Brendan by Frederick Buechner

First published: 1987

Type of plot: Historical

Time of work: The sixth century

Locale: Ireland, Wales, and the North Atlantic Ocean

Principal Characters:

• Brendan, the book’s protagonist, an Irish cleric and voyager, the alleged discoverer of the New World
• Finn, the book’s narrator, Brendan’s faithful companion
• Erc, the bishop responsible for Brendan’s education and upbringing
• Crosan, one of Brendan’s crew members
• Colman, a powerful poet who converts to Christianity and takes up the monastic life
• Ita, an abbess, Brendan’s educator
• Brigid, a saint, Brendan’s inspiration

The Novel

Although it is set in the sixth century and features many of the historical personages who gave significant impetus to the learning, building, and evangelizing that distinguished the onset of Christianity in Ireland, Brendan is less a historical novel than a meditation on the profound simplicities of the religious faith. It takes as its focus the remarkable career of Saint Brendan and through it represents the spirit of the age. The period is depicted as one in which the human mind was more liable to be overwhelmed by the proximity of God’s presence in the world and when the world of creation impressed itself more immediately and strikingly on the senses of those who lived in it.

As the historical note at the end of the novel makes clear, the protagonist Brendan is noteworthy for a number of different reasons. The fact that he was a saint is one obvious reason for his significance. He was also an important churchman, and he founded the monastic settlement of Clonfert, a name that survives in contemporary Ireland as that of a Catholic diocese. Yet these achievements, relevant as they are to an appreciation of the reality of the protagonist’s context, pale in comparison to Brendan’s legendary status. From at least the tenth century onward, Brendan’s name has been synonymous with voyages of discovery.

Two of these voyages are recounted in the novel, the first by Brendan himself in what is in effect a ship’s log. Nothing more than extremely localized geographical locations and climatic conditions are provided in this clearly incomplete narrative of the journey. Internal evidence suggests that the coast of Iceland is sighted. Of much greater importance is the second voyage, an account of which is provided by the novel’s narrator, Finn. The second voyage locates the other world of pre-Christian Irish mythology, Tír-na-Nog, a name that means “the land of eternal youth.” This landfall is not only Brendan’s apotheosis as a navigator but is also the basis of his historical status as a legendary figure among whose exploits is said to be the discovery of America.

Exciting as these journeys are, however, the author carefully insinuates that these are simply a means to an end. They are simply spectacular and risky phases in a career that is replete with restlessness and dedication, and the novel itself is conceived as a biography of Brendan by his lifelong companion, Finn. For that reason, the voyages are not seen as the climax of Brendan’s career; rather, they vie for significance with other episodes that have an explicit historical dimension. These episodes include the establishment of Brendan’s monastic settlement at Clonfert and his trip to Wales in later life. The visit to Wales culminates with Brendan’s involvement with the internal politics of Camelot and features a cameo appearance from King Artor, as he is called.

Yet while the historical element of Brendan’s career is unavoidable, Brendan does not dwell on it. The background to the protagonist’s life is economically sketched, but no effort is made to provide a comprehensive picture of the emergence and consolidation of Christianity in Ireland, of the religion’s relationship with the religions it supplanted, or of the complex territorial and juridical issues that formed a constant undercurrent of turbulence in the politics of clan life in ancient Ireland. Such omissions make all the more plausible the intimate view of Brendan’s career that Finn’s narrative provides. The overall effect of the omissions is to emphasize the novelty and interest of Brendan, so that the view of him that ultimately emerges is of a personage who is representative of more elusive and awe-inspiring facets of humanity than those that typify a given historical period.

The novel’s concentration on these facets is clearly indebted to the author’s theological training and influenced by his well-known theological writings. The end that Brendan’s life is understood to serve is that of maintaining a sense of spiritual wonder, an almost palpable awareness of the greatness of God’s creation. Such an emphasis is maintained primarily by the impressive spiritedness and color of the novel’s style. At times, the style is virtually a pastiche of the simplicity, sensoriness, and delight in detail that may be found in both the lyric poetry of early Christian Ireland and in the ornamented gospels such as the Book of Kells. A judicious sprinkling of Magical Realism also contributes to the establishment of the novel’s remote and poorly documented environment. This perspective does not merely assist in underlining the element of wonder that runs throughout Brendan; it also makes acceptable the various miraculous events with which Brendan is involved that provide him with the basic credentials for sainthood. These events heighten and crystalize the undogmatic faith in, and commitment to, the divine dimension to the mortal lot by means of which the world of Brendan maintains an even keel.

The Characters

In Brendan, the protagonist’s nautical attainments constituting the heart of the story are not presented as great feats of heroism in Brendan’s mind. He does not see them as a means of spreading the gospel, nor—unlike in other stories about his contemporaries who leave Ireland—are they a punishment. Instead, they are presented as expressions of Brendan’s naïve, foolhardy, God-seeking personality. Despite his education, Brendan remains essentially simple. His clerical eminence, established by his monastic foundation at Clonfert, is not synonymous with the secular power that abbots and other high-ranking members of the hierarchy possessed in those times. On the contrary, Brendan makes his way in ignorance and in poverty, with a humble, unassuming, and rather doubt-laden cast of mind.

