The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford

 

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

Early in the book Rachel Anne tells us that “My Mother hates to have the island pulled about by visitors and tourists in the books they write.”, and we repeatedly have attention drawn to the islanders mixed emotions about the tourists, needed for money but resented for their fetishising of the islands “primitive charm”, which creates a tension as reader – how are either we or Gifford different from those tourists. There is a mystique around St Kilda – we might try to be enlightened observers – but I don’t think Gifford referencing the tourists as she does is sufficient to stop us falling into the same traps.

But within those constrains Gifford sets up a compelling love story – one which holds it power in separation for which its happy ever after ending is a little flat.

The Character of Virtue, Letters to a Godchild by Stanley Hauerwas

 Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

I remain in two minds about this book…

The introduction by Sam Wells, in which he sings the praises of Stanley Hauerwas, feels like it is mostly there to remind us how clever Sam Wells is in selecting someone of the standing of Hauerwas to be Godfather. And there is something about the whole project that is an affectation – I none of the letter Stanley (as this feels like a collection that puts you on first name terms), Stanley notes that his wife has asked if he is writing the letter with the intension that they will be published – a question about who he was writing for – and you wonder how much of a say Laurie Wells had in the decision to publish “his” letters – it would all feel more authentic if they were being published by Laurie in later life having treasured them.

As the letters go on Laurie as a particular person being addressed begins to emerge, a little, and I think that helps to ground the collection. It also helps to give that sense of Stanley writing as an old man speaking to Laurie’s youth – that intergenerational dialogue is so rare, and it feels very precious.

There is also an unease that this is a conversation taking place very much in the context of privilege, something that Stanley acknowledges – but it doesn’t manage to break out of this.

These are nevertheless strong reflections as one would expect from Hauerwas. In the letter on Kindness I found these word stand out “To be kind is to know when not to speak because nothing can be said that is not false.” and the way he draws out kindness and constancy seemed to be the core for me.

And toward the end of the book, in the letter Faith, a longer quote (as it is not a book that offers up quotes easily – ideas are shared across the whole of a letter not a sound-bite)

“Which finally bring me back to the world you’re confronting in boarding school. Not too long ago, to be English and to be Christian were assumed to be pretty much the same. To ‘be of the Christian faith’ suggested a status rather than a virtue that was the result of habits acquired by undertaking an arduous task or journey. You didn’t need to be on a journey because it was assumed you had arrived. Happily, that world, the world in which being English and being Christian were assumed to be equivalent, is now gone. So to be the son of a mother who’s a bishop means you had better have faith in God because, in no doubt very different ways, God has found a way to make your life odd. I think you’ll discover that to be odd and to be a person of faith may be different ways of saying ‘I’m a Christian.’ But I think you’ll find nothing is more important than you ability to say ‘I have faith in God, the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit.’”

The Forward Book of Poetry 2017

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers  

Some poems that particularly spoke to me…

Kathryn Maris “It was discovered that gut bacteria were responsible”

Ron Carey’s “Upstairs”, which concludes

“And she says nothing she says, nothing.

Leaving me, afraid

That everything might be said and done and said

And she has taken all the cold of the earth into herself.”

Kate Dempsey reads her poem “While it Lasted” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZfTLCnxhOg

Andy Fletcher “the atlas”

we used to read the atlas together

you said

‘an atlas can take you anywhere

the more you look the more you see’

you pointed at a river

a frontier

a peninsula i’d never heard of

sometimes you’d lean closer to the pages

and i’d feel your breath on my hand

occasionally we’d make a few notes

at some point

we must have closed the atlas

not realising

we wouldn’t open it again

the furthest you move now

is from one side of the bed to the other

a peninsula everyone knows about

as the nurse

writes on a sheet of paper in a file

your breathing is shallow and fast

and more i listen the more i hear

How not to be a Boy by Robert Webb

 Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

 

A thought as a preamble … The copy I have from the library I have has a celebratory quote from J.K.Rowling front and centre of the cover, which given the ongoing outcry about her views on Trans people I guess the publisher might now reconsider. Since finishing the book, there has also been criticism for Robert Webb, who some time ago tweeted that the charity Mermaids “sucks”, but also more recently in an interview declined to distance himself from the tweet – none of which seems to fit with the underlying message I took from the book, ie that our current gender norms are essentially destructive. But it is also interesting that in their report of this Pink News referred to him as a Cambridge Educated Millionaire – this fact seemingly deployed to de-legitimise his ability to past comment - an awkward piece of inverted snobbery, being educated at Cambridge and/or a millionaire are not qualifications to speak on Trans issues, but neither would they, in themselves, appear to be disqualifications.

