Bad News by Edward St Aubyn

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The second of the “Patrick Melrose” novels.

The cast of the first novel are a dislikeable collection of individuals – but the is a certain perverse pleasure in observing them being cruel to one another. In this novel the attention is focused more firmly on Patrick Melrose, who is really a fringe character in the first, but this means it is really an encounter with a single dislikeable individual and as such lacked the dynamic that kept me engaged with the first.

There are the same questions about the relationship between fiction and reality arise given the declared autobiographical nature of the story. The child Patrick was absent from the scenes of much of the action in the first novel and therefore the author was not a witness to the events, yet it is also questionable the extent that the drug addict Patrick can be treated as a reliable witness to the events the author recounts in this time. But then we can ask if any of us are actually reliable witness to our own experiences, isn't all autobiography primarily fiction?

Greenbelt 2014

Other than the two Outerspace sessions, which I had a hand in organising, my Greenbelt was filled with music, most of it from the Canopy, but also some from the Glade stage. I even failed to make my usual homage at the feet of Padraig O Tuama.

There was a buzz around the festival about Vicky Beeching – but I couldn't really join in because I don't really know who she is (despite the fact that she seems to be following me on twitter and, this is just a guess but, my money is on the fact that she doesn't really know who I am either). There was one point while I was looking after the Outerspace stall when somebody was talking earnestly about the terrible things Vicky had been through, and I had to resort to “nod and smile” tactics, because it really didn't seem like the moment to mention that I hadn't read her interview in the Independent, and so while I didn't doubt her courage I didn't actually know what she had been courageous about.

This is not a criticism of Vicky Beeching (I mean the last thing I want to do is offend one of my followers...) but that experience is indicative of the fact that for all its talk of dialogue and diversity there is a lot of “group-think” at Greenbelt. Greenbelt does provide “diversity” by being different from other (Christian) festivals – but, for me at least, it is less clear how wide the acceptable range of opinion “within” Greenbelt actually is. I don't mind that Greenbelt/Greenbelters have an agenda – I think I just get a little weary of some of the self-congratulation based on the belief that they don't.

I have never been one to over do talks, one a day has always seemed plenty, but this year I really struggled to find the motivation to hear anybody, I guess I had no desire for “words”. Perhaps there is a tiredness, it must be 30 years since my first socio-political action when we took part in a “Walk for the World” (and yes we did “get the T-Shirt”), one of my earliest memories is going to collect some stock from the local "Traidcraft Lady", and while in absent minded moments I still find myself singing 1970s protest songs if we are honest it was not peaceful women's songs but the excess of its own insanity that defeated the Cold War. And so somehow Greenbelt doesn't energise me with hope, I increasingly find myself seeing Greenbelt not as a radical expression of the new society but more as a soporific. It allows people to comfort themselves that they do “care” without the need for fundamental change or challenge to their lifestyle or society at large. There is much spirited talk of anti-capitalism, but ultimately it is consumerism that drives the festival. But I will not throw stones, I am aware of my glass house – my life is lived far from the commune or the peace-camp.

I also found myself averse to the worship, and this was more troubling to me as I have often been a bit of a worship junkie at Greenbelt. OK I have never “done” the Greenbelt Communion – I have learnt to own the fact that I don't worship in crowds, it is the mid-week Communion and the 8 O’clock that are my natural worshipping contexts. But too much of the worship programme felt like it was primarily there as an opportunity for the organisers to demonstrate how clever they were – little seemed to create simple space for an encounter with God. I clearly critique unfairly that which I did not participate in – I speak, perhaps, from a place of underlining alienation. I remain heartbroken by the House of Bishops' Valentines message – what shocked me was not that the Bishops could pronounce with such cruelty and/or stupidity but that I cared. I thought I was long past caring about the thoughts of Bishops, and yet they had created a barrier I couldn't cross, getting off the bus that Sunday I turned away from the Church and walked home. Living out the metaphor that “Home” and “Church” lie in opposite directions was all too stark. I go now but don't belong because I leave my vulnerability at home, and so I am not open to the experience which makes it very hard for Jesus' love to heal the wound.

Eucharistic Epicleses, Ancient and Modern by Anne McGowan

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This is a fine example of exactly why I enjoy being part of the Alcuin Club. This book, published as the club's annual “Collection”, takes you deeper into a topic which the “causal” reader rarely gets the opportunity to explore.

The Eucharistic Epicleses became a point of controversy during the Reformation and a point of ecumenical consensus during the twentieth century (at least in terms of its text, if not always its actual meaning). Therefore its exploration is informative of much wider dynamics than its few lines of prayer might at first suggest.

The review of the “Ancient” Epicleses once again reveals that the Liturgical Reform of the twentieth century was not based of such firm foundations as the reformers believed. The appeal to an early and universal Eucharistic prayer from which later practice diverged is now seen as invalid. It is now accepted that this “first” prayer is unlikely to have ever existed – in fact the movement of the church has generally been from diversity in liturgy toward uniformity rather than the other way around.

