The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Warning: contains spoilers

The film version of this book is one of my favourite pieces of cinema, it is dark and it is deeply uncomfortable to watch as the characters are all so flawed and yet so ordinary.  The scene in the boat is one of the most vivid moments I have every seen on screen and it is etched into my memory.  So I came to the book with a rich memory of the film and the story and for the most part I found the book didn't quite live up to the film.

The pacing felt different, in my recollection the boat in the mid point of the film and the a dramatic pivot, but in the book we get there much more quickly.  Dickie in the book doesn't seem to get much of a chance to get under your skin in the way that Jude Law's performance is so brilliantly charismatic and yet vile.  Also in the book Tom seems to have turned on Dickie well before they get to the boat where as I remember it as something of a bolt out the blue. (I am being careful to see "I remember" as it is some years since I last saw the film, but it is one that has played over in my mind a few times and so there is plenty of room for my memory to be whole different version than the actual film).

But in the film everything after the boat was for me a bit flat while in the book the intensity just builds and builds from that moment. You get drawn deeper and deeper into Tom's mind, ever more guilty that you are willing him to get away with it.  This is one of the great thing about this story, at least for me, what drives Tom is an encounter with the world that is all too familiar - it is exemplified by the feeling of being ineffectual at parties and so as someone who finds small talk painful and retreats to the corner to drown myself in red wine I feel there is very little distance between myself and Tom Ripley.  Also the lust for and the hatred of Dickie are familiar - down the years I have known a string of people who could fill his shoes with ease, who are everything us Tom Ripleys can never be.  This is perhaps why such a big part of me is willing Tom to get away with it - but is there any real victory in him getting away, the unwritten chapter of Tom's life after the book ends would hold the answer, does the great impersonator manage to be "someone else" while being Tom Ripley or does being Tom Ripley continue to limit him even when he has newly enhanced economic resources.

The film seemed much more homo-erotic than the book, but this might just be the effect of casting Jude Law and Matt Damon.  The film seems to leave no doubt the Tom is gay and Dickie isn't  - the book felt less conclusive on either side.  With regards to Dickie we get to know him much less in the book and so naturally the answer can not be so definitive, while with Tom the attraction to Dickie is much more multifaceted and so if there was a sexual attraction it was only one force among many and not actually the primary one.  Also the flip side which is Tom's dislike for Marge is not taken as a universal dislike of women. In the film Marge is person equal in attractive qualities (personality and physicality) as Dickie, but in the book she is more needy and parasitical.  It is much more reasonable in the book to understand the attraction to Dickie and repulsion to Marge on a purely personal level rather that the diagnostic to an underlining sexuality. 

In the end I still think the film is stronger than the book, but the book is more complex and I think it will leave me puzzling even longer and deeper about Tom Ripley.  

The Cross in the Closet by Timothy Kurek

The Cross in the Closet

There was a lot of traffic on Facebook about this book a few months back with positive feedback from a lot of friends however the whole premise gave me the creeps so I felt I had to take a look and see if Facebook’s positivity was all hype or if there was actually some worthwhile substance behind it all.

The premise, that Tim Kurek a fundamentalist Southern Baptist spent a year living as a gay man in order to “walk in their shoes” just seems, at best, a bit naf while running the risk of so many clichés that it makes my skin crawl even imagining.

But thank God the book really is not that bad, I will go on to a number of things that were, for me, less than perfect but I feel it is important up front to say that my fears were unfounded – it is a book of great sensitivity, and I think Tim is a really sincere guy who has done a great service to a great many.

The first gap you have to bridge is that the context Tim starts in, the America Conservative Christian “South” which has no real mirror here in the UK, yes we have fundamentalist Christians but they are very much in the minority.  We simply do not have the “Christian” schools and universities that would allow kids it grow up so completely in the bubble of fundamentalist Christianity, as Tim clearly did.  Those who do create that kind of bubble in the UK have to do so in a very conscious counter-cultural way but for Tim and almost everyone he knew growing up the bubble was just normal.  The second gap is that the gay world he stepped into, it’s not like any I have encountered in the UK, it is perhaps a mythical “Gay Community” of the past, and perhaps in Nashville the gay community has by necessity a retro feel.  Walking into a gay bar and finding that everyone wants to talk, wants to know your story and buy you a drink, that there is a gay bar, restaurant, book store and café all on the one street at the centre of a vibrant cultural scene of artists and poets, I don’t know Nashville but I have been a gay man in both “small town” and “big city” UK and I have never come across any where that had this kind of haven on offer. 

But we must put these two gaps to one side, they are the context but not the substance – the substance it turns out has very little to do with being gay and an awful lot to do with being Christian.  The new Bishop of Winchester is busy seeking a vision for our diocese and is in the process championing Tom Wright’s book How God became King – from all that I have heard about it Bishop Tom is on the same lines as our Tim – perhaps he should give living as a gay man a go and see how it strengthens his vision (or perhaps not…).  The point of both books is that the Church loves labels, love the them and us divide, love being right and pointing out to everyone else that they are wrong, and at the end of the day when you add it all up the Church loves hate.  To admit this is to acknowledge that the Church this has very very little to do with an authentic witness and encounter with Jesus.  Jesus in not a “them and us” kind of a guy – Jesus loves only one thing - love itself.  To be authentically Christian is to delight in humanity, in all its weird and wonderful guises.  It is to celebrate the fact that we see in a glass darkly, and others may be seeing something else just as well in their own glass – the very second that we start to think we have all the answers the truth has departed from us.

One really interesting part of the book is after Tim has got over his homophobia and loves his new Gay friends he finds he has a major problem with the Church and with Christians. He comes to see he has exchanged one set of prejudice for another, and so then has to journey on to a place where, while still disagreeing with those Christians would are anti-Gay, he is able to love them.  He radically underlines this point by visiting the Westboro Baptist Church - he challenges us that until with can see that God loves the Phelps and we need to love them too we haven't understood the love of God.  However much we dislike someone’s attitudes, beliefs, and/or behaviour there is no get out clause to love.  As the Church of England come to the final round of debates on Women Bishops this challenge to love across the divide has not been lived up to.  I struggle to engage with the organisations which are promoting the places of women and gay people within the Church because I have increasingly seen them as being unable to love across the divide.  The demonising of Forward in Faith, the joyful celebrations when some of our brothers and sisters left for the Ordinariate – none of this spoke of love.  To often these groups have turned to the dark arts of political lobbying rather than the honest declaration of truth to move their position forward – it is never enough to claim that ends justify means - it is not enough to pay lip service to love we must act like we love people to.

