The Cruise of the Nona

<p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Cruise of the 'Nona'</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Hilaire Belloc sets off to sail the English seas again and to pursue from thought to thought and from memory to memory such things as have occupied one human soul. On one level a breezy record of an adventurous journey; underneath the surface a wise and insightful study of modern life particularly in its transition from the Victorian to the early modern period. Belloc's prose glitters and crashes like ocean breakers.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Belloc sees sailing as an analogy to life: full of great visions and intolerable tediums alive with discovery emotion adventure peril and repose. For Belloc the sea presents upon the greatest scale we mortals can bear those not mortal powers which brought us into being. It is not only the symbol or the mirror but especially is it the messenger of the Divine.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Belloc leads his reader over the changing seas treating of many questions including:</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><ul><li class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>How did the Vikings land in what are today impassable harbors?</span></li><li class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>When and why did the British Parliament become so corrupt?</span></li><li class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>What is the difference between prose and rhetoric?</span></li><li class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Can you trust learned scholars?</span></li><li class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Are sea monsters real?</span></li><li class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Will </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Alice in Wonderland </em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>remain a popular book?</span></li><li class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Why are oceans so different from one another?</span></li><li class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Is equality a Catholic doctrine?</span></li></ul><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Mulling over half a century of memories and experiences the seaman-philosopher shares a hundred and one reflections flights of fancy and tongue-in-cheek observations on England and Europe Catholicism atheism sailing techniques and common-sense. From his memories of the outbreak of the first World War to denunciations of rationalism this cruise can transport the reader from his armchair to the lashing spray and biting wit of this monumental figure of English literature. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>This new edition from Os Justi Press is entirely re-typeset and includes a new Foreword by Joseph Pearce.</em></p>