Not Funny Not Clever by Jo Verity

Not Funny Not Clever

As I began to read I was worried about the often clunky descriptions of banal details and action, but as the story developed these moments took on an authenticity within the experience of Elizabeth.  She is a women in the midst of a 'mid-life' crisis trapped by petty bourgeoises respectability - the kind of respectability that pays undue attention to the banal details of life. Jo Verity has not produced a work of great 'literary' writing but that does not diminish the powerful storytelling, in the encounter between Elizabeth and Dafydd there is a breathless tension that is a rare quality. For once the cliche is applicable, this is a book I couldn't put down, one I would definitely recommend.

There was a small unexpected connection with The Last Hundred Days that I had just finished as one of the subplots involved an estranged Romanian Husband, like buses you wait 30 years and then 2 Romanian themed books turn up at once! 

The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness

The Last Hundred Days

I stumbled across this novel while searching for something else by Patrick McGuinness in the Southampton Library catalogue (although I think it might have been reviewed briefly on the Culture Show at some point), and I think part of the success of the work is that it tells a story that is just off the radar of experience and so has a powerful freshness.  Even from the memory of a a child of eight the vivid images that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall are clear in mind, and enriched by multiple retellings both in 'fact' and 'ficton', but the move here to the same period in Romania places the drama in an area of ignorance, the sum total of my knowledge of all Romania's history I think comes from the snap shot of Blue Peter appeals for their orphanages.

The story's insights into human nature unfold to be at equal measures heart warming and disheartening, we find there is no black or white, our 'heroes' find that corruption and compromises seem to be the essence of survival, but also the within the darkest of moments (and people) there are still the glimmers of redemption.

Through the dialogue between the characters there at moments of philosophising over the nature of freedom, but thankfully McGuinness leaves these moments, like the rest of the novel, inconclusive, if perhaps pointing gently to that fact that communism's fall should never have been read as capitalism's vindication - there can be no simple either/or in life. It is a thoughtful work without being 'worthy'.

Unusually having read the book I found it is reviewed in the latest edition of Planet, where great emphasis is placed on the fact the central character and narrator is never named - something I completely failed to notice while reading it - to the extent that I almost disbelieved the review, I was sure I knew his name, it is there on the tip of my tongue but just out of reach. If that says more about me or the book I don't know!

Scripture, Tradition and Reason by William Marshall

Scripture, Tradition and Reason: A View of Anglican Theology through the Centuries

There is a tendency for 'enlightened' folk to declare "oh I'm not an Anglican, I'm a Christian" which usually makes me want to punch them, and so I am really pleased with William Marshall for showing the basic error of treating Denominational identity with such indifference. Time and again he shows there is a division between the 'essentials' of Christian faith and what we might call the Denominational superstructure, but time and again he shows that while we can admit diversity into that superstructure it must be done with care and not indifference.

Marshall guides us from Cranmer through to a 1995 Report of a Church of England Doctrine Commission and shows the wisdom, moderation, and vigour that has characterised Anglican Theology (or at least the theology of Anglicans). Marshall is of course a sympathetic guide and he is, in a subtle way, making a strong case for a 'Broad Church' Anglicanism in the face divisive 'party' politics which threaten the very existence of the Anglican Communion (he will also, I would think, be disinclined to support the Anglican Covenant which is another tick in the box for me).

One of the things we discover is that almost every writer of note, in every generation, has been writing in response to divisive 'party' politics which threaten the very existence of the church.  Some might think this is cause for despair, but I think that is wrong, what this shows is that the Christian 'Truth' is bigger that such divides but also that wrestling with the divides is a healthy part of the search for Truth (as Jacob wrestled with God). 

Another of the themes which Marshall wants to bring to the fore is a believe that Truth lies at the extremes, in most cases he trys to show that those at opposite ends of which ever spectrum it was were right in what they affirmed but wrong in what they denied.  That is to say for example that Evanglicals are right to assert the personal relationship with God while Catholics are right to affirm the corporate nature of the Church, the problem comes when the focus of the personal relationship becomes so individualistic that people start to act as though they have no need of the Church, or when the corporate belief of the Church results in formalism/nominalism with a a lack of innner transformation. To quote Marshall "But the truth often lies in both extremes, not half-way between them.  There is a great danger in asserting one without the other, but the adventurous path of truth lies in proclaiming both with integrity..." (p249)

Charles Simeon on The Excellency of the Liturgy by Andrew Atherstone

Chares Simeon on the Excellency of the Liturgy

The most recent of the Joint Liturgical Studies this essay presents extracts from a Sermon series given by Charles Simeon with some introductory remains and contextualisation.

In this 350th anniversary year of the Book of Common Prayer it is highly appropriate to hear Simeon wax lyrical about the perfections of the Prayer Book, I think at times he would make even the most loyal member of the Prayer Book Society blush.

While it might be hard to support his claims for the Prayer Book being the single most prefect work of human hands (only exceeded by the Divine work of the Bible itself) I found that many of his reasons rang true with me.

Key to his praise is the virtue of ordered Liturgy, of the space that is created by familiar words for deep and wide reflections and encounters with God.  He is critical of 'freer' styles of worship worrying that they are too hit and miss and feels that often it is only the best of such service that are compared to, and used to critise, the Prayer Book - while the Prayer Book, in his view, would stand out above much of the rest. 
He sees that most Churches of this type end up repeating the same structure and words to almost the same degree as the Prayer Book. Even to day within 'chiasmatic' worship you find from week to week there will be set patterns, how many places have I been where we had 6 songs, the last of which will be a slower one before which the worship leader will entreat the people to sing it as 'a prayer' then followed by a sermon and rounds off with 2 more songs and an altar call - all believed to be spontaneous...