The review of the “Modern” shows that while during the later half of the twentieth century there was wide spread adoption of “ecumenical” texts and borrowing of texts form denomination to denomination, the use of common words masks the continuing divergence of belief. We use the same words to say very different things about the church, the Eucharist, God, and the Spirit. Some may see this with sadness – but for me that is OK. The worry is not that we believe different things but in fact we too often fool ourselves into thinking we believe the same things when we don't. This pretence is disrespectful, to ourselves and to one another. We should be big enough to embrace one another as fellow disciples in the acknowledgement of our difference, rather than insist on being shoe-horned into a common “truths” we do not own.

Mission Shaped Evangelism by Steve Hollinghurst

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The usefulness of this book is as a reminder that the dynamics of contemporary culture are far more complex that is mostly allowed for.

Too often it is stated that society is becoming more “secular” - however the decline in Church-going and awareness of the Christian message is not the same as secularisation. People exist in, and with, an increasing mix of beliefs, self-made, borrowed, at times contradictory, but never to be underestimated.

Those beyond the life of the Church are not a blank canvas waiting for us, it is one failing of courses such as, but not only, Alpha – they forget to begin by asking what people already believe and instead launch into a pre-packaged download of “Christianity”.

The challenge is that, accepting Hollinghurst presentation, the future of the Church will be wholly unlike the institutions we have today, and in particular the “generalist” parochial approach of the Church of England will be unsustainable. It is a hard message for those of us whose Christian being and identity has been nurtured and continues within the parochial. But of course I don't remember Jesus says it was going to be easy – somehow it reminds me of the encounter, in Luke 9, Jesus said ‘Follow me.’ The man said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus replied, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’

Eyrie by Tim Winton

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This is a novel that deals with life shaped by emotional breakdown and addiction.

The encounter with the central character, Tom Keely, is painful – he is trapped in a cycle of, in many ways self-inflicted, failure. But I also found it somehow hypnotic, a character that I did not wish to turn my back on.

Through the friendship that forms between him and the boy, Kia, is a source of hope. Kia gives Tom a reason to live – even if his struggles mean that life remains chaotic.

Events become darker – the writer, Tim Winton, powerfully invokes a sense of menace and of powerlessness – and so Tom's actions, which are clearly irrational, begin to take on a twisted logic.

The novel ends quite suddenly, in a kind of flash of lightening. I have read the last few pages a couple of times – and I am not exactly sure what happens – but the immediate menace is, I think, overcome.

But for the fragile and broken, for Tom and Kia, it seems hard to imagine and kind of straightforward “happy ever after” - we are not given any, and I am glad, it would have been an insult to the reader if Winton had even hinted one.

Ghost Hunter by Michelle Paver

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This is the concluding part of the “Chronicles of Ancient Darkness” and there is a worry about the approach of the end of a 6 novel tale – endings are often the most difficult part of the story to get right.

The emotion that has run through the earlier books is maintained, as is the concluding willingness to place death as a key part of the narrative. Even as an adult reader there is a shock value to some of the moments when violence breaks into a domestic scene and I think that is great merit to allowing children to encounter such content and explore the implications.

The need to make choices between two imperfect futures, or two equally uncomfortable actions, is also a good lesson – we should have no expectation that doing what is “right” will involve doing what is easy.

I hope these comments do not make it seem that this is a “worthy” moral tale – as to me such a tale is likely to sound rather dull. I have been captivated and drawn on through these books by the drama and sense of authenticity in the characterisation. Read these books because they are great stories everything else is an incidental bonus.

The Final Cut by Michael Dobbs

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This is the concluding part of the Francis Urquhart trilogy and once again that is an interesting mix of insight into the moment of its writing alongside a contemporary mirror to our current politics.

For example part of the plot relies on events, past and present, in Cyprus which is portrayed as a far away “Banana Republic” - a very dated picture of what is now a fellow EU Member State.

One thing I found intriguing was the similarity of the cross country march of Makepeace, this novel's rival to Urquhart, and the tour of the King in the last book. This displays a believe on the part of Dobbs in the divide between the Westminster bubble and the “real world” - but also the belief that it is possible to escape the bubble and quite readily establish “authentic” encounters with “real” people. I think we accept the existence of the Westminster bubble but I wonder if the idea of a senior politician being able to step out of the bubble is so plausible today.

And even if they could – is there anyone out there to respond anymore? In part the dynamics of social media are corrosive to authenticity. In a week where some have transitioned from hashtaging protests at events in Gaza to protests at events in the bake-off tent and back again – seemingly without a change of tone or the bat of an eye-lid - it is hard to maintain too much faith in “real” people.

While this is another gripping read it is a fairly depressing one, the negatives are all too believable while its glimmers of hope seem fanciful.