austraLasia #1724
Globalised Dominic Savio - but worth a read
NEW ROCHELLE: 2nd January 2007 -- Talk about globalisation: Bosco - Teresio, not John (Italy), Borruso and the Paulines in Nairobi (Africa) and the Salesians in New Rochelle (USA). Together they give us 'Dominic Savio' in a smallish, semi-soft paperback, 145 page edition worth around USD 6 (plus postage - I got out of it for €10, which also gave New Rochelle a Christmas present).
Any review of this Dominic Savio is not a review of the translated vesrion - Silvano Borruso has done a fine job in contemporary 'universal' English. Instead it must be a comment on the value of Teresio Bosco's 2002 effort to re-upholster a saint who is one of the Lord's and Don Bosco's great creations for modern youth, but too often caught up in piety of a cultural kind, be it books, images or urns.
Of course, if you want 'the' Dominic Savio with all the trappings of Don Bosco's Oratory saint, and all the elements that require an entire week of study in Sampran (Thailand, to add to the globalised feel), then you need to read the original, in a version that was well translated by Fr Cornell years ago and has now been adjusted to cater for scholarship's realisations about just which edition to use and how important the footnotes were. Don Bosco tended to write other lives in his footnotes! You may download that version in glorious English, faithful to Don Bosco's Italian, from Bosconet.
But shell out $6, please, by writing to Fr Mike Mendl at New Rochelle c/o salesianstudies@juno.com for this new version, published in April 2006 in English. It offers what we have been looking for for a long time. I think Teresio Bosco's introduction is the key: he explains that he was a camp for kids recently when the lights went out during the evening movie. The camp director asked TB if he would be prepared to 'tell a story'. On the moment's inspiration he said yes, I'll tell the story of Dominic, and I'll stretch it if the power stays off or shorten it if it doesn't! In the event he went on for half an hour before the lights came back on. What surprised him was that the boys came back later and wanted the other half! He had begun with Dominic knocking on Don Bosco's door then leading him along dark alleyways of Turin to a priest-turned-pastor in desperate need to return to the fold before he was called to account. The story worked, obviously.
The story worked, just like The Yellow Umbrella works (you haven't seen your Strenna video yet? Tut, tut). When we are competing with YouTube, MP3, MacWorld, we have to be particularly attuned to story and image. Teresio B tells the story with a good deal of John B in it as well, but he is not afraid to drop parts that are less likely to excite today or, for that matter, parts which were John B's imagination. Was Da mihi animas really on Francis de Sale's lips often, as Don Bosco said it was, to Dominic? The best we know is that Bishop Camus said that Francis said it - once. TB has decided to skip that reference, but not the DMA itself and its impact on young Dominic. And what would you learn about Dominic's sisters and brothers and others from John B? Precious little - it wasn't part of his scheme of things. But Teresio B thinks it might be part of ours, so he gives us a good deal of information about them.
As I say - I think it is worth the money, and the Christmas present! JBF.
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.
Globalised Dominic Savio - but worth a read
NEW ROCHELLE: 2nd January 2007 -- Talk about globalisation: Bosco - Teresio, not John (Italy), Borruso and the Paulines in Nairobi (Africa) and the Salesians in New Rochelle (USA). Together they give us 'Dominic Savio' in a smallish, semi-soft paperback, 145 page edition worth around USD 6 (plus postage - I got out of it for €10, which also gave New Rochelle a Christmas present).
Any review of this Dominic Savio is not a review of the translated vesrion - Silvano Borruso has done a fine job in contemporary 'universal' English. Instead it must be a comment on the value of Teresio Bosco's 2002 effort to re-upholster a saint who is one of the Lord's and Don Bosco's great creations for modern youth, but too often caught up in piety of a cultural kind, be it books, images or urns.
Of course, if you want 'the' Dominic Savio with all the trappings of Don Bosco's Oratory saint, and all the elements that require an entire week of study in Sampran (Thailand, to add to the globalised feel), then you need to read the original, in a version that was well translated by Fr Cornell years ago and has now been adjusted to cater for scholarship's realisations about just which edition to use and how important the footnotes were. Don Bosco tended to write other lives in his footnotes! You may download that version in glorious English, faithful to Don Bosco's Italian, from Bosconet.
But shell out $6, please, by writing to Fr Mike Mendl at New Rochelle c/o salesianstudies@juno.com for this new version, published in April 2006 in English. It offers what we have been looking for for a long time. I think Teresio Bosco's introduction is the key: he explains that he was a camp for kids recently when the lights went out during the evening movie. The camp director asked TB if he would be prepared to 'tell a story'. On the moment's inspiration he said yes, I'll tell the story of Dominic, and I'll stretch it if the power stays off or shorten it if it doesn't! In the event he went on for half an hour before the lights came back on. What surprised him was that the boys came back later and wanted the other half! He had begun with Dominic knocking on Don Bosco's door then leading him along dark alleyways of Turin to a priest-turned-pastor in desperate need to return to the fold before he was called to account. The story worked, obviously.
The story worked, just like The Yellow Umbrella works (you haven't seen your Strenna video yet? Tut, tut). When we are competing with YouTube, MP3, MacWorld, we have to be particularly attuned to story and image. Teresio B tells the story with a good deal of John B in it as well, but he is not afraid to drop parts that are less likely to excite today or, for that matter, parts which were John B's imagination. Was Da mihi animas really on Francis de Sale's lips often, as Don Bosco said it was, to Dominic? The best we know is that Bishop Camus said that Francis said it - once. TB has decided to skip that reference, but not the DMA itself and its impact on young Dominic. And what would you learn about Dominic's sisters and brothers and others from John B? Precious little - it wasn't part of his scheme of things. But Teresio B thinks it might be part of ours, so he gives us a good deal of information about them.
As I say - I think it is worth the money, and the Christmas present! JBF.
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.