This is a powerful book despite itself, it is heavy on dialogue but much of it is clunky – maybe people talk clunkily in Nashville I don’t know – but there are times when it is a struggle to continue to suspend disbelief.  It could also have done with a better proof reading (but who am I to talk…).

That going to Church is such a part of normality is another gap, Tim is writing in a Church going society where as that great Ecumemist of our time, Dolly Parton, said in Steel Magnolias “God doesn’t mind what Church you go to, so long as ya turn up”.

Here in the UK, however much it might disappoint me to admit it, Church going is just not normal – it is not even normal among self defining Christians let alone the population at large.  This means that the denial of a place for Gay people within Church is a much bigger social issue there than is actually is for us – if “society” goes to Church and if you are not welcome in Church then, inter alia, you are not welcome in society while for us Church going is marginal and so the denial of a place for gay people is to denial them a seat at the margins, and seat nobody can really understand why we have a real desire for anyway. 

This is an important book, but I doubt many of the people for whom it could be so important will read it – it will end up (to use an American phrase) preaching to the choir. Part of the reason it won’t be read be the right people is because it is positive about being Gay – in a way I wish it was able to talk about all the important stuff about how Christians don’t have a monopoly of truth and how their calling is to Love not hate and condemn without it being about being Gay and therefore being beyond the pale for those who most need it – but sadly this is always the way.

Perelandra by C. S. Lewis

Perelandra (Cosmic Trilogy)

This is the second of the Cosmic trilogy and it has a much more clearly and straight forwardly allegorical tale based Genesis.  This might appear to be a limitation however the power of the telling is such that this gives a greater depth of feeling for Eden and for Eve. 

The beauty and innocence of Perelandra/Venus means the idea that it will be spoilt by the action of a human (even a human taken over completely by an evil force) becomes genuinely painful, the loss of The Fall became much more real than it had ever felt before for me. 

The persistence of Weston, the tempter, gave me new sympathy for Eve. While Genesis appears to say Eve weakly ate the Apple as soon as it was offered to her the tale of Perelandra makes it easy to imagine that there was in fact a much longer encounter between Eve and the Serpent.  This chimes with our own experience of temptation, often after an extended period that we find ourselves doing that which in the first instance we knew was wrong.

Ransom’s role is perhaps more difficult to resolve because the evil one is defeated by force, the fight is violent and vividly told in a way that is hypnotic – hard to watch and yet impossible to look away.  How this fits into the overall framework of Love that Lewis gives to the story is not clear.

After the fight there is a chase and from this point on my engagement declined. At conclusion of the narrative the King and Queen, figures of Adam and Eve, meet with Ransom.  The King has been absence up until this point and suddenly placing the planet into the hands of a “man”, while dynamic figure of the Queen we have journeyed with seems to play at best second fiddle, jars just a touch. At the very end there is a long pseudo dialogue which is full of great sentiments and ideas, but while it is rich stuff I found myself skimming over this – unlike Ransom I really did feel like they where talking for a year.

Overall I found this a more enriching narrative than that of the first story, “Out of the Silent Planet”, which was a good read but did not really push me to any new levels of thought. 

 

Churchill's Wizards by Nicholas Rankin

Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-1945

This book made a good holiday read (although how tactful it was to sit on a beach mostly full of Germans reading a book about the British success in two World Wars might be open for comment…).

It was divided into two parts, one for each war and in terms of the subject “deception” it quickly becomes clear that the First War was at best a dress rehearsal for the second.  Lessons were only just being learnt when peace arrived in 1918 but many of those who had been learning these lessons were on hand in the later thirties to pick up where they had left off.  

This is a book about “British Genius” and makes no attempt to claim to be a comparative study across the combatant nations of either war but this leaves the claim to “Genius” feeling a little precarious – that all the German Agents sent to Britain during World War Two were captured and most turned into double agents is a success but given the Germans did the same to the British Agents sent to Holland it would be hard to claim this as an example of a particularly “British” Genius. 

Overall while this is an enjoyable collection of characters and incidents the sum fails to be greater than the parts, we seem to jump around in time, place, and topic largely at random (especially in the first part), without any clear organizing argument or thrust or significant new scholarship.  This is also a good point to say a word or two about the title, “Churchill’s Wizards”, I get the feeling this book started life as a book about deception in the Second World War which grew to take in the First as the “back-stories” of so many of the leading characters required tales from that War to be included.  During the Second World War Churchill’s theatrical and maverick tendencies did give fertile ground to deception, especially around 1940 when Britain was under resourced with its back to the wall, it seems the more outlandish the scheme the more likely it was to get a Prime Ministerial blessing. But for most of the First War Churchill was in no position to give such blessing and any Wizards that were around could not in any proper sense by call “Churchill’s.  Rankin also make a spirited attempt to exonerate Churchill from the carnage of Gallipoli, suggesting that the campaign was only a failure to the extent and in those areas which it deviated at others command from Churchill’s original plan.  This all leaves one wondering if someone so securely enthroned in the nation’s heart as the greatest Briton really needs his reputation pampered and inflated any further? If Churchill was meant to be the tread that held the whole together it didn’t come off.

During Churchill’s time as Head of the Admiralty the Royal Navy made the switch from coal to oil and so British interests in the Middle East began to grow.  We tend to look down smugly at the oil driven American bungling in the Middle East - yet in so doing we deceive ourselves, the chequered map of the region who mostly drawn with British hands (and arms) as we installed client rulers and stirred up insurrections which are still rumbling today.  While standing back from endorsing these actions Rankin shows that these tactics and those used against the British in rebellions across the Empire were turned and used to great effect in the fight against Germany.Maybe this is the Genius, that the Imperial British had the spark of imagination to see that the successes of those fighting against them could be turned and used equally well for King and Empire...

 

Unspeak by Steven Poole

Unspeak: Words Are Weapons

I picked this up in the Oxfam shop thinking it would be a good read – sadly I was disappointed. 

Sat on the beach I noticed the review on the back comparing it to Naomi Klein’s No Logo and my heart sank – in my opinion No Logo is a massively over hyped collection of tautologies and non-sequiturs and while the reviewer meant the comparison as a complement, for my own reasons it equally stands up.

