Article: Brothers of Perpetual Responsibility: monasticism, memory, and penance in Cassutt, Donaldson, and Straczynski (1).(Michael Cassutt, Stephen R. Donaldson, J. Michael Straczynski)(Critical Essay)

MANY readers will remember Garrison Keillor's fictional parish in Lake Wobegon, "Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility." Parody though this name is, it aptly captures a moral stance shared by ascetics in Michael Cassutt's "Perpetual Light," Stephen R. Donaldson's First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and J. Michael Straczynski's "Passing Through Gethsemane." Cassutt's Brothers of Perpetual Light and Donaldson's Bloodguard, made semi-immortal by their vows, experience immortality as a bondage of perpetual responsibility; Straczynski's Brother Edward finds that his responsibility for his past sins outlives his personal memory of those sins. Here I will explore the responses ...

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