A beautiful madness

When I first heard tell of Robert Hudson’s novel The Beautiful Madness of Martin Bonham: A Tale About Loving God, it was described to me as a campus novel. I had my own notions about that particular subgenre as practiced by noteworthy British writers like David Lodge or Malcolm Bradbury. Those somewhat satirical novels typically involved internecine battles among faculty, acerbic wit and bit of bawdy, bed-hopping scandal.

This did not exactly reconcile with my prior impressions of Hudson or his corpus of written works. Those include Seeing Jesus: Visionary Encounters from the First Century to the Present, as well as The Monk’s Record Player, a parallel biography that investigates Bob Dylan’s surprising influence on Thomas Merton’s life and writing.

The trick of this tale is actually found in its subtitle. Although its principal characters clash over ideas and personal matters, witticisms abound and romance blossoms, the novel stays rooted in its central conundrum: the whys and wherefores of “Loving God.”

Professor Martin Bonham is professor of English at Cupperton University, a faith-affiliated school in the American Midwest. He is madly involved with loving the Deity. This is made manifest in his scholarly devotion to the writings of Christian mystics. He confesses that “my greatest joy has been my two-semester senior seminar on the ‘Writings of the English Mystics.’” Bonham activities attract the attention of Katie, a seminary student wrestling with weighty questions about loving God and the intense opprobrium of Rev. Dr. Cornelius C. Dunwoody, PhD, ThD, DD, chairman of the Cupperton Seminary and School of Theology. The battle lines are drawn between Bonham’s newly minted Department of Theophily and Dunwoody’s stodgy, theological citadel.

Various campus characters are drawn into the conflict as well. In that sense the novel could be characterized as something of an apologue, that is an allegorical story with pointed details or a plot, meant to convey wisdom or insight without explicitly stating same. The book’s characters seem chosen to exemplify how God might best be served and/or regarded. These include Carl, chair of the theater department; Tyrell, a choral director and Katie’s boyfriend; Kyeesha, a talented vocalist; and Tom, an art instructor.

Their spiritual quests encounter opposition from Dr. Dunwoody and a coterie of overly orthodox seminarians – as well as a frightening, off-campus group of Christian nationalists who preach and practice a punitive brand of pietism enforced by real-live, physical fire power.

It’s worth mentioning that none of the novel’s characters are mere cardboard cut-outs deployed in the service of polemics or a particular point of view. The ideas addressed within the book are deftly handled as characters are developed and the narrative unfolds. Also noteworthy is a serious of prankish incidents that keep the plot moving and things entertaining up to a satisfying conclusion.

Leavening the book throughout is a wealth of references, quotes, shout outs and allusions by Professor Bonham to the great (and sometimes obscure) thinkers, writers and mystics who have addressed the life of the mind and the life of the Spirit through the ages. Bonham’s incredible erudition is perhaps matched only by the author himself.

A simple summing up could be best left to poet, Emily Dickinson: “Much Madness is divinest Sense.”