My first complaint is that Steven Poole puts forward “Unspeak” as some radical new idea, and in particular drawing a distinction between in and Orwellian doublethink, however nothing beyond the introduction backs up “Unspeak” as anything new.  “Unspeak” as a concept adds nothing to our analytical tool kit on the politicized use or abuse of language.

The second complaint is that Poole gets stuck in a rut on the “war on terror”.  He begins well with balanced analysis of the language games around anti-social behaviour in chapter 2 and climate change/global warming in chapter 3 but then from chapter 4 to 9 it is all the “war on terror”.  This completely unbalances the content of the book and worse still Poole gets distracted from his topic, language, and mostly just grinds an anti-Bush axe.  I would almost be interested to see how Poole would update this 2005 book to deal with the Obama era discourse on the “war on terror”.

While not all the examples that Poole quotes were to me as convincing or convicting as he believes it is not that I really object to most of the analysis, the US government (like everyone else) clearly tries to frame the scope of any discussion on its action by setting the terms that are used.  The “but” comes because this is really nothing new and nor it was it a big secret that Poole discovered and need to share to enlighten the world.

Some books are important and need to be read, while others are no more than a waste of good trees.  Sadly Poole has written the later.     

 

Canterbury Essays and Addresses by Michael Ramsey

Canterbury essays and addresses

This collection brings together a wide ranging selection of reflections and sermons of Michael Ramsey given during his time as Archbishop of Canterbury. 

They are filled with his characteristic wisdom, but also many of them have a surprisingly contemporary punch about them. For example his speech in the Lords about reform of the Divorce Laws touches many of the issues that are at play in the current debates around gay marriage - is it the Church or the State that gets to decide what marriage is?

The final section of pastoral essays has a clear unifying message, that is, the Church needs o be centred on the prayerful attention to the Lord, the world is busy and over crowded with distractions (and if that was true of the early 60s how much more so is it true for us) and the Church, as an institution and as individuals, is often tempted to ever increasing activity - however this will amount to nothing if its foundation is not prayer - again and again the quote is "Be still and know that I am God".  If we really must have Mission Action Plans then let the first "Action" by "Be still and know that I am God".

Additional Eucharistic Prayers

Common Worship: Additional Eucharistic Prayers: with Guidance on Celebrating the Eucharist with Children (Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England)

I am afraid that this might turn into a bit of a rant as the Authorization of these 2 new Eucharistic Prayers by the Church of England seems to me to be a significant wasted opportunity - one of those moments when on reflection it would have been better not to offer anything rather than offer this half hearted effort.

The bigger part of this booklet (which is less than 25 pages in total) is "Guidance on Celebrating the Eucharist with Children prepared by The Liturgical Commission".  The first interesting thing about this is the font, I am sure many of you are familiar with the soulless font of Common Worship - it is the only thing "Common" about the the whole project - yet this Guidance breaks away. Clearly this is a strong visual cue that while the Guidance is found within a Common Worship volume it is not to be viewed as an authoritative rubric to the new Prayers and carries only the good standing of The Liturgical Commission to commend it rather that the full statuary power of Synod.

The Guidance seem to fly in the face of most actual applications of Common Worship, for example "One important part of that preparation is the building up of a repertoire of remembered liturgical texts.  This makes it important to include in a children's Eucharist a number of texts which will, over time, be learned by heart." (p4). Far too many of those charged with the preparation and leading of worshipin the Church of England now seem to believe that any text learned by heart is anathema and texts should be varied whenever and wherever possible (and often even where it is not legally possible).  The disease is particular strong when preparing liturgies for the "unchurched", those for whom gaining a sense of familiarity with some of the texts of the service would surely have a dramatic impact in creating a growing sense of belonging within the worshipping community (but maybe I am foolish to think that would be a worthy objective).

The Guidance also very very firmly places the context for these Eucharistic prayer as primary school services and in contexts where the children firmly out number the adult participants (i.e. they are not even for the Parish Family Service), but the official "notes" on the use of the prayers is more vague - it says that "they are not intended for use on a weekly basis at the main celebration..." but any Vicar actually bothered enough about Canon Law to consider an excuse will retort that "not intended for use..." is a world away from "not permitted for use...".

Now this brings me on the Prayers themselves, and while there are certain stylistic touches about them that are far from my tastes my real complaint is that they bring nothing new to the table (or Altar depending on your Churchmanship!). If Common Worship had offered us only Prayers A, B, and C then these two new ones would have a place, but I struggle to see how they offer the opportunity for a distinctively different pastoral response than any of Prayers D to H.
If we really need more Eucharistic Prayers then they should stand apart from the current set.  For those who were crying out for something different they have been given more of the same and so disappointingly with this publication the debate will have been closed down for the foreseeable future.

Creative Ideas for... by Simon Rundell

Creative Ideas for Sacramental Worship with Children
Creative Ideas for Alternative Sacramental Worship

After participating in Blessed Worship at Greenbelt (see recent blog posts) I splashed out on these two books by Simon Rundell , the Vicar of Blessed's host Parish.

Considering the price (c.£15) my first reaction on their arrival was one of disappointment as they are slim volumes, however they are in fact packed full of ideas and inspiration and therefore I think they are worth the money overall.

Each one begins with a chapter of "philosophy" by Simon, which while mostly right thinking is often expressed in rather dogmatic terms. Then comes a "how to" chapter, for children on animation and for Alternative on the use of PowerPoint, these are very useful step by step guides linked to the accompanying CDs and a great introduction if you want to dip toe in either water, but they are by their very nature a little dry. Then comes the larger part of each book, the example liturgies and other worship resources.

Simon is very clear that the best worship is not copied out of a book but born out of community and therefore I am sure he would be very please to hear me write that there is very little that I would want to take directly from these books and use as is. Yes there is some I would adapt, some that I take inspiration from, and a significant amount which is an inspiration only to the extent that I absolutely definitely won't be doing it!

There is a serious playfulness within Simon's approach, it is at times hidden by the overblown pontificating - but one of the best quotes captures his true spirit "This anointing can get playful and messy, which is good, simply because good religion is messy and abundant in grace, suymbolised by copious amounts of oil smeared around."  (from the book about Children) And he is using messy in its general sense and not in the sense of the "messy" that has rather become hijacked in the last couple of years as the brand name of a yummy mummy craft based way of doing church.

