Previously published on October 6th, 2015 My last post seemed to demand a follow-up, to set it in a wider context. It was a personal view as seen from this cottage in this valley. I said “I might be the only one to see it this way, or it may turn out to be universal.”… Continue reading Hannah Arendt on Action
Category: reviews
The Tree of Life
First published on Blogger, Saturday March 17th, 2012 “If I can prevent just one person from watching this, it’ll have been worth suffering through it.” Thus begins a review of The Tree of Life by Kevin A Ranson, alias Grim D Reaper; unfortunately one which I didn’t read in time. I can’t blame Paula, from… Continue reading The Tree of Life
God begins with a Word
I was well into my sixties when I wrote this. My view hasn't changed at all; but the eloquence has shrivelled. Here are some posts with alacrity Invisibles eleventh child The existence of God Divine Anarchy I was brought up to treat God with respect, regardless of what I might think personally. In England there… Continue reading God begins with a Word
George Santayana
I came across his name when I was 17, but since then I've never seen it again till now: in the same book I borrowed, back in 1959. Despite extensive reading in the spheres of philosophy and religion since then, I've never come the name since, except in the book I borrowed then. I was… Continue reading George Santayana
Love Affairs
Farzaneh has an imagination, which directs his hero towards a variety of young women encountered during a year in downtown Vancouver, where “all types of girls can be found on the street”. At the end of the novel, in conversation with a waitress, he confesses “I like insecure, moody, promiscuous ice princesses who like to… Continue reading Love Affairs
The Free Soul
I've written several times about spiritual writings from the thirteenth century: Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe. Each risked being fingered by the Inquisition as a heretic, and took steps to demonstrate orthodox obedience to the powerful Catholic Church. Marguerite Porete stands out from the others and is the most interesting by far. Almost… Continue reading The Free Soul
The Book of Margery Kempe
Margery Kempe was a bloody-minded woman, living in a time when England was still Catholic. Bishops, priests and friars held worldly and spiritual power. bloody-minded: Chiefly Brit. Perverse, contrary; cantankerous; stubbornly intransigent or obstructive. Cf. bloody adj. OED She came from the provinces, had no education and bore 14 children to a husband socially beneath… Continue reading The Book of Margery Kempe
Kant’s Trick . . .
. . . or all the philosophy you don't need to know, in 711 crisp words, by Bryan White. “How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.” “Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You… Continue reading Kant’s Trick . . .
Jordan Peterson & Susan Blackmore
following on and in response to Bryan's piece "Something Meaningful". Here are some notes I wrote while watching this debate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syP-OtdCIho “Peterson is a hard man to categorize” – he frowns at the very idea! “The new atheists have a problem with establishing an ethic” “Measuring well-being” – right Harris & meditation (Blackmore does it… Continue reading Jordan Peterson & Susan Blackmore
O Superman
O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad. O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad. Hi. I'm not home right now. But if you want to leave a message, just start talking at the sound of the tone. Hello? This is your Mother. Are you there? Are you… Continue reading O Superman
Loving What Is
I came to know about Byron Katie through her husband Stephen Mitchell whom I encountered through his translations of Gilgamesh and the Tao Te Ching. Her work, as expressed in books, videos, website and notably workshops staged in many countries, fits easily into the “self-help” genre, especially that aspect which focuses on human relationships and… Continue reading Loving What Is
English literature’s first terrorist
From the Introduction to John Carey's new book: Honour and empire, with revenge enlarged, By conquering this new world, compels me now To do what else though damned I should abhor. (Paradise Lost, Book 4: 390-92) “This is a terrorist’s logic, and the Satan of Paradise Lost is English literature’s first terrorist. Terrorism—the destruction of… Continue reading English literature’s first terrorist
How to quell terrorists
Disclaimer: Vincent does not know how to quell terrorists, religious or Communist, and has no opinion on any methods for doing so, past, present or future. My title is deliberately provocative and refers to methods used in 1954 in Malaya. When Burr Deming, in “Fair and Unbalanced” (see Pingback at bottom of comments below), says… Continue reading How to quell terrorists
Julian of Norwich
