Word: griffins
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...Devil Rides Outside, by John H. Griffin. The turmoil of a young American torn between world and monastery; a first novel marked by crude energy and unashamed religious fervor (TIME...
...Devil Rides Outside, by John H. Griffin. The turmoil of a young American torn between world and monastery; a first novel marked by crude energy and unashamed religious fervor (TIME...
...Devil Rides Outside shows that it takes all grades of crude to make a literary Spindletop. It is the first novel of Dallas-born John H. Griffin, 32, a blind veteran of World War II. Author Griffin spoke his book into a wire recorder, and he talked far too much. He and his publishers (a Fort Worth firm whose first book this is) cut out 250 pages and could profitably have lopped off 200 more. But though Devil is crudely written as well as overwritten, it has some things relatively rare in U.S. letters: energy, earnestness and unashamed religious fervor...
...Author Griffin writes in the first person in diary form. His hero is a young American musicologist in France who arrives at a Benedictine monastery to study Gregorian chant. Author Griffin did the same thing, admits that Devil is at least an "intellectual history." His hero is no Roman Catholic, but by the rules of the order he must live as a monk so long as he stays at the monastery. This is not easy. His unheated stone cell is bitterly cold, the food is execrable, and he must share such work as cleaning the primitive lavatories. Moreover, his brain...
...Author Griffin's hero is a cardboard character in a contest of more powerful wills; the monks and most of the townspeople are mere symbols of good & evil. Nevertheless-and crude, awkward and febrile as it is-The Devil Rides Outside is kept bowling along by pure writing steam. It is often repetitive and frequently staggers to a stop, but it is saved each time by a fresh burst of vigor and intensity. At novel's end the musicologist returns to the monastery, and there is the promise that he will find God and inner peace. Author Griffin...