A Dangerous Little Friar: The Life of Father Titus Brandsma, O. Carm. - Josse Alvin

Published by Clonmore & Reynolds Ltd: Dublin, 1957.
Translated from French by The Earl of Wicklow.

This is an odd little book. Telling the story of Anno Brandsma, a sickly boy who became a friar (taking the name Titus in honour of his Father), and who ended up being killed in the Dachau concentration camp in World War Two, it does so in a style that reminds me mostly of earlier hagiographies.
In some ways this makes sense, as Brandsma has been beatified by the Roman Catholic Church, but to read something in a style that "reveres" it's subject when the subject is fairly modern is a very strange juxtaposition!
Perhaps the translation has something to do with this style, but although the book highlights the tragic life and death of a great scholar I otherwise may not have heard of, the book itself was a fairly forgettable read.

Completed 26 November 2019.

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