. . . all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. The Web is riddled with orphaned "quotes": mangled versions of what someone—the author or one of his characters—may or may not have said. We use them for our own purposes, with no regard for the… Continue reading Julian of Norwich
Watching the English
Like Paul on the road to Damascus, I know exactly when my eyes were opened. It was Monday April 3rd, on a trip to town for two significant appointments. One was to see my specialist nurse, to arrange details for my stay at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. It didn't happen then. The other was to collect… Continue reading Watching the English
Owen Glendower
Written in 2002 for La Lettre Powsienne, a periodical edited by Jacqueline Peltier I don’t know of any novel to compare it with, unless you feel able to imagine that Sir Walter Scott, whom Powys admired, had like Coleridge experimented with drugs and rewritten his Quentin Durward under the influence of peyote or LSD, and… Continue reading Owen Glendower
John o’Saturn meets women from Earth
Written in 2002 for La Lettre Powysienne, a periodical edited by Jacqueline Peltier How many autobiographies have been written in which the author fails to mention his own mother? One at least: and in this instance he goes further and omits from his narrative any reference to his five sisters and two wives. If I… Continue reading John o’Saturn meets women from Earth
The Towers of Cybele
Here's another essay written for Jacqueline Peltier's Lettre Powysienne, a little magazine in two languages for a list of subscribers. On her website you can only find her French translation, but I've fortunately kept the English original, written in 2005. When I mentioned "Amazon" in my first paragraph, she asked me to explain what it… Continue reading The Towers of Cybele
Peg, a minor character
In the last couple of days I've been horrified to discover myself becoming a hapless patient, lacking the means or strength to act in the world and thus demonstrate personhood, that prerequisite for the continued will to live. It was like being a ghost. It did not even occur to me to pray or give… Continue reading Peg, a minor character
The Sellout
The last time I read a Booker Prize-winning novel was when Midnight’s Children came out in paperback. It wasn’t the best reading fun—or the most edifying, come to that. This time it’s happened by accident, when I heard the author interviewed on Radio 4. If this is the man, I thought, I may like his… Continue reading The Sellout
Lysistrata
Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman’s extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between… Continue reading Lysistrata
Theology of the Body
It’s a month since I wrote Living in a Body. I’ve been wrestling with a sequel ever since. One was briefly published, and Bryan added some cogent comments, but it was no good, for myriad reasons. Let this post dispose of the matter, the better to move on. As for Not-Doing, whereby, according to Lao-Tzu,… Continue reading Theology of the Body
Passion and Society
The present train of thought started 54 years ago with a red book. Technically it was shoplifting but I thought of it as using the campus bookshop as a lending library. In mitigation of the offence, I returned it stealthily to the original shelf ten days later. That was the hard part, very scary. I’ve… Continue reading Passion and Society
A Manhattan Odyssey
Battery Park, Lower Manhattan, c. 1929 [Written on July 16th, 2016. See also the version published on Amazon.com, which includes a review of an earlier version published here on September 6th, 2013.] A reader of this blog has published a novel. I promised to submit a review for Amazon and then spent weeks agonizing about… Continue reading A Manhattan Odyssey
. . . Until the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse land at Heathrow
I listened this morning to Peter Hennessy being interviewed by Paddy O’Connell on Radio 4’s “Broadcasting House” (starts at 54:11). His views on the impact of Brexit largely match my own. It took an hour or so to transcribe, but has saved the much greater effort of trying to cover similar ground in my own… Continue reading . . . Until the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse land at Heathrow
Etty Hillesum
It’s the second day of March, with a bit of blue sky but a biting damp wind. I walk along Desborough Road to the bus station, destination and agenda undecided. Why? Because I can. Whatever I can now do, one day I won’t be able to. No one knows the day, or the hour. Thanks,… Continue reading Etty Hillesum
Secret Strength
When we are alert to its promptings, the unconscious mind can reach us through various means. Blake had his waking visions; many of us have dreams. They may clothe themselves in a jumble of recent experiences, yet contain latent messages ready for decoding, which may open our eyes to things our well-controlled consciousness has kept… Continue reading Secret Strength