One of the great truths that I like to push is that we have too much "incranation" and not nearly enough "ascension" as an organisational metaphor within the Church (I can't understand why I don't get much traction with this - maybe I need to get it printed on a T-Shirt?).   These books are all about the ascension, bringing people up, bringing them in to the heart of ritual and worship - for example we shouldn't have Nave Altars but Sanctuary Congregations.  You make a service accessible to children and young people not be stripping things away and simplifying it but by giving them grown up roles within it, by allowing them to sense the vastness of the ideas that are at play - Christianity which is "Bitesized" is dead - God is more than a mouthful...

It has been interesting reading these alongside Rowan Williams "the Lion's World" about C. S. Lewis' writings - in Narnia Lewis gives children a diet of grown up drama, of passion and pain.  He takes seriously the capacity for children to have a rounded encounter with the world and not merely a sanitized version.  In this Simon Rundell, and Blessed, are entirely in step with Lewis.

Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis

Out of the Silent Planet (Cosmic Trilogy)

Rowan Williams' excellent book The Lion's World set me off on the trail of C. S. Lewis' "Cosmic" trilogy, of which Out of the Silent Planet is the first part.

Published in 1938 it predates the space race by a generation and there is a simplicity to the "science" of this sci-fi which allows you to step over into the whole story without stumbling over the fact that we know lots about the destination, Mars/Malacandaria, which is incompatible with Lewis' narrative (especially reading it while NASA's Curiosity mission is expanding the boundaries of our knowledge of the Red Planet day by day).

However like a lot of sci-fi its main messsage is one about the here and now, our hero Ransom compares the treatment of the Malcandarians by his fellow travellers with the treatment of colonial officials with "the natives" of Empire (the very attitude we find in Union Castle). Lewis gives us 4 races or species which live in Malcandaria in diverse equality, poets, engineers, intellectuals, and philosopher spirits, and in so doing he offers a powerful critique of Western society that privileges profit driven utilitarian capitalism above all else.

This is a radical book albeit in sheeps clothing - and I am full of expectancy as to how the drama will unfold in parts 2 and 3

White Elephant by William Norton

White Elephant: How the North East Said No

This is a comprehensive account of the referendum about a North East Regional Assembly, at 390 pages with a further 100 pages of Appendices, but it is an account written by a leading actor in the No Campaign for that referedum and so it has to been acknowledged that it is a comprehensive account of half the story - this is however in no way a problem.

What is fascinating is that Norton takes you right into the guts of the campaign, and explores those tiny events that shaped it - it is a tale of a politics not of grand visions and great statemen but of ego, personality, bluff, and luck.  For those who subscribe to the "cock-up" theory of war there is much in this book to assist your argument.  It shows not only did the No Camp actively win the referendum but also the Yes Camp actively lost - there were a number of gift-horses during the campaign that the Yes Camp most definitely looked straight in the mouth.

This is not the politics of the idealist but the dirty street-fighting of pessimist. And therefore it is a great read for anyone who is interested in the actual process of engaging the public to vote.  There is a recurring theme that the No Camp struggled at length with the fact that they were exclusively the "No" Camp breaking the first rule of campaigning that you have to be "for something" - you should have a positive message.  The answer seems to be that the first rule is rubbish and it is much better to keep the message simple - if you want people to vote no then tell them why to vote no - don't muddy the waters explaining why they should be voting yes to some other idea that is not even on the ballot paper.

There is also an interest in the perspective of the author writing in 2008, with New Labour and therefore effectively the Yes Camp still in Government - there are a number of point where you are left wondering if the tale would have changed now the Conservatives, the leaders of the No Camp, are the party of Government. If you are a Labour supporter you are likely either to end up shout at the book for its historical inaccuracy or blushing in shame that Labour really were bad - a case of pay your money make your choice. Also the fact that the referendum campaign was viewed by many as a dry run for a referendum on the EU Constitution the Tony Blair side-stepped connects to the current politics as I was reading in a week when Ed Milliband told the Labour Party Conference that they would support holding an in/out referendum on the EU.

Norton's style will not be to everyones taste, there are endless footnotes - most of which are witty (or not) asides to his own main narative - and the feeling that it is "all about me" is inescapable, but it would be a very strange ego that wrote a memior and made it "all about someone else" so I think that should be forgiven.

I had got the book because graduating from Durham in 2002 I had missed the referendum but had been aware that the Regional Assembly was going to be coming to Durham - something as students we had mixed views about, Durham had bad traffic, expensive housing, expensive eating before you added a lot of new bureaucrats into the mix - but hearing the Regional Assembly had been voted down there was a pang of sadness that Durham was going to miss out of this extra accolade of being the capital of the North East. 

The Lion's World by Rowan Williams

The Lion's World: A journey into the heart of Narnia

Rowan Williams has a reputation, quite ill founded, for being unable to communicate clearly and accessibly which comes I think mostly from a wilful desire of many not to hear what he has to say.  It is delightful to find in this book such beautiful evidence to bury that reputation as he opens up for us such a rich encounter with complex ideas about faith and the world.

This is an interpretive work, as a companion primarily to the Chronicles of Narnia but ranging widly and freely over C. S. Lewis's othewriting, much of which will be unfamiliar to the general reader, and I will admit that while I know about the Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce it is only Narnia that I have actually read.  As an interpretive work it tells us as much about the theology and world view of Rowan Williams as about C. S. Lewis, I am not suggesting that there is some great distortion going on here just that the very fact that Rowan Williams sat down to write this book, and the themes which he felt were important to include is clearly an insight into his thinking so it is all the richer for giving us a window into two minds rather than only one.

My main encounter with Narnia was the BBC TV adaptations, I then in my late teens I did made my way through most (if not all) of the books, and more recently saw the blockbuster Film versions.  I am not someone with a deep knowledge of the text, a point I make to reassure you that reading this book is worthwhile even if you have only very limited knowledge of the "primary" material.

The major point that Rowan Williams makes is that Narnia remains an excellent tool for mission in a world where people are increasing interested in faith/spirituality but disinterested in "Church".  The trouble is mostly they have written off Church without encountering the true potential it has - "Sharing the good news is not so much a matter of telling people what they have never heard as of persuading them that there are things they haven't heard when they think they have." (p17) It is a vehicle through which people can see and feel what faith is like freed from the assumptions and baggage that have become encrusted around organised religion.

Rowan quotes a comment from Alsan about the Dwarfs "they have chosen cunning instead of belief.  Their prision is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out" and without him making about direct reference the mind jumps to the "New Atheists" and to Darkins in particular - when they not only deny evidence for God but desperately try and manufacture evidence for God's non-existence as if it is rational to bring forward empirical evidence of the non-observation of an unknowable being?

