Customer Reviews

Men and Brethren

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....One busy summer weekend at his Manhattan Episcopal church the Rev. Ernest Cudlipp is forced to deal with urgent pressures of a multitude of unrelated episodes. We see the workings of a church as Cudlipp deals with abortion,suicide, natural death etc. Cudlipp takes responsibility for his actions-displaying the qualities of a sensible,practical, and experienced man with a keen sense of duty. He considers resignation when he is slowed by his clerical superior, Doctor Lamb, and the awareness of powerful church politics. Cudlipp is the hero one expects from Cozzen. First published in 1936 this intellectually exciting novel remains contemporary-a conflict of ideas and solutions.The contents of this attractive and affordable paperback reprint compares favorably to the writing quality of Cozzen's Guard of Honor and By Love Possessed.

This is one of James Gould Cozzen's especially good novels. Written in 1936, it describes a weekend in the life of the Rev. Ernest Cudlipp, the vicar of an Episcopal chapel in Manhattan. For readers unfamiliar with the what clergymen do when they are not preaching or conducting services, the writer does a fine job of portraying the every day working life of a parish priest or minister. Throughout the book, Fr. Cudlipp is called upon to help people with problems. Among the people he encounters are an older clerical colleague undergoing a crisis of faith, a young clergyman struggling with issues of faith and social justice, parishioners, as well as people only loosely associated with the church, who come to him with marital, relationship, sexual and addiction problems. I found this book very appealing because Fr. Cudlipp, while caring and tolerant, consistently takes a realistic, rather than a sentimental, view of life. He talks frankly to people about their problems. He does not water down the transcendent mysteries of faith to make his religion more assimilable for people seeking what Dietrich Bonhoeffer once called "cheap grace." Throughout the book, one can see the chain-smoking, sometimes brusk, but always caring and committed Fr. Cudlipp as an instrument of God's grace.

Cozzens understood a great deal about the Episcopal church of the era before WWII. Few outside of the clergy, at that time, had so much insight into the nitty-gritty. This book could be read for its historical value alone. One clear contrast is the matter of homosexuality, referred to only obliquely. In many other matters, the principle of plus ca change rules.
As a work of characterization M&B is first rate. The priest is not likeable, certainly not idealized, but the initial temptation to dismiss him as an aesthetic snob dissipates through the discovery of his compassionate realism. This vicar is a veteran of the ecclesiastical trenches.
Since most ecclesiastical novels resemble tracts or deal with issues of church politics, M&B is a rare and valuable exception. Admirers of a good novel who have no interest in religion or theology are likely to admire this book.