A delightful post about Frederick Buechner’s novel, Godric, has introduced me to a writer I did not know and a book I think I will enjoy. Its period accords with Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon poetry (The Wanderer and The Seafarer) that I have been enjoying so much this year.
The fragment that Christy (A Shelf of One’s Own) quotes of the narrator, “puddling my way home like a drowned man from dark Wear with my ballocks shriveled to beansize in their sack,” reminds me a lot of an author I once read compulsively, J. P. Donleavy. Sadly, Donleavy is little read today.
Time's Flow Stemmed 
>Dear Anthony,Beuchner has a number of similar works. I particularly liked Godric and his retelling of the Deuterocanonical Book of the Bible "Tobit"–_On the Road with the Archangel_. Delightful prose moving and interesting stories and characters. I'm glad people are still discovering _Godric_ and _Brendan_, etc.shalom,Steven
>Steven – How on earth did we discover authors to read before the internet and blogs? My reading stack was more manageable then though. Thanks for a couple more suggestions.
>Anthony,Godric is wonderful. You will love it.My favorite thing about the novel, which has gone unremarked so far: because it is written in the form of a memoir by an 11th century Anglo-Saxon saint, the novel is in a style that, as befits Godric’s low social status, avoids the influence of Latin and restricts itself to native Anglo-Saxon words.Here, for example, is Godric on his friend Mouse, whose “sin smacked less of evil than of larkishness the likes of which Our Lord himself could hardly help but wink at when he spied it out in whore and prodigal.”Not only is the language sharp and racy, but it aspires after the Christian model of sermo humilis, speaking in the tones of street rather than pulpit.Great book. Great book.
>D. G. Myers – That is the bait that moves Godric from wish list to ordered. Native Anglo-Saxon? Irresistible. Thank you