I think this book would make an excellent Confirmation present, certainly highly preferable to the usual flurry of stuffy prayer books that accompany that event.  Confirmation is often felt as an anti-climax, built up as a life changing event all too often followed by a sensation of a continuation of the horribly ordinary.  A book that looks at the depths of faith and look for those depths outside the "churchy" is just the kind of thing that you need at that moment. It would also make a useful basis for a study group or lent course.

Readings from the book of Exile by Pádraig Ó Tuama

Readings from the Book of Exile

For me this book has been long awaited for, as many of you will know, my appreciation of Pádraig and his work verges on the inappropriate.

He is very much a performance poet, and many of the poems in this collection I have heard him perform at Greenbelt, and so I don't just read the words I hear again the tone, the slow pauses, the lilt and rhythm of his performance.  But one of the joys of this collection was at times hearing the poems in my own dislocated but conventional English ascent and yet finding that they were still as powerful as ever.

Now I really want you to go and buy this book because it is brilliant and your life will be better for it (you can use the link above to get it from Amazon - but if moral scruples prevent you from using Amazon I am sure there are plenty of other places you can turn to instead) - so I am going to share just one poem with you ...

Ar eagla na heagla

There is your fear

and your fear of your fear.

There is your beginning

and your fear of where you are.

There is your body

and your words about your body.

There is your possibility

and your hatred of all failure.

There is the gaze

and your fear of the gaze.

There is your destination

and your fear of where you’re not.

 

Greenbelt 2012 Beer & Benediction

I find Blessed fascinating but not always entirely convincing as I think I wrote about the worship event I attended at Greenbelt last year.

Beer and Benediction was just one of a number of worship sessions they were offering this year, but the Beer element meant I felt this was the fail safe option!

The majority of the beer tent had turned into a sea of mud but thankful the annex "the upper room" had remained largely dry and this was where Benediction was to meet beer.

What I found was the smaller scale (last year I had been to a Mass in the Big Top) allowed you to feel like a participate rather than just the audience, also there were a few technical hitches which Simon Rundell covered with a humour that gave a sense of grounding and humanity that I think had been missing in earlier encounters with them.

After the Mass and Benediction we went on a Eucharistic Procession around Greenbelt (sadly due to licencing constrains this part was minus beer).  It was wonderful to see the faces of the Greenbelters we passed by - there was a wide range of expressions. Some clearly know what was going on, removing hats and crossing them selves as Jesus passed by, others clearly know what was going on due to a look of horror that such heresy was here at the heart of a "Christian" festival.  But for most there was a benevolent look of puzzlement with which you greet all sorts of things at Greenbelt - putting them down as "its ok - its Greenbelt".

The Procession ended in front of the Grandstand where a number of "worship collectives" were coming together for a shared service, sadly I could not stay for that as there was a talk elsewhere in the festival I wanted to get to. 

Lanark by Alasdair Gray

Lanark: A Life in Four Books (Canongate Classics)

This is a very different kettle of fish from The Island which I have just written about and which I read in the middle of reading Lanark.  When we visited Glasgow earlier in the year we saw an exhibition of Alasdair Gray's art and getting home I looked in the library for the book of that exhibition, they didn't have that but they did have Lanark and so while it is a bit of a door stop of a novel I gave it a go.

The covers of the book are crammed full of praise, claiming that Lanark called forth a new era in Scottish writing which is almost as off putting as hearing a book won a Richard & Judy prize!

The 4 parts of the novel are arranged so you read part 3, then 1, 2 and 4 with the prologue and epilogue somewhere in the middle.  Parts 1 and 2 have only a very loose connection with 3 and 4 (something a God like character "the author" notes at one point in the book - a device that I have never found successful). Parts 1 and 2 are basically realist while 3 and 4 are a kind of dystopian science fiction, this is held up to parody when a teacher criticises the writing of Lanark/Thaw for trying to combine realism and fantasy - claiming this is something even the greatest of writers struggle with.  It is as if Gray is eye-balling you and daring you to say "nice try but maybe try something a little less ambitious next time..."

It is a political satire, and it is clear there is anger at the way Glasgow was declining with the collaspe of heavy industry.  But with his anti-hero Lanark/Thaw Gray seems only to confirm the hopelessness of the situation.  That those with the brains to understand the situation will either be depressed to the point of inaction or be corrupted by "the system" and despite continuing to spout proletarian rhetoric find their own beds feathered with others misery (Lanark ends up doing both in turns).  It seems to me this is an entirely bleak vision.

Given the novel is over 30 years old there must be a question about whether its politics has enduring relevance.  Off the back of the recent global financial melt-down much of Gray's more depressing depictions of the soulless system feel deeply contemporary - the "too big to fail" mentality fits into its picture of entangled organisations and the blurring of state and corporationl.  What has changed perhaps is the settling - it is not the streets of Glasgow (even the poorest of Glasgow's streets) where the full force of the financial annihilation is now felt.

The most hopefully message Gray seems to manage is that in the face of extremes of life the ordinary misery of the individual will endure - "I am miserable therefore I am"

The Island by Victoria Hislop

The Island

A book given to me to read by my Mother and invoking the snob in me by declaring on the back cover it is winner of the Richard & Judy Summer Read - however I did my best to not judge a book by its cover and all that.

Reading the book I was caught up in the multi-generational drama of the tale, but now having put it down I feel the characters were too often archetypal - the dutiful father, the amoral daughter, the rich trapped by pretensions, the poor the salt of the earth.  The question must be whether that really matters, this is a good read, it never asked to be judged as a sociological tract nor, I suspect, as literatry "high art" therefore it does all it ever intended.

It is the kind of book to bring the Shirley Valentine is us all, centred around the sea side taverna where we could "drink the wine in the land where the grape is grown", and that is probably enough. 

Greenbelt 2012 George Elerick Domesticating monsters.

George was a fast talking American but he allowed so many questions during the talk that it was very hard for him to get any momentum going, however these questions were fascinating because he was clearly rattling a few cages and Greenbelt’s “so bloody nice” mask was falling off a bit – great sport! His point, as far as I understood it, was that “mission” is often fundamentally flawed because it depends on establishing and policing the category “unsaved” and human rights campaigns are similarly flawed by the establishment of the category “oppressed”.  This links into the revelation of Dave Tomlinson that there are spiritual people outside the Church – to decide that someone is in need of salvation is to deny the works God is already doing in their lives, it is an act of violence to see their salvation in terms of a process of transformation from “them” into “us”.  He is a Greenbelt speaker who’s book I will seek out to read to see if without the heckling his argument is attractive.