I have been putting off writing up this book as it touched more than one nerve, but it also it doesn’t seem to have settled. The narrative arc is one of poor boy made good, that Webb makes it to Cambridge, and then makes it as an actor and writers, is achieved against the odds – some the odds of circumstance and some, as he admits, self-inflicted. It is a beguiling tale in which Webb includes sufficient self-flagellation to remain a sympathetic character but there is a lingering unease that I can’t quiet place. Maybe just that it appears to be written in a moment of hope and contentment, but life doesn’t end come to such a tidy state, there is ebb and flow – where will the cycle go next?

The are two key themes, one about the ways insecurity, in general, plays out in counter-productive behaviours, and the other about the special role of the dysfunctions of masculinity play in that.

It is not a new reflection that “...if you’re especially frightened and insecure… then membership of the in-group is best secured by showing the maximum contempt for an out-group...” (p54) – this can be seen on the inter-personal and the geopolitical scale – talk of Reds under the Bed spoke more about America insecurities than it ever did about a Soviet threat. But it is interesting to get this rounded account of how that truth has been playing out in an individual’s life.

There were some points of common experience, such as our hair, and a nagging jealously of those with easy to manage hair, which will causally flop into place, meanwhile it is true for us that we could both say “I’ve lost my angelic curls, thanks God, but if I try to grow my hair long it just gets frizzy and big...” (p128). And also, those that I was at University with were amazed that I could go on a “night out” before an exam, as Webb says “I’m pretty sure I’m handling this exam pressure brilliantly by pretending to feel no such thing.” (p276) before recounted various physical manifestations of the stress which were familiar to me.

In many ways these could seem insignificant but are part of a wider picture of an undercurrent of insecurity. These then move from an undercurrent to an acute issue for him as a result of specific life events, most significantly the early death of his Mother – this book appears to be a major cathartic response to that.

Then turn to the dysfunctions of masculinity. He takes issue with “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, and the many other books of its like, as they exist “not to question the different expectations placed on men and women: they’re there to excuse and reinforce them, usually with a truckload of hokey metaphors and dodgy-looking science.” (p295). It is sad that as a culture we continue to embed gender stereotypes on children from their earliest moments, god-awful gender reveal parties being just the tip of a destructive iceberg. Where the stereotypes are challenged at all it is generally in terms to encouraging girls to aspire to “male-dominated” work roles – commendable as that is it we are not simultaneously empowering boys to aspire to “female-dominated” work roles the task will always remain incomplete. One of the things that I dislike about Strictly Come Dancing is the constant need for them to make Ore Oduba apologise for crying on the show – it might be wrapped in a light-hearted “banter” but the message remains clear real men don’t cry...

It may be a dip dip dip but it has real consequences – be it violence against women or the rates of young male suicide – as a society we need to be actively tackling this – it causes the isolation that many men experience - “Masculine insistence on competition and one-upmanship didn’t make a genuine friendship impossible, but, to put it mildly, that really didn’t help at all.” (p 86) – the protective power of friendship, the friend that can call out destructive behaviour, is too often absent.

Webb sums this up says “I promise I am not being wilfully dense about this. I don’t know what the words ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ have to offer. Avoiding them, we still have a massive language… [which can describe people without being] … pre-loaded with a steam tanker of gender manure from the last century.” (p87)

He is self-critical for his own tendency to be drawn in to social media point scoring – which probably brings us round to the preamble again - in the polarised world of social media, we are increasingly encouraged to think of them and us, you are either right or wrong, a good person or a bad, the shade of grey, the complex, the nuance is denied. Reflecting on his relationship with his Father, how far their lives and their views diverged, but the love that held them together he sees it as a “kind of forced empathy that villages, not just families, are rather good at.” (p308) – throw together you have to get along, get over the difference – you can’t retreat to the echo chamber.

He also reflects, uncomfortably, about his drinking – while I was reading this that was a mirror held up too close to home.

To end a poem written by his wife, Abbie

Wedding Day

This, they say, is the best it gets -

this glorious day, so let’s

have this glorious day and kiss Goodnight,

and wake up hungover and fight.

And make up and kiss Goodnight,

and wake up and make jokes:

some good, and make plans

and kiss Goodnight and sleep

and hold hands.

And wake up and insist and be wrong

and laugh like monkeys, without understanding, and be right.

And then let’s kiss

and kiss

and kiss

and kiss

and kiss

and kiss Goodnight,

and sleep

and keep each other warm

and wake up

and take up each other’s cause

and forsake all others, for as long as the light lasts.

And then let’s kiss our last Goodnight

And oh! Christ let me dream of your sweet face then.

Tigerman by Nick Harkaway

 Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

Harkaway provides a complex context for this story, the island of Mancreu, with its environmental damage and international governance arrangements – and it felt to me that there was too much going on – you were being pushed to suspend disbelief in too many directions at once.

Within this is placed Lester Ferris and “the Boy” - characters that are a bit clunky but there is a humanity about then which you can warm to. While around them is a cast of cardboard cut out clichés.

