Fleeting Fame

Having recently completed my Tony Hillerman Navajo mysteries goal, I began to consider what other mystery goals I might pursue.

I'm already nearly done with reading all the G.K. Chesterton Father Brown mysteries, so I won't count that.

Then I thought of the 21 Brother Cadfael mysteries of the Ellis Peters (the pen name of Edith Pargeter). I've already read a number of them, and always enjoyed them.

I was not ready to turn to them - I'm currently reading Don Quixote - but I thought I'd check the local library to see what Cadfael books they had and which ones I've already read.

They had none.

I know they used to have a number of the books - I'd checked them out and read them from the library in the past - but they were now all gone. I checked the online catalog. None.

What seemed likely is that they have already culled the books from their collection to make room for more new books. Pargeter died in 1995, and the last Cadfael book was published in 1994.

Admittedly, the books were good as mysteries, though certainly not classic literature. But they were still solid, entertaining works.

At one time the Cadfael books were popular, as was the character, the subject of a series of BBC programs in the 1990's starring Derek Jacobi. But that popularity was some 20 years ago. Having a medieval monk as your detective probably helped to limit the audience given contemporary tastes and anti-religious sentiments. I suspect I would find the Father Dowling mysteries also being culled.

Other local libraries still have some of the Cadfael books, so I will be able to read some of them, though I suspect locating all the ones I haven't read yet might be difficult.

But it did seem to me telling that such a prolific, award-winning writer and a series that used to be relatively popular is being discarded in that way.

So much for fame. We seek it, we cling to it, we proclaim it, then it is gone.

Is what the world says makes us famous really something worthy striving for? Yet people, metaphorically and literally sell their souls for it. Think of all the writers, musicians, actors who for the sake of success and fame focus on and perform things less than moral, and find their lives beset by destructive vices.

And then, suddenly, they are gone.

I'm reminded of Shelley's "Ozymandias"

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

There are more important, more lasting goals for which to strive. Heaven and eternal life await, after all.

But even as I strive for those more eternal goals, I will still try to read more of the Cadfael books!

Pax et bonum