Wow, this would only appeal to a very niche group of graduates of conservative Christian liberal arts schools." The characters aren't caricatures, though, and offer a nuanced picture of life as a principled but confused intellectual: one that older conservatives would probably be horrified by, and most people would find mystifying. I found it comforting and disturbing. I would recommend Heroes of the Fourth Turning to adults, especially those who went to small Christian liberal arts colleges.
Here are some quotes that arrested me:
TERESA: I'm not, like, avoiding that conversation, about my soul, I just want to have a normal conversation like adults.
KEVIN: I think talking about our souls being in peril is a very adult conversation.
KEVIN: If you're all about the particular / Then why don't you want to hear about all my things / My particular things
TERESA: ...What? I asked you about your neighborhood.
KEVIN: Not my ordinary things, my soul things, my ordinary soul things. / Why do you keep shutting me down
TERESA: Honestly? / Because you're weak. / And it disgusts me.
KEVIN: But that's what I love about Catholicism / It forgives me / For being weak.
KEVIN: How are we not falling down on the ground and WEEPING — every time? Why are we ever bored? Just waiting to get out and have brunch? Because it's been 2000 years and we know the story already? But the story is new every time because there are new kinds of sinning every day — and he dies for those sins, every time, every day, all over the world, in every church — he is dying he is dying he is dying, he is giving us his body so that we can LIVE, and meanwhile we're sneakily checking our phones and speed praying by rote, just saying the words.
KEVIN: You think I'm horrible.
EMILY: No. I think you're suffering.
KEVIN: All we know how to do is make things Catholic. That's all you taught us how to do. At other schools, they allow for different conclusions. But here, we're in the pursuit of the same conclusion — what you want isn't different conclusions, you want better poetry to get us to the same place.
EMILY: What are you scared of?
TERESA (cold): That my wedding won't be beautiful. That it just won't be beautiful. That people won't know how to celebrate me, or my love... Or just that people don't know me, that I don't let them know me / That I'm too private with my love / Or that I don't really know how to love at all
KEVIN: No it'll be beautiful / It'll be scandalously particular — everyone will look at you and wonder how this one person this one particular person got so much grace.
2023 review:
Reading this was a terrifying and exhilarating experience. It seems like it would be very difficult to stage, and it presents a true challenge for actors. I am also not sure of the intended audience; other people of various political and philosophical persuasions seem to have enjoyed it, but my main thought while reading it was, "Wow, this would only appeal to a very niche group of graduates of conservative Christian liberal arts schools." The characters aren't caricatures, though, and offer a nuanced picture of life as a principled but confused intellectual: one that older conservatives would probably be horrified by, and most people would find mystifying. I found it comforting and disturbing. I would recommend Heroes of the Fourth Turning to adults, especially those who went to small Christian liberal arts colleges.
Here are some quotes that arrested me:
TERESA: I'm not, like, avoiding that conversation, about my soul, I just want to have a normal conversation like adults.
KEVIN: I think talking about our souls being in peril is a very adult conversation.
KEVIN: If you're all about the particular / Then why don't you want to hear about all my things / My particular things
TERESA: ...What? I asked you about your neighborhood.
KEVIN: Not my ordinary things, my soul things, my ordinary soul things. / Why do you keep shutting me down
TERESA: Honestly? / Because you're weak. / And it disgusts me.
KEVIN: But that's what I love about Catholicism / It forgives me / For being weak.
KEVIN: How are we not falling down on the ground and WEEPING — every time? Why are we ever bored? Just waiting to get out and have brunch? Because it's been 2000 years and we know the story already? But the story is new every time because there are new kinds of sinning every day — and he dies for those sins, every time, every day, all over the world, in every church — he is dying he is dying he is dying, he is giving us his body so that we can LIVE, and meanwhile we're sneakily checking our phones and speed praying by rote, just saying the words.
KEVIN: You think I'm horrible.
EMILY: No. I think you're suffering.
KEVIN: All we know how to do is make things Catholic. That's all you taught us how to do. At other schools, they allow for different conclusions. But here, we're in the pursuit of the same conclusion — what you want isn't different conclusions, you want better poetry to get us to the same place.
EMILY: What are you scared of?
TERESA (cold): That my wedding won't be beautiful. That it just won't be beautiful. That people won't know how to celebrate me, or my love... Or just that people don't know me, that I don't let them know me / That I'm too private with my love / Or that I don't really know how to love at all
KEVIN: No it'll be beautiful / It'll be scandalously particular — everyone will look at you and wonder how this one person this one particular person got so much grace.