I will try to avoid spoilers, but I found the ending completely unsatisfactory – you get to page 344 out of 372 and the identity of “Bad Jack” is revealed and it makes no sense (even in the midst of the barely plausible wider narrative…).

I think it would have been a better book if it had been stripped back, a lot the goepolitical complexity was just noise, the bonding of Lester and “the Boy” was where the interest was, and in that relationship was the spark that drew the washed up Lester out of himself and allowed him to become his best self – that would have made a sharp novella which sadly got lost in this somewhat flabby novel.

Anointing in Worship by Charles Read and Phillip Tovey

I don’t normally write up  Grove Booklets but this one rang some bells the felt particularly worthy of comment (or maybe an excuse to go off, simultaneously, on a tangent and on a rant).

I got the sense that Read and Tovey might be coming at the issue from the other end of the candle from me, but I think we reach similar conclusions on the issue of use of oil and anointing. Basically, in the words of the great liturgical thinker Len Goodman, “too much messing about”.

How times have, suddenly, changed –this was published in May 2020 so written, I assume, pre-COVID, but what will be the liturgical role of touch be now Bishops have to anti-bac their hands before, and after, laying them on anyone?

To paraphrase - the argument Read and Tovey advance is: 1) there is no clear Biblical or Patristic precedent for anointing with oil, and even when there is evidence that it happened the meaning attached to it is not articulated. 2) Medieval practice institutionalised the practice but within the context of wider muddling of what was important – what I might characterise as liturgy as “magic spell” rather than “mystery”. 3) Anointing went at the Reformation in the general cull of all but the “essential” – although unlike some practices it went without much debate about what was either good or bad about it. 4) It was then absence from Church of England practice for centuries until seeming to come from nowhere in the second half of Twentieth Century, and we now busily anoint anyone who moves, as well as anyone who stands still (or lies on sick bed) too long.

A lot of this links to questions about the purpose of Maundy Thursday Chrism Masses – which seem to somehow have become focal point for some of the worse tendencies towards egotistical clericalism within the Church of England (the Vicar goes to be reaffirmed that ordination did actually make them special, and to collect the magic oils blessed by the most holy Bishop, which they will administer to their wretched Parishioners as and when they determine them deserving) but lets unpack that gross simplification another time...

The most telling comment comes in an anecdote about new Vicar questioning being anointed during their induction as an echo of the anointing they had received at their ordination, because they had not, in fact, been anointed at ordination so how could there be an echo. The Rural Dean’s response was “that it did not matter if it was lacking in meaning as it was, in any case, a nice thing to do.”

I think this is indicative of a wider malaise we often encounter within the CofE, especially among its Clergy, that involves going through the motions because it is a “nice thing to do” rather than engaging with the sacraments as life changing, world changing, actions. The Church of England lives under the tyranny of being “nice”, but also has a problem with not really believing in God.

During COVID the way restrictions have been applied to the Church shows us that within the thinking of Government, and the Civil Service, the Church is seen as a very useful charitable body with a great track record of delivering community support, especially in hard to reach places, while Church Services are essentially just entertainment. I don’t think those are actually unreasonable lens secular decision makers to view the Church through, but it does worry me that the Church’s own response might suggest our Bishops see the Church in much the same way.

I characterise myself as a Charismatic Catholic – and the key reason for that is the belief that our actions have meaning, and have consequence – we live in a world where there are signs and wonders, and they have power. To do something meaningless because it is “nice” doesn’t make at lot of sense to me – this is not just about theology, it is also learning styles / personality types and which ever test it is I am always in the bit of the grid / circle that tends towards telling the people the truth rather than telling them what tell would like to hear, Benthamite Calculus that prefers a nice falsehood over an uncomfortable truth has never been for me…

I have no dogmatic objection to anointing, and I think it has the potential to be used powerfully, but if done it needs to be done with purpose and intention – there must be some sort of answer to the question “what difference did that just make?” As I get older I worry less about doctrinal precision, and it has never exactly been my greatest worry, we don’t have to be certain about the mechanics of the Grace received in a sacramental action but we need to believe that something happened, or what is the point?

You Are Ready! By Eric Carle

can be found on Abe 

I am charmed by this most recent book from Eric Carle – my copy arrived at a moment in the COVID situation when we were about to get some easing of lockdown, so the subtitle “The World Is Waiting” felt like it captured the Zeitgeist – but in the weeks that followed it seems the World will have to wait a little longer.

I love Eric Carle but I am not sure about books like this, there is no story arch, the images are his greatest hits – they are strong but we have seen them before – and I worry this is the product of the corporate machine rather than the artistic talent.

But then I love the words, they are so sharp, if the corporate machine produced this I guess I underestimate its capabilities?