Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue, and Beauty in Mozart's Operas.

An old professor from my seminary days once told the class that we should always be reading at least three different books: a novel, a work in our field of specialization, and a book that is totally out of our field, as a way of stretching our minds a bit, of adding new information to our storehouse, and of creating a curiosity in us for new vistas.

From the novels read recently, I have selected for recommendation Anna Quindlen's One True Thing (Random House, $22,289 pp.). I wondered why she had announced that, around the end of the year, she would no longer be writing her columns for the New York Times on matters of current interest but would be devoting her time to writing novels. Now I see why. The book is elegantly written. It is by no means an action novel, but instead tackles the very difficult topic of the psychological growth processes of an angry young woman who is faced with some difficult life choices. The ending may seem a bit contrived, but the rest was sheer joy. It is not per se a religious novel, but that was okay with me.

In the area of religion (I hope I do not seem to stretch that point since the work I cite is not deep speculative theology), I read Father Joe Dunn's No Lions in the Hierarchy: An Anthology of Sorts (The Columbia Press, Dublin). The U.S. publishers changed the name to one that is less capricious and not as felicitous: The Rest of Us Catholics: The Loyal Opposition (Templegate Publishers, $14.95, 314 pp.). I am sure that the new name was meant to underscore some of the criticisms of aspects of the present pontificate that are found in the book. That is a shame, since there are many other worthwhile vignettes to be found in this collection of essays. The writer's cinematographic expertise comes forth at once and the portrayals are vivid and always done with a sense of humor and compassion. Much of what Father Dunn is saying in the book can be heard in the corridors of any Catholic institution these days. I find no animosity in the book. The author sums up his stance pretty well in the preface: "I once came across a story in a sermon book about a passenger who was critical of the way the captain was running the ship. So he jumped overboard in protest! Christianity would be far stronger today if, in the past, those who had rows with the skipper and crew of the Barque of Peter had stayed aboard and kept reminding both sailors and passengers that there were other possible directions in which to navigate."

Nicholas Till's Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue, and Beauty in Mozart's Operas (W.W. Norton, $29.95, 371 pp.) was a revelation to me. If there had been any doubt in my mind about Mozart's superior intelligence, in spite of all the nonsense that has been written about him and the way he has been portrayed in movies and theater, this book has taken that doubt away. It proves that Mozart understood well what the Enlightenment was all about and set about to incorporate that vision in his operas. The author shows how the Enlightenment society searched for ways of uniting the new and successful capitalist endeavors with strong social authorities that would guarantee stability but not threaten the liberties upon which at least one segment of society depended. The economic aspect of that period, in this case capitalism as then understood, is central to the thesis that the author seeks to make. The espousal of both economic freedom and social cohesion, with the tensions embodied in trying to hold these two together, is the backdrop for the analysis of Mozart's works. Much has been known about Mozart and Freemasonry but Till places that relationship in a new and clearer perspective. The book was an eye-opener for me.

I should receive a gold medal for having read every page of David Halberstam's The Fifties (Fawcett Columbine, $15, 800 pp.). Like the author I am convinced that one cannot understand the famous sixties nor what has happened since that eventful decade without knowing well what happened in the fifties. In this book there is, with one exception, everything anyone could ever think of that happened in the fifties - or at least it looks that way. The index goes on and on: from Henry Aaron (first listed) through thousands of others, like Dean Acheson, Sherman Adams, Henry Ashmore, Lucille Ball, Bernard Baruch, to Elvis, Jimmy Dean, Adlai Stevenson, Robert Taft, Harry Truman, Edward Teller, Earl Warren, and, after thirty-eight columns of names and other items, ending with Sam Zemurray. (If you don't know Zemurray - or, for that matter, Henry Aaron - the index won't help until you realize that in some instances the page number it offers is off by a page. Zemurray was the head of United Fruit and was involved in the banana problems of Guatemala. There, you've learned something.)

Predictably, Milton Berle is all over the place. You can learn all you would ever want to know about the beginnings of McDonald's and Holiday Inn. But, strangely enough, in all 800 pages you will not find the name of Fulton J. Sheen anywhere. Norman Vincent Peale isn't there, either, so it is not a question of nativism. Billy Graham does receive one mention - for his opposition to the Kinsey report. (Here you can look on page 280, as reported in the index.) It would seem that, to the author of this otherwise exhaustive account, religion was not worth recording.

Robert G. Weakland, O.S.B., is the archbishop of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the author of Faith and the Human Enterprise (Orbis).