The opium of the people
This is what Karl Marx actually said: The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of… Continue reading The opium of the people
Enthousiasmos
Copied from Enthousiasmos, a post from Natalie D'Arbeloff about her invitation to see her in early 2015 Greek: entheos - divinely inspired, possessed by a god The enthusiasm with which many of us embraced blogging has dwindled with time, as most enthusiasms tend to do. No, I'll rephrase: it's not time which dilutes enthusiasm but one's own inability, or… Continue reading Enthousiasmos
La Vie en Rosé
The art of Natalie D’Arbeloff, which often combines image and text, has a directness and simplicity that may at first sight appear childlike. But it’s quite the reverse. For all its immediacy, it’s both subtle and profound, adult in the best as opposed to the X-rated sense. It comes from someone who knows the world… Continue reading La Vie en Rosé
The Creative Mind
The other morning I turned on Radio 4 whilst washing the breakfast dishes and it sounded interesting, a kind of reminiscence. I’d missed the beginning and took a little while to catch on. I liked the sound of the lady though, full of fun, approachable and without false modesty. When she mentioned a former post… Continue reading The Creative Mind
Fields of Blood
Imagine an impassioned debate at the Oxford Union, “That this House finds Religion to Have Been the Cause of All the Major Wars in History.” Arguing for the motion, suggests Karen Armstrong, would be “American commentators and psychiatrists, London taxi drivers and Oxford academics.” Arguing against, at unnecessary length, is Karen Armstrong’s new book, Fields… Continue reading Fields of Blood
A Coney Island of the Mind
This is for you, dear poet of my youth, still 23 years and 21 days older than me (therefore 95), still here with the rest of us, enabling me to write this with a possibility it might reach you. I would say I’ve admired you from afar, but it’s not true, for I spent fifty… Continue reading A Coney Island of the Mind
Gaia Warriors
Nicola Davies’ book about climate change has hardly set the world on fire. Since its publication in 2009, it has attracted two reader reviews on Amazon: one in UK, one in US. It’s a lavishly-produced paperback, large format, bold use of colours and fonts; but I don’t think it’s selling too well now. You can… Continue reading Gaia Warriors
The King James Version
In my last I said “I hope to return to this theme in another post”. I had mentioned the Bible, in the King James Version completed in 1611. In its time and for several centuries it was Holy Writ, an authority not to be questioned by its readers, till developments in science, evolutionary theory and… Continue reading The King James Version
Intersecting worlds
Reality is composed of many interwoven strands and nowhere are these delineated more vividly than in The Sun Temple. What shall I call it? A treatise? A short story? A memoir? A traveller’s tale? It’s all of these and a masterpiece of erudite psychedelia as well. Above all it is searingly honest and true, never… Continue reading Intersecting worlds
Meeting Ghetu
We’ve never met face to face, but our first cyber-encounter was on 13th October 2006. You may think cyber-friendship is an impoverished thing, but for us literary types it has the special advantage of being completely self-documenting, like the legendary Akashic Records. That day, I stumbled on his blog “i am useless”, and I’ve reproduced… Continue reading Meeting Ghetu
The View from Nowhere
A year ago, Bryan White and I collaborated on an ambitious book project. I can’t quite recall the start point, though I think it originated in a conversation conducted in the comment columns of this site. Not surprisingly in hindsight, it soon foundered, but its remnants are a matter of public record as a blog… Continue reading The View from Nowhere
The Soloist: Art is More than Life
retrieved from my original blog via the Internet Archive A Los Angeles journalist befriends a homeless Juilliard-trained musician, while looking for a new article for the paper. Director: Joe Wright. Writers: Susannah Grant (screenplay), Steve Lopez (book). Stars: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr. and Catherine Keener.(1) The film is the The Soloist and I’d never heard… Continue reading The Soloist: Art is More than Life
Bach and Blackbird
I was driving to the supermarket in the rain. The CD player had come on, and was at no. 14 of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, by the pianist Glenn Gould. It was the 1981 re-recording as opposed to his debut album in 1955 playing the same 31 pieces. This later version stands out for the dramatic… Continue reading Bach and Blackbird
Binding a joy
