If the only Jesuit you ever met was a character in a work of fiction in a library collection, what would this individual tell you about Jesuit life?
In this series, IgNation blogger Kevin Burns, who is not a Jesuit, takes a look at some of the works that come up in a large urban public library when he entered the search term "Jesuit" and filtered it through the genre of "Fiction". The novels that popped up include some familiar names and some not so familiar Jesuits.
This week: Bartolomeu Laurenço SJ, one of the main characters in Azhar Abidi’s Passarola Rising
Azhar Abidi is a Pakistan-born Australian novelist. In his notes at the back of his novel, Abidi writes, “The Brazilian-born priest Bartolomeu Laurenço de Gusmão [1685 – 1724] is regarded as a pioneer in aviation history. …The adventures of Bartolomeu and his brother [Alexandre] in this novel, both real and historical figures, are fictitious.” (p. 243-4)
On its website, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, has this to say about Bartolomeu Laurenço de Gusmão and one of his Jesuit forbears and their role in the history of aviation:
In the 17th century, an Italian Jesuit priest named Francesco de Lana-Terzi was the one who forecast how man would eventually cut the bonds of gravity. He believed correctly that a vessel containing no air was lighter than one that did; in 1670, he completed the first proper design for a lighter-than-air craft, comprising a boat hull with mast and sail borne up by four tethered paper-thin copper spheres from which all the air had to be extracted. In fact, Lana did not perceive the most serious shortcoming in his proposal: atmosphere pressure would have crushed the flimsy copper vacuum spheres. … On 8 August 1709, the Portuguese Brazilian-born Jesuit, Father Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão, demonstrated a model hot-air balloon before King John V of Portugal; the rounded envelope of thick paper was inflated by heated air from burning materials carried in a suspended earthenware bowl.
Azhar Abidi uses fiction and takes Francesco de Lana-Terzi’s model as a real invention by Bartolomeu Laurenço de Gusmão. His novel explores the “what if?” question of this Jesuit-building on-Jesuit invention and sets it in the early days of the Enlightenment. We follow the adventures of Bartolomeu Laurenço SJ and his brother, Alexandre, as they take their airship, built in the shape of a bird and named the Passarola, from Portugal to France, and then as far as … (but to complete this sentence would be to intrude on the plot.) Instead, this is what the novel says about a fiction Jesuit inventor who is modelled on an actual figure in Jesuit and aviation history, and as seen through the eyes of his brother, a former-seminarian who is now happily married.
“Ordained as a priest, he thought like a scientist. ‘It is harder to prove the presence of God that his absence,’ he would say, to the dismay and horror of his peers.” (p. 9)
In order to smooth the way for his speculative experiments, he occasionally turned to more practical activities. “To mollify the priests, he built a system of drains, levers and pulleys to take water from the river up the hill to the buildings.” (p. 10)
He is not interested in his image as a priest, but in his role as a kind of lie-detector: “I no longer don the cassock but don’t forget that I was trained to hear confessions. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it is to watch for the ever so slight flicker of the pupils; yes, the gaze a little too stready that gives a man away.” (p. 14)
This Jesuit believes that: “Most people don’t know what they want… They discover it. It takes time.” (p. 16)
He is aware that his superiors are watching what he does, and not always with a supportive eye. “They are afraid that I’ll sail my ship through ether and find what must not be found.” (p. 18)
His discoveries are visceral experiences. “Sublime is, it not? …To find oneself balanced between heaven and the abyss. True ecstasy is found there… A compelling experience it is to be sure.” (p. 31)
When challenged by a cardinal that his invention is theologically suspect – “God will not permit it.” And “you forget that the designs of the Evil One also appear in many guises.” – Bartolomeu answers: “I will arrange to send the Passarola to our Pope. He could use it to visit his vassals around the world and cut evil at its root.” (p. 35)
This idea the core theme of the novel, how an invention intended for exploration and discovery can quickly be turned into a machine for very different kinds of conquest.
This Jesuit is very clear about his vocation and its personal cost. “One must make sacrifices if one is to achieve anything in this world. I have no time for distractions. For my vocation, I have sacrificed love.” (p. 49)
His theology is not always orthodox. “‘There is not cure for melancholy,’ I heard him say, ‘except to find God, or heaven, if it exists.’” (p. 78)
He is constantly aware that the Inquisition is following his experiments and this is why he left Portugal. ‘“Exile has freed me from a great deal of trouble,’ my brother said, glancing at me. … I cannot say so much of many others who have fallen into the arms of the Inquisition.” (p. 101)
Monarchs see the military potential of the Passarola, but this Jesuit’s perspective is more personal. “I want to fly for my own sake.” (p. 129) As his brother, Alexandre, observes, “He saw the Passarola as a sort of ark. We collected specimens of herbs, plants and insects at an astonishing rate. He was always formulating new ideas and theories, sunk in a reverie, often forgetting my presence.” (p. 143)
Bartolomeu’s approach to missionary activity is built on a reciprocal understanding of culture. “Only when we set out to know the world and unseal our eyes do we better come to understand our fellow men like ourselves.” (p. 156)
During the various flights of the Passarola the brothers encounter inexplicable things, yet Bartolomeu’s scientific approach prevails. “There’s an explanation for everything.” (p. 178) And following a flight, when he is threatened with the Inquisition by a cardinal, he answers: “I agree that one must seek the truth in order to set oneself free.” (p. 195)
Years later, he confides to his brother, who is now married, “Let me tell you there are boundaries beyond which proof and evidence become meaningless, language becomes meaningless and words lose their substance. Nobody can discover the truth. Truth is what you believe.” (p. 235)
Voltaire and Louis XVI have cameos in this fascinating novel of the early Enlightenment.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Azhar Abidi's Pasarrola Rising is pubished by Viking Canada, 2006.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Next in Keyword: Jesuit, Genre: Fiction – Ron Hansen’s Exiles, in which the real (but fictionalised) Gerard Manley Hopkins’s career as a Jesuit shifts when he learns about the sinking a ship in 1875.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Note to the Reader:
– This series represents a tiny selection from a wide range of possibilities.
– igNation invites readers to describe a Jesuit character they have encountered in fiction. Tell us about the character in 300 words or less and send your article to pungente@sympatico.ca [1]
– igNation welcomes your articles!