Templar Edification

This month, I’d like to make a book recommendation. Consider it a home-stretch supplement to your summer reading list. I’ve known of Malcolm Guite (pronounced like “kite”) for some years now. An Anglican priest and poet, he’s been the featured speaker for the Canadian Rockies Theological Conference, which several of my Order—the Society of the Holy Trinity—have attended and enjoyed. I own some of his books of liturgical poetry, and often share his sonnets online, especially for Michaelmas. This year saw the release of the Rev’d Guite’s magnum opus, an Arthuriad entitled Merlin’s Isle. Rabbit Room Press published the first of its four volumes, Galahad and the Grail, in April, with a second tome, The Coming of Arthur, due out in November. The action starts in media res, with the arrival of the Grail Knight, the achievement of the Holy Grail, and the subsequent healing of the Fisher-King and his Wasteland kingdom. Rev’d Guite retells the tale in epic English ballad form, which he requests...

When I warn my children of consequences for their bad behavior, I have to be both discerning and sparing; for whatever I threaten, I must then be willing to follow through. One arrow in my quiver that worked particularly well when they were younger was my promise to play one of my black-and-white subtitled samurai films, which I adore and which bore my children to tears. They took this threat seriously, because they knew that I would be happy to carry it out. American and Japanese pop culture have been entwined in a love affair ever since the end of World War II. Few directors on either side of the Pacific have been so influential as Akira Kurosawa. His movies have been remade, often shot for shot, into such familiar titles as The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars, A Bug’s Life, and, yes, even Star Wars. For his part, Kurosawa loved Shakespeare, filming his own medieval Japanese interpretations of Macbeth and King Lear. Most fascinating to me was how he adapted the religious aspe...