Although Brendan is equipped with the power to work miracles and is able to apply that power opportunely in moments of danger, it is his humility that attracts adherents. Finn, in particular, provides a clear perspective on the combination of uncertainty and devotion that are continually at odds within Brendan. Unlike Brendan, Finn is not a cleric. He is more worldly, as his marriage and paternity suggest, and though he is touched by the wonder of the Christian message, he is less driven to experience the glory of it than is Brendan. Finn is clearly conceived as a foil to the protagonist, and his greater steadiness and narrower psychological range show Brendan in bolder relief than would be possible under more conventional narrative circumstances. The fact that Finn survives Brendan acts as a reminder that Finn embodies the less spectacular, more down-to-earth fate of the common man.

Most of the other characters may be thought of in terms of the contrast between Finn and Brendan, particularly when that contrast is seen as a complement rather than as a polarity. The combination of the mundane and the spiritual is located in the two conversion episodes in which Brendan is involved. Crosan, the court jester at the court of the High Kings at Cashel, is attracted to Brendan because of his mundanity. On the other hand, the bard Mac Lennin joins his fortunes to Brendan’s on the basis of the latter’s spiritual appeal. Not surprisingly, Mac Lennin eventually establishes his own monastic settlement. Even the most notable of the clerics whom Brendan encounters, such as Ita and Brigid, possess an earthiness through which their spiritual passions are articulated. This is particularly true of the vivid and volatile Brigid, with whose zeal and vigor Brendan’s adventures make a stimulating comparison.

The characters’ sexuality is one of the most consistent ways in which their earthiness is expressed, and their lack of prudery about sexual and other natural functions is one of the basic means by which they are revealed to be at home with themselves in the natural world. It is that sense of home, expressed in terms of self-possession, which is brought into critical focus through Brendan’s character. He is the one who goes to extreme lengths in order to prove his worthiness to feel at home. By doing so, he demonstrates the relevance of the issues that his searching commitment represents.

Critical Context

It is possible to see Brendan in a number of literary, cultural, and religious contexts. One of these is the literary tradition to which the life of Saint Brendan the navigator has given rise. The founding work of this tradition, the Latin work Navigatio Sancti Brendani (c. 900; the voyage of Saint Brendan), became one of the most popular legends of an age that saw the appearance of many such works and was widely known in various languages throughout Europe. Widespread awareness of this work is a reflection of the missionary presence of Irish clerics in Europe during the early medieval period. This historical fact is glanced at in Brendan by the inclusion among the protagonist’s intimates of a character named Malo, whose name is commemorated in the noted French resort of St. Malo.

In addition, Navigatio Sancti Brendani belongs to the medieval Irish genre known as the imrann, or tales of journeys to other worlds. The genre still has imaginative appeal. The modern Irish poet Paul Muldoon has written poems within the loosely defined specifications of the imrann, and Seamus Heaney, the best-known Irish poet of the postwar period, has included a poem, “The Disappearing Island,” inspired by an incident in Brendan’s voyages in his collection The Haw Lantern (1987).

Frederick Buechner’s reputation as a novelist who addresses important theological issues has been highly regarded since his first novel, A Long Day’s Dying (1950). In his early work, he located his concerns in contemporary settings. A more imaginatively free treatment of these concerns is what distinguishes novels such as Brendan and Godric (1980), the life of a twelfth century saint. In addition, his work has gained from his theological writings, which not only seek to disseminate the Christian vision, as in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale (1977), but also meditate on its wonder, relevance, and appeal. The confluence of the various traditions in Brendan suggests the continuing fascination of the sense of disturbing renewal that is such a dramatic component of the Christian message.

Bibliography

Anderson, Chris. “The Very Style of Faith: Frederick Buechner as Homilist and Essayist.” Christianity and Literature 38 (Winter, 1989): 7-21. Focuses on Buechner’s nonfiction, but with many insights that make the full purpose and interest of his fiction more accessible.

Davies, Marie-Helene. Laughter in a Genevan Gown: The Works of Frederick Buechner, 1970-1980. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983. The most comprehensive introduction to the life and work of Frederick Buechner, locating both author and works in the context of their religious background. A useful orientation for a reading of Brendan.

Nelson, Rudolph L. “ The Doors of Perception’: Mystical Experience in Buechner’s Fiction.” Southwest Review 68 (Summer, 1983): 266-273. Stresses the visionary element in Buechner’s work and how it assists in the articulation of his fiction’s overall point of view. A sense of the position of Brendan in the development of Buechner’s imaginative output may be inferred.

O’Faolain, Julia. “St. Patrick Monkeys Around.” The New York Times Book Review 92 (August 9, 1987): 15. A sympathetic review, informative and appreciative of the novel’s excursion into the world of Celtic Christianity.

Severin, Timothy. The Brendan Voyage. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. An account of a detailed reconstruction of Saint Brendan’s alleged voyage to America, using the same kind of vessel and the same apparent route.