This, the third and last volume of the Song for Else carries the story through the aging of Luther's reform into middle age, its institutionalization, and its contention with the newer and more radical revolutions that are its spawn. The heroism that marked the Reformation's earlier period has been gentled. Luther's once radical doctrine has been subordinated to the politics and passions of princes. Its old fervor, taken up by the new sects, is easily agitated into fanaticism. Through this world Lorenz and his Else move in their own private quest for a joy that is almost in their grasp but ever elusive.
This, the third and last volume of the Song for Else carries the story through the aging of Luther's reform into middle age, its institutionalization, and its contention with the newer and more radical revolutions that are its spawn. The heroism that marked the Reformation's earlier period has been gentled. Luther's once radical doctrine has been subordinated to the politics and passions of princes. Its old fervor, taken up by the new sects, is easily agitated into fanaticism. Through this world Lorenz and his Else move in their own private quest for a joy that is almost in their grasp but ever elusive.
A Song for Else is a splendid love story, a coming-of-age novel,
and an intimate account of the Protestant Reformation in Germany
from the inside. Zehnder deftly juxtaposes historical fact and
fictional characters in the opening volume of his trilogy. - Mark
Adderley, author of the McCracken Adventure Books and the Matter of
Britain series
As Sigrid Undset's historical novels transport the reader to
medieval Norway, Zehnder's A Song for Else plants one in a Germany
on the cusp of reformation. This is historical fiction of the best
sort: the kind that not only brings you into the past but allows
you to experience the past as the characters would have. The past
is not a desiccated stage for action, but a living environment, one
we are drawn into through the hopes, fears, and challenges of the
characters themselves. - Fr. Raymund Snyder, O.P.
Like The Betrothed, A Song for Else is intimately personal and yet
an epic of Christendom. Zehnder's powerful style and vivid
imagination bring the reader to root for the nobility and weep over
the baseness of an earnest young man's passions, while discovering
through youthful eyes the spiritual core and memorable characters
that made medieval Germany center stage for one the greatest
revolutions in history. - Andrew T. Seeley, Ph.D, Tutor, Thomas
Aquinas College, Santa Paula, California
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