I think given the choice I would be with Simeon - I'd rather the Prayer Book than the muddle the Church now endures under Common Worship. 

A Storm in Childhood by T.H. Jones

Found in Childhood

We had taken the long way home, a mile

Or two further than any of us had to walk,

But it meant being together longer, and home later.

The storm broke on us – broke is a cliché,

But us isn’t – that storm was loosed for us, on us.

My cousin Blodwen, oldest and wisest of us,

Said in a voice we’d never heard her use before:

‘The lightning kills you when it strikes the trees.’

If we were in anything besides a storm, it was trees.

On our left, the valley bottom was nothing but trees,

On our right the trees when halfway up

The hill. We ran, between the trees and the trees,

Five children hand-in-hand, afraid of God,

Afraid of being among the lightning-fetching

Trees, soaked, soaked with rain, with sweat, with tears,

Frightened, if that’s the adequate word, frightened

By the loud voice and the lambent threat,

Frightened certainly of whippings for being late,

Five children, ages six to eleven, stumbling

After a bit of running through trees from God.

Even my cousin who was eleven – I can’t remember

If she was crying, too – I suppose I hope so.

But I do remember the younger ones when the stumbling

Got worse as the older terror of the trees got worse

Adding their tears’ irritation to the loud world of wet

And tall trees waiting to be struck by the flash, and us

With them – that running stumble, hand-in-hand – five

Children aware of our sins as we ran stumbling:

Our Sins which seemed such pointless things to talk

About to mild Miss Davies on the hard Sunday benches.

The lightning struck no trees, nor any of us.

I think we all got beaten; some of us got colds.

It was the longest race I ever ran,

A race against God’s voice sounding from the hills

And His blaze aimed at the trees and at us,

A race in the unfriendly rain, with only the other

Children, hand-in-hand, to comfort me to know

They too were frightened, all of us miserable sinners.

A Place in the Mind: A Boyhood in Llyn by R.Gerallt Jones

A Place in the Mind: A Boyhood in Llyn

As a book picked off my parents’ bookcase before their recent move I had no real introduction but high hopes for this memoir of a childhood spent on the Llyn peninsula, but however much I wanted to like this book it somehow never really lived up to those expectations.

One of the problems was the lack of any structure, there was a very loose chronological progress but there was also a perambulation around the Llyn which resulted in particular places only been seen at one moment rather than exploring the changing relationship to a place as he grew.  Written having returned to Llyn in retirement the voice of the boy and or the ‘old’ man are not delineated, nor is there any reflection on what part the Llyn played in the duration of his working life spent else where.  Large chunks of the book are not even in his own voice, extended quotes from local myths merely break up the already stuttering flow. The book ends (or perhaps peters out) with reflections on Bardsey which seem particularly hollow.  They are included into to ensure all the Llyn is covered but lack any real lived experience, I felt I was getting nothing more authentic that I could have turned out after a morning with a decent guide book and a smattering of wiki facts.   

The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster

The Longest Journey

Picked this up while desperately trying to spend some money at Church Christmas Fair - and therefore it is in a sense a random 'next book' however there were more points of connection with the recently read Orwell and Koestler than might have expected. 

I found this a dark read and perhaps to its credit there is not redemption in it conclusion - at least not in any straight forward sense.   Its setting in a minor public school (of all the locations this is the one that seems to have the strongest influence of the actions of the characters) is one of the connections - the narration of life in the school is full of many of the same critiques of the public school 'system' that Orwell was making half a century later.  It is a book populated we people on the edge of brilliance and yet the distance between them and true greatness seems only to widen with each act of theirs to achieve it. In the critique of "respectability" Forster clearly romanticises the 'working man' and the wildness of the open country - it is in the untamed passions of both that authenticity is found.

I also enjoyed the fact that Baldock Church, of which my Father was sometime Rector, gets a mention. While brief it is true to the vast majority of the world's encounter, as it is seen through the window, at speed, on the way to Cambrigde.  

The Unsheltered Heart, an at-home advent retreat by Ronald Patrick Raab C.S.C.

The Unsheltered Heart Cycle B 2011: An at Home Advent Retreat (Ave Maria Press)

I like the idea of at-home retreats, sometimes call "a retreat in daily life", and I found using this material was a help in marking out Advent as a special time.  The format using the Sunday Gospel reading as the basis of the daily reflection allowed you to engage with it briefly some days while making a fuller and more leisurely encounter when time allowed.

However, for me, the actual content was less helpful (however there is often as much benefit in reacting against the content of these things as agreeing with them).  Ronald Rabb is writing from a context of significant urban depravation and it is good to be challenged by that as we move toward the increasingly commercialised Christmas season.  That said there were moments when I did worry about the mental well being of Ronald with his immediate reflex to despair at the suffering of the world even in response to the hope filled Advent Gospels.  It is true that it is in the deepest darkness that the light of the Gospel shines brightest - but I didn't get that radiance from him.

I would also warn of some Americanisms that are likely to grate, particularly the daily suggest "to journal it" however OED's verb "journalise" would have been little better...   (And yes I do realise Ronald is American but I don't see that as either an excuse or a defence).