Greenbelt 2012 - Padraig O’Tuama gets naked …

Padraig had a number of sessions across the weekend and I had to limit myself from going to them all and becoming an ultimate groupie (especially after last year’s drunken self introduction to him in the Jesus Arms!).  So the main session I heard was Padraig’s reflection on naked men in the Bible and in particular the nakedness of Noah.  This was not a poetry session and so there was not the usual joy of Pagraig’s verse washing over you and enfolding you (for this there are plenty of talks on the Greenbelt website to download and finally a book Readings from the Book of Exile ).  This was a different kind of joy.  To focus on one small incident of Noah’s nakedness is risky, and while a few other Biblical stories were drawn in there was not much of an engagement with the wider enduring worry that Jews had over naked men.  In a week when Prince Harry’s drink fueled nakedness was making headlines a consideration of Noah’s drink fueled nakedness was apposite.  We puzzled together over what it was that was so terrible about Noah’s nakedness that led him to curse his son Ham – it is hard to find anything within the story as it has come down to us that has the weight to justify this extreme reaction.  It is a multi-layered issue and there are no neat conclusions – even within art the male nude is still a problematic figure in a way in which the female nude isn’t (while the female nude is perhaps becoming problematic as we look with feminist eyes this is a very separate set of problems).  What Pagraig gives us is a space for some grown up thinking with a gentleness that does not exclude profound confrontations - this was the start of a conversation and not the neatly boxed agenda for change that so many other Greenbelt speakers try to lumber us with .     

 

Greenbelt 2012 Dave Tomlinson “Bad Christians” and a dazzling darkness.

For a copy of the book try Amazon How to be a Bad Christian: .. and a Better Human Being

On Greenbelt’s first evening I went to a “meditation” titled “a deep but dazzling darkness” prepared by St Luke’s the church lead by Dave Tomlinson.  There were two things which I found off putting.  First this meditation turned into a Eucharist, re-reading the blurb in the programme there was no hint that this session would have a sacramental element.  Now I would not want to appear to be critical of the Eucharist but the way it was celebrated did not, for me, connect with the theme of the meditation, it was not an encounter with the awful and unknowable God, it was a fairly causal encounter and gave me the feel they had run out of material and just needed something to fill the last 20 minutes of the session and thought “you can’t go wrong with a Eucharist let bung that in…” The second issue was perhaps more fundamental, the whole thing didn’t really seem to have the courage of its convictions. This darkness of God kept being watered down, we were told on more than one occasion that “some people” have an experience of God as darkness or absence – that is to say some OTHER people and not us ourselves, we need to help this poor unfortunates – it was nice that they felt that the encounter with God as darkness was OK but the session didn’t rest in the dark it kept trying to move us to the light.  Two days later I listened to Dave Tomlinson speaking in the Big Top – now I have never had much success with talks in the Big Top in part due to the same neurosis which blocks me connecting with mass worship events so to give Dave his credit he kept me listening for the full talk and I didn’t wander off part way through.  This talk was the plug to his new book “Bad Christians”.  The big news which he has discovered is than 1) there are spiritual people outside the Church 2) many of these spiritual people were Church goers but exactly because of their spirituality the religiosity of the Church drove them away 3) the Church would be a better place with more questions and less dogma.  The jaw dropping moment is when you realize that he is one of the brightest hopes for the Church and he has only just worked this out!  As a “Modern Catholic” I can call on generations of witnesses to these facts – we have been living them and our congregations have collapsed while dogmatic Evangelicals have set the agenda for the Church.  Dave Tomlinson has the right answer but I am not sure that he has worked out what the question is yet …

The Union-Castle and the War 1914-1919 By E. F. Knight

This is a forerunner to Sea Hazard (1939 - 1945) and includes both a Roll of Honour which runs to 11 pages of those who lost their lives and a account of the Union-Castle's role in the world.

It is clear that this is a two-fold act of propaganda as much as commemoration.  The way the narrative depicts the gallantry of "our" sailors in contrast to the "evil Hun" makes uncomfortable reading, even within those accounts of German actions which were criminal, such as the sinking of Hospital Ships and destruction of lifeboats.  To paint these acts, these atrocities, as resulting from the inherent nature of "the Hun" is distasteful.

There is also a heavy dose of racism within the narration, at one point it is commending the officers of vessel for there actions in the face of enemy action, the storm weather, and the ill disciplined and cowardly passengers who were "aliens of a certain type" and call the reader to think of the action of "our East End foreign Jews" in air raid shelters to get the idea of the sort of behaviour the crew were up against. This is not just shocking but sickening.

Later within an account of the desperate attempt to save a sinking vessel there comes a distinction between "the native" and "the white" crew - given the incident is happening somewhere in the middle of the North Atlantic the question native to where springs to mind but of course the category "native" has nothing to do with geography.  As things get worse the "native" crew are transferred to another vessel while "the captain, officers and white crew" continue their efforts to save the ship.  The writer feels quite happy to ascribe a lack of heroism, cowardice even, to these "native" crew members with out casting a shadow on the Union-Castle Line because within his mindset you couldn't expect anything more from them. 

I find it sad that this jingoistic and racist account unavoidably tarnishes the Roll of Honour it is bound with, I even wonder if that Roll includes the "native" crew who must have laid down their lives.

It is a fascinating document which questions the picture of the inter-war years as bohemian, enlightened, and peace loving.

Summons to Life by Martin Israel

Summons to Life: The Search for Identity Through the Spiritual

Once I start a book I like to finish it but I have abandoned this one on p117 of 154,

Writing in the early 70s there is a stylistic barrier to get over, especially the gendered language which given the topic is "Humanity" and what it is to be truly "Human" leads to the book being full of "Man" and "his" search for the ideal life even though at one point Israel does himself problematise the use of the male pronoun for God "... thought it is more questionable whether the masculine qualities rather than the feminine should be exalted in the pronoun commonly used."