He who binds to himself a joy Doth the wingèd life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sunrise. This verse of William Blake is never far from me, internalised, imprinted upon my unconscious, and a work in progress. There is joy in being alive; breathing fresh air; having… Continue reading Binding a joy
The Book of Disquiet
Art consists in making others feel what we feel, in freeing them from themselves by offering them our own personality. From The Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa, translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith; numbered section 260 Art frees us, illusorily, from the squalor of being. from section 270 There are certain books which… Continue reading The Book of Disquiet
Straw Dogs
In his book John Gray is a demolisher, razing to the ground almost every idea which offers hope, whether it comes from science, religion, humanism or any other -ism. It’s not a long book. You can get through it in a couple of days: easily but not comfortably, unless you’ve already sacrificed all the sacred… Continue reading Straw Dogs
Gilgamesh, a book for our time
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the world’s oldest written tale, going back 4000 years. (See timeline at foot of this article.) It has survived by virtue of being impressed on clay tablets buried in the desert in “cuneiform”, the oldest known form of writing, which dates back 5000 years. Only with the work of generations… Continue reading Gilgamesh, a book for our time
Museums and Women
Lately I seem to be getting more from literature than from life. A misleading observation, since reading is an act performed like any other, in life, as opposed to a dream. Again, this is misleading. Leisure reading fires the imagination as dreams do. By "life" we sometimes mean living, in the sense of an interactive… Continue reading Museums and Women
Sisyphus and the Rolling Stone 4
I've always been irritated by the stilted translation of Camus' famous book by Justin O'Brien, and offered my own to the publisher, Penguin Books.They informed me that this translation was copyrighted as the only translation, so my efforts were a dead duck. I'd read French and Italian literature for my degree at the University of… Continue reading Sisyphus and the Rolling Stone 4
Homer’s Odyssey
It matters a lot which translation of a book you read. I confess to being super-fussy about these things. I hear a piano concerto or symphony, for example, and compare it unfavourably with one which impinged on my consciousness years ago, perhaps in my teens. (You’ll have to trust me on this. It’s the impinging,… Continue reading Homer’s Odyssey
The Search for Meaning
I had a gift token to spend at the only bookshop in town, didn’t see anything I wanted. But then I was drawn to a certain book. I looked at it the first time rather idly, and thought to myself, “No, this is written by a Viennese psychiatrist. I have had enough of them.” I… Continue reading The Search for Meaning
Annie Dillard
“In blogging, less is more. Discuss.” That could have been an essay topic in the days of my youth, had blogging then been a word. An old friend who used to post as Rob. and later Bob, did it for the interaction rather than the self-expression or self-revelation, in which genres he was reticent. His… Continue reading Annie Dillard
The Old Testament
I last read The First Book of Samuel fifty-eight years ago, long enough not to by blinded by the reflective glare of familiarity. It starts off with a simple tale which arouses interest and sympathy. A man has two wives. One has borne children, but the other is barren. Her name is Hannah and he… Continue reading The Old Testament
On reading the Bible
When I read, I like to make an orgy of it, especially on a rainy winter’s day, curled up in my armchair in front of the glowing embers of a log fire. One book is not enough, I want to be surrounded by them, drawn into their world where time and space are condensed into… Continue reading On reading the Bible
The Denial of Death
According to Ernest Becker, the wellspring of human action is the fear of death: correction, the denial of the fear of death. In his Preface, he actually says that the “prospect of death . . . is the mainspring of human activity” (my italics). He makes short work of the real fear of real death,… Continue reading The Denial of Death
The Joker Chuang-Tzu
Another post rescued from my Stalinist purge of 2018 : this one from October 17th, 2010 Raymond Sigrist, by doing nothing and making no recommendation, finally got me to start reading Chuang Tzu. When I write about books, I adopt the same strategy as an unscrupulous professional reviewer: read a few pages, then rush headlong… Continue reading The Joker Chuang-Tzu
Hell! said the Duchess
