Archibald MacLeish was a poet, a playwright, a great figure in American letters. He served as Librarian of Congress during the Second World War and apparently did a bang-up job of it. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—in 1933 and 1953 for books of poetry and in 1959 for a play, J.B.

In 1962, when I was a freshman at Knox College, Mr. MacLeish came to our school to give a speech. At the given hour—11 o’clock on a Tuesday morning, as I recall—I came to Alumni Hall, our massive, neo-romanesque theater, clutching my softback copy of the published script of J.B., which the college bookstore had stocked by the gross to prepare for the playwright’s visit. 

Climbing the front stairs and entering the small second-story lobby, I spied the literary lion in a tweed coat and dark vest, chatting with my English composition professor, Michael Crowell. 

“Mister Sommers!” Crowell boomed. “Come and meet Archibald MacLeish.” 

I stepped up and shook hands with the great man. He was trim and natty, with close-cropped gray hair, a hawklike nose, and dark, intense eyes. 

He looked five times more awake than I. 

I burbled a word or two and held out my book to him. He smiled, uncapped a huge silver fountain pen, and signed the title page in black ink. I thanked him and made a quick escape. I found a seat in the theater, and in due course he made his speech. I don’t remember what he said. Probably something about literature.

That I can no longer locate my autographed copy of J.B. may give you a reasonable estimate of the durability of literary fame.

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I actually did read that play, J.B. It was supposed to be a modern American version of the biblical Book of Job. Not to throw shade on an undeniably fine poet and library leader, nor to quibble with the judgment of a bona fide Pulitzer Prize jury, nonetheless I recall feeling underwhelmed. It seemed to me the best parts of the play were long passages quoted directly from the Bible; the parts that had been rendered into a contemporary American setting were rather mundane by comparison with the scripture from which they sprang. 

These recollections bring us, in a deplorably roundabout manner, to the Book of Job, one of the great works of world literature. Have you read it? It’s easy to find in any standard Bible, tucked right between Esther and Psalms. 

It is a stark fable, a story of undeserved suffering and a seemingly callous God. It holds believers accountable for their faith in a way that no conventional tale could.

Job, the central character, is subjected to immense suffering and loss for no reason he can discern. Instead of giving him an explanation, God re-asserts his Almightiness and draws attention to Job’s creaturehood.

In what screenwriting guru Robert McKee would label “an education plot,” Job’s inner landscape is changed—not by anything resembling justice in ordinary human terms but by the simple knowledge that God offers no rational choice except humility.

It’s a thoroughly Jewish answer to the problem of evil. If you feel the resolution of the story unsatisfying, you can hear the unseen narrator’s voice whispering: “Vell, vot did you expect?”

In today’s world, we see evil and injustice seemingly everywhere. The good are punished while the evil prosper. It seems, at times, unbearable.

One almost hates to mention in this regard: It was ever thus. 

There is nothing new about evil. It still stinks. 

We can fight it, but we won’t always win.

As in the days of the Old Testament, we can either cast aspersions at God or admit that the universe God has made is one altogether beyond our imaginations, where justice may have to be measured by divine standards rather than human. 

Archibald MacLeish, wherever you are—I invite you to put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Until next time,

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer