Well the general consensus of the Book Group yesterday was that we didn’t hate the book, but we couldn’t really say we liked it either. There were parts which we did like, parts which we loved, parts that made us laugh and parts that made us confused as to why they were there and each of us had our own theory as to what the common thread of the book was - love, clean and unclean, survival, legalism, faith, hope or the ark.
Would I recommend it, well yes and no, that about says it all.
That was the title of the Book that the Book Group were discussing and while the obvious was indeed the case, it was set during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537. The title also proved to be very true with regard to the people of the time and the characters in the novel. Written by C J Sansom it is the first in the series of novels about Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer and supporter of the Reformation who is given the task by Cromwell of finding out what has been going on in the Monastery at Scarnsea in Kent.
Basically it is a ‘who done it?’ however it is also far more than that, as a historical novel it is well written and researched, it is also peppered with theology and the angst of trying to discern what God’s will actually is. It is a human tale about a community of monks, their servants, Shardlake and his assistant and while it is set in the 16th century the tales it tells are as true and relevant today. Power and money change people, they bring about corruption and deceit, and even when a cause seems right epiphanies can happen which turn everything upside down.
If you are looking for some light reading all of the Book Group would recommend it, if you know little about the period and are not really into reading heavy tombs on history, you will learn much as you follow Shardlake around the monastery cloisters and try like him to discover who murdered Robin Singleton.
On a Thursday I do the swim run. That means getting up at 6am to drive to Hamilton then waiting and bringing ‘E’ back again after she has done her mornings training. The getting up isn’t much fun but it is a wonderful hour of guilt free reading when I get there. Currently the book is Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir, subtitled ‘By the wrath of God, Queen of England’. Fascinating book which I haven’t finished yet, but this morning the subtitle distracted me and I am now flinging it out into the blogsphere to see if it also distracts you.
Is that a good or a bad thing, to be something or somebody by God’s wrath?
This book which had been hailed by many was not one that had caught my attention, in fact if I had seen it chances might have been I would have passed right by, however the Book Group choose it so I read it, and pleasantly surprised I was too.
The characters stories are told out in the first person, for the most, and through their stories and experiences we learn about prejudice, preconceptions, discontentment, pride, patriotism, duty and the power of the human spirit to endure and adapt.
Dealing chiefly with post-war immigration and racial prejudice the book weaves a careful and clever tale, never being condescending despite the subject matter and with enough wit that I found myself laughing out loud in places. Queenie, Gilbert, Hortense and Bernard all have their stories to tell from Jamaica to England, from India to America, we can read of the background of these people lives that lead them to the be in the same house in London in 1948. The book is easy to read and draws you in to want to know more, we were all left speculating about what happened to the characters once the book ended.
We would certainly all recommend it.
The island in question, Spingalonga, Greece’s former leper colony were the history of Alexis’ family is shrouded in her mother’s secrecy.
I can’t say I really enjoyed this book, I knew nothing of Spingalonga and to that end it was informative and I was curious about the history Sofia had buried in her past and was reluctant to share with her daughter, but the book probably wouldn’t have been finished if it hadn’t been for the fact it was this months Book Group book. I was however the lone voice in feeling this way about the book as everyone else enjoyed it, so while I wouldn’t recommend it myself, others would, so the answer is probably read it for yourself and see what you think.
I bought this book nearly 10 years ago now, when I went into Waterstone’s to buy two other books. They had an offer on at the time and with the two books I wanted in hand I browsed though the other books looking for a third to make my purchase qualify. At the time there was a display of books marking the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, this book grabbed my attention as it had had some publicity, although it was about WWI not WWII. I took it home and put in on my pile of books to read, but somehow it never made it to the top, eventually in some tidy up or other getting put away in the bookshelves. So when *B* suggested we read it at the Book Group I was delighted to dust it off and finally get around to reading it.
The first part was something of a surprise, in it we were introduced to the central character Stephen, but it was not what I had expected at all, there was no war, no gore, no accounts of trench warfare, it is a touching and beautifully written story about passion and forbidden love, one which could have easily stood by itself as a short novel at just over 100 pages.
The second part propelled me into what I had expected with the rest of the book was also peppered with accounts of those who fought, died, survived and lived in and under the battlefields of France during the first World War. Between these accounts we were thrown forward in time to the 1970’s and a women’s quest, Elizabeth, to discover herself by discovering her families past.
The book is wonderfully written although, for me at least, the introduction of Elizabeth was a little early and jarred, however on the other hand, through her eyes a journey of discovery and understanding is told which I believe has eluded many of us who have no first hand knowledge of what went on in those foreign fields, forever part of Britain. The characters are alive and vital even in the misery and squalor they are portrayed in, the story in turn engaged and enraged me; the ending made sense while making no sense at all; the book as a whole was both delightful and harrowing; the final page read the book was littered with post-it tags marking pages, passages, sentences, words. This is not an easy book, but it is an easy book to read; it is not a comforting book, but it ends on a note of comfort; it is not a light subject matter, but it certainly didn’t deserve to be sitting on a bookshelf for nearly 10 years!
My grandfather fought in Burma during WWII and never spoke of it, I could hear him speak though some of the pages. When soliders were described I could see the picture of him, which always hung on his and my grandmothers living room wall, smartly dressed in his uniform. He may have seen different horrors, but I now have a fresh understanding of why he didn’t want to recount them, although a part of me still wishes he had.
Remembrance Sunday approaches and there are many who think the time to remember is coming to an end, as the numbers of ex-servicemen decrease in number each year with time completing what bombs and bullets couldn’t do. There are those that believe any kind of Remembrance gives justification to continued wars. There are also those that think any act of Remembrance is some kind of glorification of war. I think such thoughts are misguided for me that isn’t what Remembrance is about. Every time there is a programme about ex-servicemen returning to those fields once scattered with bodies and now regimented with row after row of gravestones, it is not about victory they speak, it is about the men that were lost. Those who fought, who saw friends and companions die don’t want to recount the details, but neither do they want to forget the price. There is no hiding from the futility of war the countless lives lost, families and communities destroyed. But, if we forget the true cost of war, not in pounds or dollars but in lives then we are running the risk of loosing our very humanity.
For those of my generation and younger this book can put faces and names to the horrors of war, fictional ones maybe, but does that matter? The names and faces may be different but the consequences and realities of war are the same. This coming Sunday I plan to read out two passages of the book, lest we forget what Remembrance Sunday should really be all about.
And what about the rest of the Book Group you may be wondering. Well there was totally agreement that it wasn’t a book any of us would have picked to read but we were all glad that we have now read it and would recommend it.
The biggest surprise in this book which has caused such a storm is that it says nothing new, including assumptions. As one would expect from any book out to slam religion it does contains many of the old arguments, including that religion has been the cause of countless wars, and people of faith have treated others throughout history badly. Religion doesn’t cause wars, difference of opinions and the way people choose to resolve them cause wars. Yes often one faith group might be on one side and another faith group on another, but the wars are over land, or rights, or resources in the main. As for the treatment of others by those of faith, yes there has been some horrific examples, but then there are horrific examples of people treating others badly all through history regardless of faith, people abuse power, in and out of faith settings, that is a fault of people not of religion. If Dawkins think that without religion there would be no wars, no injustice, no oppression and no hatred then he is far more deluded than he would like to claim those of faith are.
Dawkins starts by admitting that it is not easy to answer why a similar experience can lead people in different directions, so rather than wrestling with that difficult question he immediately dismisses it. He quotes from Carl Sagan, who claimed that religion keeps God little; on the contrary the God of the Jew, the Muslim and the Christian is one who is awesome, omnipresent, beyond understanding, a God who is bigger than we can even begin to imagine or conceive. Transcendent wonder is no more limited to the pursuit of science than it is to the pursuit of religion, quickly I was left wondering why he was so determined to separate the two. And almost as quickly he answered my question, because he wanted to put God in a box to contain God into a space which suited his theory, he wants the understanding of God to stand still in a past time while he welcomes and relishes the way science moves forward. God, any god, according to Dawkins should be no more than “a supernatural creator that is ‘appropriate for us to worship’.” However, that limited description is not one that sits comfortably when pertaining to the God whom I worship.
He frequently introduces red herrings, like the one about monotheistic chauvinism in Scottish and English law, or the Church’s strivings in trying to explain the Trinity; however he is profoundly wrong in stating that theology has not moved on in eighteen centuries! He scoffs at beliefs just as people scoffed at Da Vinci for suggesting that people could fly in something we know call a helicopter. He quotes Thomas Jefferson to legitimise his right to ridicule those of faith – ‘Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.’ So having set his case that it is okay for him to ridicule religion, (presumably because he doesn’t understand it fully, due in no small part to the fact he has put God in a box), along with his own statement that there is no evidence for theological opinion either way. He makes the assumption that how one person of faith acts, is how all people of faith act, by his own admission Christianity, Judaism and Islam are different but for his purposes he will treat them as indistinguishable. Not satisfied with putting God in a box he now decides he will put all those of any faith in the same box. This is where the book, and consequently his argument, looses all credibility. Just like you can not class all people who choose to wear Levi jeans as robbers just because a robber chooses to wear Levi jeans to commit a robbery you can not say all those of faith are the same, act the same and think the same just because they are people of faith. However he is quick to defend his own, as it were, to make sure we don’t, horror of horrors, box all atheists together. When it comes to morals he is quick to defend atheism when Hitler and Stalin are mentioned, rightly pointing out religion has no monopoly on morals and their atheism (disputed in Hitler’s case), can not be seen as having any impact on the actions they took. He acknowledges morals have changed with understanding using the phrase ‘the Zeitgeist moves on’. This of course suits his argument morals can move on, science can move on, but religion has to be the same and stay the same!
The most interesting revelation in this section is that Dawkins himself says that he classes himself as someone who can not know for certain but thinks that there is a very low probability of God, is he in danger of becoming delusional himself? Or to put it another way, Dawkins asks ‘If science cannot answer some ultimate question, what makes anybody think that religion can? Maybe he would be better wrestling with the question ‘If science cannot answer some ultimate question, what makes anybody think that religion can’t?’ And by the way Richard, if you happen to be reading this, I am a priest and don’t dread the advance of science!
Dawkins main thrust is that all Christians believe the same, and for the majority of his arguments that, in his view, means all Christians are creationalists, which they most definitely aren’t. Of course one of the major flaws in Dawkins insistence on the Darwinian Imperative, is that humankind is refusing to fall into the pattern, is tinkering with nature and altering natural selection and consequently possibly evolution itself, at an increasing rate.
There are many, I would hazard to say the majority of those with faith who would agree with Dawkins view on extremists, but why does he want to throw the baby out with the bath water? This is just about as far from following scientific principals as Dawkins and I am on the subject of faith. Dawkins starts chapter 8 – What’s wrong with religion? Why be so hostile? - by saying: ‘I do not, by nature, thrive on confrontation.’ Only to further on in the chapter say what I see as the most confrontation statement in this whole book and for the second and last time Dawkins lost all credibility – ‘Our Western politicians avoid mentioning the R word (religion), and instead characterize their battle as a war against ‘terror’, as though terror were a kind of spirit of force, with will and a mind of its own.’ Terror might not have any spirit or force of it’s own but it is real enough for those who live in terror, I don’t like the word used in this context for other reasons but try as I might, no matter how many times I read that sentence, I was left with the impression that Dawkins would rather there was a ‘war on religion’!
Basically this book is saying that if there is anything that you do, think, or say that doesn’t have a benefit, in the Darwinian sense, to it then you are delusional, but in particular religion, which of course only has bad points according to Dawkins. So give up growing plants in your garden, unless they are for food; sport, unless you take part; making origami Chinese junks, unless you are trying to prove some scientific theory; give up going to the movies for a night out, going to the pub for a drink, going to a foreign beach to sit in the sun; because they too like religion can be ‘time-consuming, wealth-consuming, hostility-provoking rituals … anti-factual, counter-productive fantasies.’
All in all the book is entertaining, but not a serious work in my view, at one point Dawkins says about Douglas Adams, to whom the book is dedicated, “I hope this book might have made you laugh …” Well it certainly made me laugh, though I suspect in places that Dawkins wasn’t hoping Adams might.
The book closes with the following lines: “… I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding. Even better, we may eventually discover there are no limits.’ I wonder Richard; does that include the possibility of discovering that God is no delusion?
One of the things that had to be cast aside due to my op the other week was a planned visit to Channel 4’s Taste Festival at The Meadows in Edinburgh. For those of you who are unaware of what this event is all about it could probably best be described as a grand farmers market, with restaurants rather than farmers displaying their wares.
Being in no fit state to go and not wanting the tickets to go to waste my brother and a friend were dispatched to go and enjoy it in our stead, and enjoy it they did, bringing back a goodie bag for the us who missed the culinary delights. One of the items in the goodie bag was a book by Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall called ‘Hugh Fearlessly Eats It All’. Over the past weeks I have been dipping in and out the book, it is basically a collection of articles he has written for various publications, it makes for good reading especially as it can be read in chunks. Having just finished the book I thought I might blog about it and share a few witty lines with you but instead I have decided to encourage you to go and beg, borrow or buy your own copy and for a taster go here to the River Cottage website which has the quiz contained in the back of the book, and see how you get on. I got 22 out of 28, but a couple of them were lucky guesses.
This book was recommended to me as a good read by someone who doesn’t attend church so I was especially curious about it.
Basically it is an historical novel, and a novel with a capital ‘N’. It is clear that Rice has done much research into the history and culture of the time, but while the background is based on fact the story is pure fiction.
The main subject, as the title suggests, is Jesus as a young boy journeying back from Egypt to Nazareth, and his discoveries about who he really is and what impact his birth had on the community he was born into. Written in the first person it gives us one persons thoughts into how Jesus might have felt and reacted as he discovered who he really was and what that meant to the people around him even before his public ministry began. However it is speculation, and for this reader at least, it didn’t portray a picture of Jesus familiar to me, apart maybe from the way he would search out quite places to think and ponder, to pray and question God. That being said it did make me wonder anew about when Jesus became aware of who he was, and if Joseph or Mary ever sat down and told him the story of his birth and the events that surrounded it?
The strengthen of the book lies in Rice’s research, those who struggle with history will find this an accessible way to understand what was going on in that part of the world at the time. How the expectations of a Messiah were rife and why they were so different, depending on what you had witnessed and suffered. On the importance of Jewish ritual and festivals and how much they were part of every day life. But, and it is a big but, only if the reader can take the research and separate it from the story which is built around it.
Is it a good read? Yes it is. Would I recommend it? Well yes with that one proviso, remember it is fiction, this is not the facts of Jesus’ childhood, it is a story, told well, but a story never the less.
One of the pluses to my short hospital stay was that I was able to read ‘From The Holy Mountain’ which has been sitting waiting for me to have the time to read it for a while now.
William Dalrymple follows in the footsteps of John Moschos a monk who in 578AD made an extraordinary journey across the entire Eastern Byzantine world, a trip filled with difficulties and dangers and due to the situation in that part of the world William Dalrymple’s journey was no easier.
The book is full of humour and information and a very good read, however unless you are interested in early Christian history you might find it a bit hard going, but it is well worth persevering with. It is a fascinating book telling not only the history of the journey but also how the different cultures and religions have, and continue, to interact with each other.
One of the things I liked most about the book was the sprinkling of bizarre early Christian practices. I first got a fascination for these oddities when reading a book on retreat about early Christian laws in which it said hairdressers should never be baptised as their profession was worse than that of the common prostitute. Dalrymple has provided me with another gem for this time for the summer months - Gregory the Great always used to recommend making the sign of the cross over a lettuce in case you swallowed a demon that happened to be perched in its leaves!
Above all it is a tale of how ordinary people of faith can, and do, live together in harmony, monks taking services in great churches as the Muslims fill the Church with their prayer mats. I found it both an inspiration and a frustration but would recommend it to anyone who is even slightly interested in both the past and the present of the area.
