The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

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One is somewhat hesitant when approaching such a classic as The Little Prince, how can one be so bold as to think you have anything worth saying about such a master piece.

I find two disparate connections come to mind, the first is to C S Lewis' “Cosmic” trilogy, which you will find considered elsewhere on this blog, the writing of that trilogy spans the time in which The Little Prince was created. Both are about space travellers, but somehow to label them sci-fi feels a little misplaced. In common, both use other worlds as a mirror to explore the earth and the state of society.

The other connection is to the Clangers, this is in part due to the illustrations, the Little Prince's home planet, particularly its small size, looks a lot like the Clangers home. There is also a quality in the Prince's encounter with the others he meets which seems to echo (or should I perhaps say foreshadow given the Prince was written decades before) the Clangers. Do we do it a disservice if we call it “childlike”?

If I was to take a so-called “Ignatian” approach to reading the Little Prince, then I think the character with whom I would identify most would be the Rose. The temperamental Rose, who maintains both a pretence at invulnerability and yet a needy dependence on others, a self-defence mechanism with only mixed results.

One of the great lessons of the story is the Prince's discovery that the Rose is unique, not in an inherent way as he first thought, but in relationship with others. Our value comes from relationship. This is a Christian “truth”, the human is precious because of not characteristic born of themselves, but only because they are loved by God. The failing of some of those the Prince meets, such as the King, is that they have tried to establish a status for themselves independent of any relationship, if you have no subjects you are left with a very hollow kind of kingship.

From The Abundance of the Heart by Stephen Cottrell and Table Manners by Simon Reynolds

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I read these two books during week away in Gran Canaria and there is a certain overlap between them which makes it seem sensible to consider them together.

Reyonds provides a sub-title “Liturgical Leadership for the Mission of the Church”. This seems to give a clear missional focus, a kin to that of Cottrell, however other than the general point that good liturgy can be a spring board to mission, and bad liturgy a stumbling block I did not feel that Reynolds really made the link to mission.

For example, he argues for particular hand gestures during the Eucharist, and while I agree that movement and gesture should be intentional I struggle to buy the case for such a narrow range of gestures being acceptable or effective. As is so often is the case, I could not help but feels that we were being lumbered with grand arguments to support nothing more than personal preference.

Overall it has the feel of a PhD thesis that has made a less than successful transition into a general publication although there is no indication in the acknowledgements etc that it did in fact have such an origin.

Which brings us round to Cottrell's offering, which is in a different mode from many of his gem like reflections or meditative writings, it is a more practical styled “how to” guide.

Reading it I felt that much of it was simple common sense, and at times even that it was verging on becoming a manual about the sucking of eggs. But on second thoughts I realised if this sense was actually common within the Church then the Church would be a rather different place from that which it is.

It seems that by turns Cottrell countered the narrowness of Reynolds – at the very heart of Cottrell's message is a standard that what matters is the “how” rather than the “what” of a Church's life. It is a challenge to those at the “high” and/or “catholic” end of the Church of England to pull their fingers out and get on with Mission. To often there is a cope out among this sort of Christian that Mission and Evangelism are things for the “happy-clappies” down the road and not for the likes of us. This is, to a certain extent, why Roman Catholics tend to opt for the clunky phrase of “Evangelisation” rather than “Evangelism” in an attempt to side step the some of the theological, and cultural, baggage of the later term.

One of the successes of this book is that Cottrell presents a way forward that can be taken in bite sized chunks. And so he brings the vision of transforming into a missionary community within the realm of the possible, you will be able to see your own Church working through the process (however inward looking and set in its ways it might be!). Offering that kind of hope to the many Christians who frustratedly life and worship within Churches which they know to be poor reflections of the potential they are called to be is one of the greatest services that can be offered to the wider Church.

Not tonight Neil by Ian Gregson

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This is a powerful coming of age story, and the account of the struggles of being an ordinary teenage boy are well pitched.

The bulk of the novel is effectively told by the teenage Dennis, and these part works really well.

However there is an additional layer in which the 42 year old Dennis, who has found fame as a cartoonist by publishing a “graphic novel” of his teenage life, is seeking some kind of closure on that chapter of his life.

This layer is far from successful.

Firstly, I guess the idea that anyone would find “fame” via this route is a stretch. And the contrast between the dramatic but deeply plausible tale about teenage Dennis and this clunky middle-aged narrative is uncomfortable.

Second, another contrast, the teenage tale is essentially claustrophobic, and that is its power, while the middle-aged tale is expansive and in being so is ultimately flat.

The frustration is that the middle-aged layer is not required – the teenage tale stands alone – and I feel Gregson would have benefited from Editor who would have cut this and left the novel stronger as a result.

The Legal History of Wales by Thomas Glyn Watkin

Alan saw this and commented “that looks like an insanely dull book” and I would admit taking account of the title alone this reaction if not totally unreasonable, however...

The scope of the book, packing over 2000 years of history in to a little over 200 pages, is not the dry and straight laced functioning of legal process but the dynamics of power and identity.

This is a book about much more than “the Law”. There are some fascinating insights, for example any enhanced status of women within the Welsh Laws relative to their Anglo-Saxon neighbours was not due to any links to some Celtic Earth Mother (as at times some will suggest) but in fact due to the Welsh seeking to preserve their “civilised” identity as Roman Citizens and continuing significant aspects of Roman Law. While are certain times “Welsh” legal provisions and structures, often arrived at accidentally, set the pattern for future reform in England.

I also learn a lot about the evolution of the legal system in England, which from the time of the Norman conquest onwards has had growing influence in Wales. This speaks about the source of power and authority, such as the ways in which the Crown and, in particular, the Church wrestled with one another as alternate sources of authority.

For so long there has been a single entity “England and Wales” it is important to understand the origins of that status, and the time before when there was “England” and “Wales” (if in fact such a time existed as both England and Wales were slow to form as separate unified entities), if we are to thinking purposefully about the extent of devolution, the potential for independence. While we can go beyond the confines of history as we make the future, we are foolish if we do so without regard for the past.

When we think of “nationhood” we can not avoid Benedict Anderson's “Imagined Communities” - all concepts of “nation” are fictions, that crossing a line drawn on a map you become a foreigner is in essence a nonsense. But some fictions speak truths, while others are clanging bells. The search for the Welsh is to find a fiction, to find a truth, that speaks of a common identity that is more that is more that a negative definition (ie the people who aren't English).

Some Hope by Edward St Aubyn

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As with his first book, Never Mind, we find that Patrick Melrose (aka St Aubyn) is once again a marginal character – it displays a certain kind of mental attitude when you fail to cast yourself in a leading role in your own autobiography, although I am not sure exactly what that attitude is...

All the reviews seem to suggest that St Aubyn's work offers us great insights and revaluations. I found this latest instalment, even more than the early two, to be populated by a cast of pathetic, and generally detestable, individuals self-absorbed in the pity angst of their lives. I am not sure if that is the insight I am mean to be getting?

The next part, Mother's Milk, is the one that got short-listed for the Booker Prize and so I feel maybe having come this far I should get that one but I can't say I am in anyway looking forward to it.

Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell

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This early work of Orwell displays all the quality of writing that you would expect and many of the social themes common to his work get expression here.

However there was for me a tension, Orwell is writing of poverty as a “lived experience” but in certain ways I wonder about the true authenticity of his experience. There is an aspect that makes him feel more of a voyeur that a true participant.

This is particularly true of second half of the book when he has returned to England on the promise of a job arranged by a friend. On arrival in England it turns out there will be a delay of a month before he can take up the position, and so he spends that month tramping around. It calls to mind the song “Common People” by Pulp, especially the lines “you'll never get it right, 'cos when you're laid in bed at night watching roaches climb the wall, If you call your Dad he could stop it all.” Orwell's experience of poverty was ultimately finite while I think a virtual characteristic is exactly the lack of opportunity of escape from the situation.

The other aspect which I struggle with, which I had encountered before in some of his other writings, was his reflection on the different the experience of being a tramp within the “causal wards” of the workhouse for the educated and uneducated man/mind. He feels the enforced idleness of the “causal ward” is a particular hardship on the uneducated who, beyond manual activity, have in Orwell's view no capacity to occupy their minds. The educated man, aka Orwell, could spend this idleness in reflection on Opera, the great works of literature, thinking of Old Masters, etc, and so escape the boredom. Now at one level this is a reasonable conclusion but the differential does not sit easily with me – is there some implied or inherent value judgement lurking here? He seems to be advocating work not education as the solution. I can't quite put my finger on it – is it saying there is a class of people for whom manual labour is a liberating experience, and a class for whom perhaps educated “idleness” is the proper state.