Overall I found the book tiresome, Israel's argument is almost entirely polemical with little or no evidence or reasoning, his notion that there is a single spiritual existence which unites all human souls might be attractive but seem rather fanciful.  He is a pains to show he is not privileging the soul over the body yet everything about his idea of the ideal human life runs counter to that assertion.
What I think I found most frustrating is that at its core I would agree with his argument, (the spiritual barrenness he sees in society has only increased in the last 40 years, and it is an enriching of the spiritual life that is the only way to address the deep discontentment within our society), however he makes this argument in such an obtuse and contrary way that so having started of agreeing with him for every page I read I became less and less sympathetic.  

The Dwelling of the Light by Rowan Williams

The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ

This is a little book full of big ideas, written in Rowan Williams' usual thoughtful and insightful way. In his introduction he gently explores the status of Icons which I would hope allows all but the most puritanical to see that Icons can be encountered as a devotional tool free from idolatry.

One of the joys of this book is that it offers an introduction to some icons which are unfamiliar to Western eyes while also allowing you a fresh encounter with others like Rublev's "Trinity" which have become so ubiquitous in recent years that they have been diminished almost to the status of wall paper. 

Each chapter takes an Icon in turn, but is structured in paragraphs which can either be read continuously or dipped in and out of from time to time (which is how I read it).

Making the most of the Lectionary by Thomas O'Loughlin

Making the Most of the Lectionary: A user's guide

This book has a very simple aim, to move Anglicans and Catholics from the near universal indifference to their current Lectionary to a place where it is encountered and its presentation of scripture enriches their worshipping lives.

Lectionary provision is oddly one point where Catholics and Anglicans have shared much common ground, with the BCP and pre-Vatican II Lectionaries being largely aligned (albeit a week adrift).  Therefore the adoption of Vatican II's Revised Lectionary as a basis for the Revised Common Lectionary in the US and for the Common Worship Lectionary in England is a continuation in a happy vane.

But why try and celebrate the Lectionary at all?  Firstly O'Loughlin deals with some general issues about the Bible and the relationship many Christians have with it - this might be old news for many readers but it is a key foundation to the book - it will equally be a radical challenge to the understanding "The Bible" of others and causing some never to get to the end of chapter 1.  There is also important distinctions made between the liturgical reading (and hearing) of scripture and "Bible Study" or a whole range of other modes of engagement.

This general discussion takes up about half the book - and having taken on board the message of this first half the examination of the Lectionary itself becomes pretty self explanatory - I made me feel a bit like the first half was a waste of time, however on reflection I see that I would not have got the second half if I encountered it alone.

O'Loughlin, in the second half, sets out the aim of those who put the Revised Lectionary together, it is a revelation that there were such strong aims given the output has become so widely accepted inter-denominationally (to often it is the bland that becomes universal - and with the Lectionary I think the assumption of many is because it is universal it must be bland). Even with new insights on the structure and the message of the Lectionary, what remains a challenge is the sheer scale of the encounter given its three year cycle, how many of us, even the most regular of church goers, can really hold three years worth of  liturgical experience in tension before us? However I think I will look with fresh eye at the reading before me Sunday to Sunday - and also when I now argue against the setting aside of Lectionary readings for this or that 'special' service I can arm myself with reason rather than just my reactionary spirit.

Salvage by Gee Williams

Salvage

For the most part this is a highly engaging story, each part is told by a different character, the one in part musing about the next, this is really effective and leads you into the depths of the story.
The other really interesting thing about these different viewpoints is that you build up a picture of events in the round, each one shares their understand of what has happened - and you end up with the realisation that the "truth" has perhaps escaped them all (or perhaps truth just does not exist in abstract at all...). 

That it is set in Chester was also an interest for me, as my parents over the past 8 or so years have lived there.  I think this mean I know Chester well enough to validate the descriptions of it as authentic but not so well that I would spot the slight geographical anomalies that are bound to be present. That Parkgate features is also a little delight (the seaside town which is no longer by the sea - as the estuary has silted up and a grassy marsh has replaced the beach) it is a surreal place and so a great setting for some of the more surreal moments of the story.

I began by praising the work only for "the most part" - it is perhaps only the last dozen pages or so for which I have qualified my statement. I think the story could have been left unresolved but Gee does a bit of unnecessary tidying up - added a devise where one of the characters is a writer and you are lead to believe that some if not all of what came before is this writer's fictionalisation of events which may or may not have happened.  This adds a pointless layer of complexity to the story and I felt devalues the journey which I had been on with the characters - my advice is enjoy this but stop at around page 200... 

The Eucharistic Liturgies by Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson

The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation

One of the great delights of membership of the Alcuin Club is the arrival of its annual "Collection" - of which this is the 87th volume - they range widely over Liturgical Studies and so challenge you to read and think about areas which might not always be you first preference.

The arrival of this volume was a little intimidating, at 350+ pages it looked little something of a "tome", while the stated ambition in the introduction to have written the standard text book for the study of the Eucharist added to the sense of gravitas.  I doubt I would have picked this book up myself preferring something a bit more "sexy" therefore it was pleasing to find this a highly readable and engaging work.

The 'myth' of the linear development from Jewish Passovers to the Last Supper and on into the Christian Eucharist is deeply embedded in our psyche as a worshipping community, but Bradshaw and Johnson gently and skilfully in pick this myth and show the much more complex and therefore much more fansinating story.

This is written as a text book and so most of the content is drawn from the work of others, but while the work may not be original the ability to bring the full scope of 2000 years of mainstream Christian Eucharistic practice (both Western and Eastern) into a single view is a great and valuable achievement. 

Other Useful Numbers by Sarah Broughton

Other Useful Numbers

One of the joys of putting books on my wish list for later purchase is that when I get round to reading them I have forgotten all about them and so can encounter them completely fresh without the mind being directed to a certain reaction on the basis of a review etc.

Other Useful Numbers is one of those books, and it is a clear strength of the writing that front a standing start I was hooked on it before turning the first page.  Within a sentence or two you are inhabiting the mind of the central character, Tracy, and that is at times an uncomfortable place to live.  She probably depressed, is struggling to come to terms with the break down of a long term relationship, is estranged from family, is seemingly unable to maintain a friendship for more than a few weeks without causing it to implode.  In lots of ways she is a very easy person to dislike, however for all the failings my reaction was one of great compassion.  Maybe it is because I feel like as much of a fish out of water in most social settings as she does, have spent hours at parties standing on my own in the corner getting (not that) slowly pissed because I can't do small talk.

I really loved this novel and would highly recommend it.

