Father Joe
Father Joe is an odd book. Ostensibly a portrait of author Tony Hendra’s relationship with a Benedictine monk who became Hendra’s lifelong spiritual advisor, the book is really Hendra’s own memoir, a far-ranging account of his on-again, off-again relationship with religious faith. That’s fine as it is, but Hendra’s eloquent and extremely intelligent musings on spirituality and the nature of God sometimes feel at odds with other aspects of the book. Hendra, you see, is a satirist by trade, and much of the book is devoted to an account of his career as a pioneer of popular culture satire, both in America and in his native Britain. A mixture of National Lampoon, Spinal Tap, 80s drug culture, Big Bang theory, theological history and a tribute to a sweet, simple monk could be nothing but unsettling, and Hendra does little to resolve the conglomeration into anything that might be enlightening to an outsider.
Hendra’s troubles - and his relationship with Father Joe - began when he, Hendra, at the age of 14, began a quasi-affair with the troubled wife of a devoutly Catholic neighbor. Upon discovery of the affair, the neighbor hauled Hendra off to a monastery on the Isle of Wight, hoping that the monks would administer a little penitential wrath on the boy. Much to the husband’s dismay, Hendra was counseled by the mild tempered Father Joe, a man who delivered a brand of warm-natured theology Hendra had never encountered. It was the end of the affair but the beginning of a four-decade friendship between Hendra and Father Joe that would see Hendra through an extremely up-and-down kind of life.
It couldn’t have been easy for Father Joe, for Hendra’s spiritual vacillations are many and extreme. After the forgivable sin of adultery is out of the way, the young Hendra decides that the monastic life is the one for him, and he spends several years preparing himself for a career as a monk, despite the gentle but persistent discouragement of Father Joe. Eventually, a lightning-quick existential crisis robs the young man of not only his desire to be an ascetic follower of God, but his entire religious faith as well. Father Joe only, figuratively, sits back and shakes his head.
From there, Hendra heads off to America, where he helps to found National Lampoon, the groundbreaking satirical magazine of the 1970s. Unable to follow the conventional path to a religious life, he convinces himself that cultural satire is the way to go - “Save the world through prayer? I don’t think so. I’m going to save it through laughter.”
Hendra, then, becomes part of the satirical revolution of the 70s and 80s, having a hand in the creation of National Lampoon, This Is Spinal Tap (he played band manager Ian Faith) and the British satirical puppet show “Spitting Image.” All is well (aside from an unsuccessful suicide attempt, dysfunctional family life and rampant drug use) until, aided by Father Joe, Hendra realizes that poking savage fun at people isn’t necessarily good for one’s soul. Doesn’t all that meanness rub off on you eventually, Father Joe wonders. Doesn’t making fun of others ultimately make you a sort of bad person? Hendra decides that yes, it does, and on top of that his high-minded satire isn’t doing much to change the world anyway.
So go the spiritual hurdles that confront Hendra along life’s highway. They are complete and exhausting, even for the reader, and they’re especially difficult to endure because they come so quickly, absolutely and without discernible cause. There’s little comprehensible reason for his sudden, total religious devotion at age 14 - is it really just because a monk was nicer to him than his father ever was? - and there’s less explanation for his sudden, total loss of faith shortly thereafter. His problems are generally centered around a series of existential crises - do I exist? if so, who am I? - and they spill over from religion into philosophy, physics, astronomy and whatever else enters his Cambridge-educated head. Through it all, he repeatedly turns to Father Joe for answers but never seems to catch on to the monk’s uncomplicated secret to holiness and happiness: Be nice to people.
The hardest part of Father Joe to swallow is Hendra’s insistent juxtaposition of satire with piety: either satire is next to godliness, or its the antithesis of spiritual rectitude. Hendra can’t seem to make up his mind which is true, but he never doubts that making fun of politicians has something to do with God. There is a moral judgment, for example, somewhere in his claim that P.J. O’Rourke destroyed National Lampoon after Hendra left, or that the post-Hendra producers of “Spitting Image” did the same thing. These people made the once morally upright bastions of satire into debased tools of mainstream culture. Such righteousness is difficult to take- National Lampoon wasn’t crass and tasteless from the beginning? - and it all seems more than a bit too self-serving.
These shortcomings might make Father Joe completely unpalatable if it were not for Hendra’s wit and skill as a writer. Despite his theological confusion, Hendra sees straight through to the core of some issues, and he writes about them with delightful clarity. Hendra’s account of his presence at the birth of lowbrow social satire is fascinating, too, and he dishes up some intriguing industry gossip. Finally, his depiction of Father Joe is adoring and appealing - even if it does verge on sycophancy - and it makes him seem like a man we would all like to know. If only Hendra himself were that appealing, Father Joe might be an irresistible book.
Copyright 2005 Ad Media Inc.