Poppy, flower of hope

Here is a poem that came to me the other day

Poppy, flower of hope...

Do you have faith the size of a poppy seed,
a hard shell, black like the darkest night?

And will you plant it in the barren, tortured, soil,
crying out with your brother's blood?

And watch it grow and brust to flame,
(Red, of martyrs, and of Holy Spirit),
undying life-force rising from the dead?

And will you turn and face the world,
and in the darkness live the chance of light?

Under Another Sky Journeys in Roman Britain by Charlotte Higgins

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This is a travelogue which, like Dr Who, journeys in both time and space. Higgins tours the country visiting Roman sites but their physical presence is not the focus. The heart of this book is the journeys through the relationship that successive generations have had with our Roman past.

This is partly the story to the developments of historical and archaeological practice over the last 300 years or so, a story filled with some delightfully colourful characters. But it is also the story of the wider social understand of the Roman Empire and its lessons for the contemporary self understanding.

The dominance of a “Classical” education during the 18^th and 19^th Centuries drove a desire to make links between the Classical world and our own origins. There was a need to show that we had a share in the inheritance that was being privileged as the gold standard of education and civilisation.

And then during the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries Britain’s own Imperial status patterned our reading of life under Roman rule, that Roman brought civilisation to these islands became a justification for the export of British civilisation to other parts of the globe. After the initial resistance the Ancient Briton was seen to have settled down and embraced the benevolent rule of Rome, so the story went.

And today in our “Post-Colonial” age we tell different stories. We are more ready to see the diversity of the “Roman” population, that there Africans and Arabs stationed on Hadrian's Wall becomes politicised, in both positive and negative ways. We are less certain that Roman rule was benevolent, or that the native population was in such need of external “civilisation”, Rome did not arrive on a blank canvas.

The main lesson is that the past is not as static as we at first imagine, “History” is not a closed book but one that is under constant revision. And the Histories we write often tell us more about ourselves that they do about our ancestors.

Astonishment by Anne Stevenson

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This is a powerful collection of poems, I will share a couple that particularly touched me:

After the Funeral

(for Sally Thorneloe, in memory of Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, killed in Afganistan, 1 July 2009)

Seeing you lost in that enormous hat,

Your face rigid with grief, I thought of how

In love with life you used to be, so much that

'Happy' seemed a word kept warm for you.

Seeing you stunned there in the camera's eye,

Forbidding your chin to undermine your lip,

I knew the knife in you was asking why?

And ceremony couldn't answer it,

Thought they were trying desperately to give

History's unspoken underside a face,

A frame, words and a reason to believe

The afterlife is ordered – like the place

In which, beside his flag-draped coffin, you

Acted, like him, the role you'd been assigned to.

Caring More than Caring

(for Dewi Stephen Jones)

So, we will not meet, we'll never sit

Filling in the silence, smiling bravely,

Chatting about the weather, sipping tea,

As if time's passing mattered not a bit

And age's roughcast could be faced with wit.

Nothings will not be handed on politely,

To lighten hours that otherwise might be

Heavy with language caring won't admit.

My not visiting, your not wanting me -

What could bring us closer to understanding

The unsaid rules of truth and poetry?

Not playing well is sometimes more demanding

Than playing to win, where winning would be lying,

Where losing is a kind of setting free.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

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Having devoured Michelle Paver's Wolf Brother books I was keen to read this “adult” story. I was really pleased to find the same quality of story telling and sense of place. I found myself transported to the Arctic and to the darkness, and felt that I was really inhabiting the experience

This is a powerful study of the human response to loneliness, that as social beings, in the absence of interaction the mind fills in the gaps, even if that involves conjuring unwelcome ghosts into existence. The question it leaves is whether terrors of the mind are more or less powerful than dangers of the “real” world around us.

There was an echo of Wolf Brother because in his isolation the Jack bonds with one of the dogs, a relationship a kin to Torak and Wolf.

At one point one of the characters quotes a Norwegian saying “If you're warm enough when you set out, you're wearing too many clothes” - I am not sure if this will be a real Norwegian saying or an invention of Paver's. Either way it certainly captures a great piece of wisdom about how we approach life. The phrase “comfort zone” is over used, but it is true that if we never allow ourselves to feel a little of the cold we will never be able to progress. In trying to protect ourselves and avoid all risk we will in fact smother and suffocate ourselves.