"The Almost Archer Sisters" by Lisa Gabriele

Published by Random House of Canada.

The Almost Archer Sisters is a smart novel about the dysfunctional relationship between two sisters. I really enjoyed this book. The characters are complicated and endearing, and their problems intertwine in such a way as to provide a realistic vision of sibling relationships.

Peachy and Beth are sisters who grew up on a farm in a small town just north of the U.S. border. While Beth left for New York to go to college, Peachy stayed, having gotten knocked up by Beth’s old high school boyfriend, Beau. Peachy married him and bore two children, Sam and Jake. After the first chapter, a recount of Beth leaving for college, we find Peachy in the park with her sons. Later, we find out she’d gone there at 4 in the morning after finding her Beth and Beau going at it in the pantry. Flashbacks abound in the first half of the novel, retelling key occurrences in the girls’ lives⎯their mother’s suicide, their estrangement from their grandmother, Beth’s shady birth (her mother and Lou, with whom she grew up, crossed the border just after Beth was born, Lou dodging the draft; her real father had been killed in Vietnam). These tales come naturally, like a stream of memories rather than the insertion of plot exhibition. Later, the story continues: Peachy returns from the park, and determines to continue with her and Beth’s planned trip to New York⎯without Beth. Effectively, the girls switch roles, Peachy going to the city and spending time with Beth’s New York friends, and Beth left behind to care for Peachy’s family, but the fact that they learn to appreciate each others’ roles in life is beside the point.

What Gabriele managed to do in this book, is to create a realistic vision of interfamilial conflict. Peachy, instead of dropping everything and running off to New York (the crazed, scorned woman), has responsibilities to tend to. She has to return from the park, ensure her children are taken care of while she’s gone, give instructions to Beth, left behind, on how to complete her normal household duties (this results in two pages of detailed instructions, Beth attempting to interrupt the while, ending with Peachy’s hilarious finishing remark, “And kudos to you if you can find the time to fuck my husband again in between all that” [123]). These details put the reader right in with the conflict⎯nothing is assumed. It’s not just there-was-a-fight-now-the-obvious-follows kind of writing. Despite conflict, there are still things to be tended to, still people who need to be dealt with. After Peachy leaves, she doesn’t go on a vengeful tirade against her sister to her New York friends; she remains loyal to her sister, covering up for fibs Beth has told and refusing to disclose what Beth had done (until she figures out that everyone already knows, at least).

The book maintains an internal logic. The eccentric characters are eccentric, without being archetypes; the college dropout housewife is still allowed to be smart and insightful. The plot is completely unforced. The Almost Archer Sisters is one of the best novels I’ve read in a while and contains some of the most realistic female characters I’ve encountered.

"Proof of the Illuminati" by Seth Payson

Pubished by Invisible College Press

I have the heart of an infidel, and here’s proof:

[Premise 1] Seth Payson asserts on page 184 that, “the man [or woman, I assume] with whom these considerations have no weight, is a stranger to the nature, excellence, and importance of Christianity, and has the heart of an infidel.
[Premise 2] I am a woman with whom these considerations have no weight.
[Conclusion] Therefore I have the heart of an infidel.

Of course, I can only say this is because I believe in reason, as instanced in logic, which Payson states is an enemy of the Christian faith (along with philosophy, by which I’ve been corrupted). Payson would rather our beliefs were governed by the only true authority, revealed religion.

This book was originally published in 1802 under the title “Proofs of the Real Existence, and Dangerous Tendency, of Illuminism”. The topic of the book extends beyond Illuminism, as Illuminism is only a symptom of a more general tendency of modern society to conspire against Christianity. The true conspiracy began with Voltaire’s writings; Voltaire used his reason and philosophy to seduce the public away from the virtues of Christianity. Payson attempts, with this work, to uphold Christianity against the immoral attitudes of the Illuminati, stated to be “to prevent political and religious oppression” (26), which he interprets as an effort to abolish religion and the state (“the subversion of every social, moral, and religious obligation” [26-7]).

The further I read into this book, the more I identified with the Illuminati, whom I began to see as the victims of oppression, as the rightful revolutionaries, as the proponents of the intelligent use of reason. Payson’s main goal of this work is to defend Christianity against these evil-doers. To say that Illuminism is evil is all well and good until we attempt to define evil. Payson seems to take it as given that certain dictates of Illuminism are self-evidently evil. By doing this he assumes a value-set with which I cannot agree. Payson describes the evils of the lodges: “sensual pleasures were advocated, and self-murder justified. That death was represented as an eternal sleep; patriotism and loyalty were called narrow-minded prejudices, incompatible with universal benevolence. Nothing was so frequently discussed as the propriety of employing, for a good purpose, the means which the wicked employed for evil purposes” (88). In order to agree that these are evils, we must hold the opposite assumptions, i.e., that sensual pleasure is bad, suicide is wrong, death is punishment for sin (heaven and hell exist), etc.

The book does not give any real proof of the Illuminati per se, but descriptions of the organization of the Illuminati as branching off of Masonry. For this he relies on two main sources, Robin and Barruel, from whom all his information is taken. It seems an incontrovertible fact that Illuminism did exist (founded by Weishaupt in 1776), but the question that remains is whether they were, in fact, evil and, as we’ve seen, that depends on how we define evil. Payson lists, towards the end of the book, some practices of the Illuminati (like drowning priests and babies) intended to horrify the reader, but it seems like he’s reporting on Satanic cults—no actual instances of such practices may have ever occurred.

Payson has some recommendations to prevent the Atheist revolution from coming about. Of course, it is of the utmost importance that anyone who is not a loyal Christian be denied employment in a pubic office (178). That would allow them to spread their evil further. Nor should clergymen attempt to convert them by making Christianity amenable to their views: they must accept Christianity as Seth Payson believes it to be. Children should be educated at home in the ways of religion and morality, as in the German universities “the chief study is the new system of philosophy, by which the mind is totally bewildered, and at length deprived of every solid principle of religion, morality or sound politics” (136, quoted from Appendix to Anti-Jacobin Review).

In short, I found this book to be less about the Illuminati than about how Seth Payson hates Atheists.