Hayden commented on my last with some excellent remarks on how to start a story, including the following: I love broadness and specificity in a beginning. A sense of mystery that isn't addressed by the ample facts stated. The facts situate the event in a time and space, anchor it if you will. The mystery,… Continue reading Hell! said the Duchess
Climb the Lowest Mountain
Blogs are the molehills of literature. A mole plays havoc with a lawn by leaving little piles of soil as evidence of its nocturnal tunnelling. Nothing infuriates a gardener more. But a child is fascinated; none more so than the child who takes words at face value. Many times I would exploit a grazed knee… Continue reading Climb the Lowest Mountain
The Pocket Diarist
The postman left a package which felt like a small book. Not expecting any such thing, I was delighted; then opened it, and was Deloitted. Deloitte Touche is the current incarnation of a company I left in 1985, known then as Touche Ross & Co, Accountants. I was in their management consultancy, but now I’m… Continue reading The Pocket Diarist
Fernando Pessoa
Image from an article in Southern Cross Review I wanted to sing the unsung, but the unsung has already been sung, by Fernando Pessoa, who I discovered via Brett Johnson's site*, making the whole blogging project meaningful and eternally validated. After a misspent childhood, youth, manhood and middle-age, I spend my remaining years redoing, reviewing,… Continue reading Fernando Pessoa
The mysterious impulse
"It would be idle to inquire why Mr Razumov has left this record behind him. It is inconceivable that he should have wished any human eye to see it. A mysterious impulse of human nature comes into play here. Putting aside Samuel Pepys, who has forced in this way the door of immortality, [we observe… Continue reading The mysterious impulse
Intrepid Victorians (2)
I mentioned in my last that Dolomite Strongholds is illustrated by the author, with his photos, colour lithographs and pen drawings. As I browsed this beautifully-produced book, a delicate sheet of folded paper slid out, containing pen drawings (traced on top of original pencil sketches) on both sides. None of these were incorporated into the… Continue reading Intrepid Victorians (2)
Intrepid Victorians
I've inherited a little volume, illustrated by the author, who was also my great-grandfather, entitled Dolomite Strongholds: the last untrodden peaks; published in 1894. Don’t you love that Victorian prose, its characteristic style at once lofty and light, beloved of those who would make parodies of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, particularly those… Continue reading Intrepid Victorians
Crime and Punishment
It’s not dawn yet, but I’ve turned on the heating and lit a candle. Through this study window that keeps a secret eye on the wider world, I see in the street's yellow lamplight the snowflakes falling. I’ve just finished the last few pages of Crime and Punishment, illuminated at the very last by redemption… Continue reading Crime and Punishment
Hole in the head
Phineas Gage was swift, capable, responsible. He was physically fit and a leader of men. These qualities made him at the age of 25 a supervisor on a Vermont railroad construction project; and might have helped him rise through the ranks to a senior management position in that branch of engineering. But the smooth track… Continue reading Hole in the head
More from the Reading Without Tears blog
Monday 2 July 2007 Stringing words together Twenty-five years ago, I bought The Art of Writing, a volume in the "Made Simple" series. It had been written ten years earlier and has an out-of-date feel now. So what? I feel out-of tune with the age too. Browsing through it again recently, I discovered many shortfalls, the… Continue reading More from the Reading Without Tears blog
Powys and the dead frog
I don’t normally post extended quotes, but this—including the dead frog—expresses in more masterly language what I would have liked to write today. "When one considers how dependent we all are—especially such parasitic weaklings as artists, poets, writers, priests, philosophers—upon the hard one-track energies of the industrious producers and shrewd traders, it seems only fair… Continue reading Powys and the dead frog
Zorba the Greek
I’m glad not to have yet seen the film of Zorba the Greek, for it is the book which speaks to me, as I savour a few pages for the first time each day. The film must be full of colour and atmosphere and dancing and dulcimer-playing, but Kazantzakis in the book covers spiritual search… Continue reading Zorba the Greek
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
"I am reading Memories, Dreams, Reflections by CG Jung, a work I had avoided till now, partly because I felt that the Jungians were the most terrible idolaters on the planet. However, this is mostly not Jung’s fault, just as being turned into a god was mostly not Jesus’s fault. The beauty of reading Jung… Continue reading Memories, Dreams, Reflections
a wayfarer’s notes 