A Century of Olympic Posters by Margaret Timmers

A Century of Olympic Posters

The story of Olympic Posters is used by Timmers to tell the story of the ideas and ideals that shaped the Games as much as it shaped the art work used to promote those Games. It is a century when advertising came of age and so the Posters chart the rise and rise of the visual as the key element of communication.  This also links into the way the Games have become since the Second World War a truly Global event and therefore the Posters have to work beyond the reach of mainstream European Languages and cultural settings.

Even those on a mission to by pass the Olympics this summer would still find this a worthwhile couple of hours read. 

The One from the Other by Phillip Kerr

The One From The Other

Reading this back to back with Resistance was probably a bit unfair to Kerr as the whole style and objective of his writing is different, I would try to resist a comparison of better or worse.

It is fast paced and everything you want in a crime thriller, my only worry was the times when it starts moralising which is something beyond the capacity of such a framework. It is again the risk, as there was in Resistance, of taking on history and especially a period that is just are the edge of memory.  Here the back drop is the search for Nazi war criminals and this remains a touchy subject for many, why some were punished and other rehabilitated, and even today old men are being unmasked and put on trial.  You can't talk of the Holocaust without speaking of the horror, but where Kerr is strong is showing that while there might be some bad "bad guys" there are no real "good guys", war and a system such as the Nazi state leave no one entirely innocent.

The story manages to escape being dragged down by its historical setting - but only just...

 

Resistance by Owen Sheers

Resistance

To take on history and turn the tide of the Second World War on its head is a brave step for any writer, and could easily spell disaster for the narrative, yet Sheers creates his alternative history with such skill and populates it with such natural characters that you are drawn in and inhabit with them this new and dark reality.

Part of the skill is to have placed the drama well away from the centre stage, the whole novel revolves around the fact that the valley is forgotten, beyond the back of beyond.  Therefore history is hinted at without the need for grand set pieces, Hitler visits London in a rumour rather than a fully form account.

There is a deep sorrow under this story and as it came to a conclusion you wished for other choices to be made yet you accepted that there were no "other choices" open. What it says about love is hard to understand, what it says about the power of women is in the end uncomfortable.  It is writing at its best and this will linger on.

From the weak reviews of the film adaptation it would appear that failed to live up to the quality to the novel.  

The earth hums in B flat by Mari Strachan

The Earth Hums in B Flat

This is a charming novel despite the darkness of much of the subject matter; adultery, depression, domestic violence, and even murder. Yet these events do not become sensationalised, there is no move towards the voyeuristic here, these become the ordinary backdrop to the life of a young girl moving across that line between childhood and adolescence.

What Gwenni refuses to do is give up the child's view of the world, despite the fury of her mother, she allows the world to remain enhanced despite pressure to "grow up" and the darkness that surrounds her.  This is what made it such a delightful read, I believe, or try to believe, in that enhanced world and so it is joyful to share for a while the life of another believer.  As the novel moves on it is clear that there doesn't need to be an either/or choice between "reality" and "enhancement" - and I hope that we misunderstand St Paul's putting away of childish things when we interpret it as a rejection to the childlike wonder this novel is so richly populated with.

I for one will now be trying to learn to fly while I am awake again...

The Problem of Knowledge by A. J. Ayer

The Problem of Knowledge

I am a bit of a sucker for a Pelican and the subject matter of this one took me back to the great lectures I had in Durham with Richard Smith - but I never quite got my head around those lectures and it is safe to say I didn't get my head around this book, but the pleasure is in the trying.

And, I think, that is really Ayer's point, he can not give us a philosophical proof on the existence of the past, of feelings of others (or even the existence of any other conscious being other than oneself), but at some point we have to acknowledge that despite the philosophical uncertainty the only practical explanation for the world is that there was a past, the only practical explanation for what appear to the numerous other conscious human being you encounter in daily life is that they are in fact conscious, and so on.  Any explanation I seek for the apparent existence of the Pelican Original in front of me other than the fact that there is a thinking being A. J. Ayer who wrote it is beset with greater difficulties than excepting A. J. Ayer exists, however it remains the best explanation and not the 'only' explaination.

But not finding certainty does not mean we should give up the search for truth, and the philosophical models that try and give certainty are clumsy and inelegant.  It is better that we learn is how to hold the two in tension, to acknowledge the philosophical uncertainty while still continuing to life in the world.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 

Finally got around to actually reading this - it has been on my to read list since 2nd year at Durham (ie over a decade ... opps!). It is a book that is so often referenced that by a kind of osmosis you know it even before you read.  This means that you have to pay an extra special kind of attention to it so you actual encounter the book itself and not an amalgam of hearsay about it.

It is a classic and it holds up under the weight of its own reputation, in many ways seeming to be speak more to us today than to the early fifties (which we now tend to paint as a golden age of civilization). 
What would Bradbury make of us watching live streams of people sleeping in the Big Brother house and everywhere everyone in their personal ipod world tweeting vacumously to the planet?

Two for Joy by Dannie Abse

Dannie Abse's 2010 collection Two for Joy

I have posted a number of the poems from this excellent collection and I think that they can largely speak for themselves.  The collection is where we could call a "prequel" to the book The Presence, Abse's memior of the time after the sudden death of his wife in a car crash. 

That is an intensely personal work and it feels an amazing privilege to have been allowed into his inner world.  The collection Two for Joy is sub-titled "scenes from married life" and what we get is more of the powerful love of their marriage, not the stuff of Hollywood chic flicks but real everyday love. 

Reading these poems with the foreknowledge of the pain Abse felt after his wife's death makes them bitter sweet - but then isn't all love edged with that fear that one day one of you will have to go it alone. When we come to the end of the collection and again deal with death these are poems that I am not ashamed to say created a physical reaction, these are poems which will make you cry.

The Presence by Dannie Abse

Found in Dannie Abse's 2010 collection Two for Joy

Though not sensible I feel we are married still.

After four years survival guilt endures.

I should have said this, could have done that,

and your absent presence has left a weeping scar.

Like a heartbeat, you are indispensable.

Each year, I think, the cries of the dead retreat,

become smaller, small. Now your nearness is far

and sometimes I sense you’re hardly there at all.

When in company, when my smiles persist,

your distance briefly is like the furthest star.

It’s when I’m most myself, most alone

with all the clamour of my senses dumb,

then, in the confusion of Time’s deletion

by Eternity, I welcome you and you return

improbably close, though of course you cannot come.