Monthly Archives: July 2010

The Bible: Reality Above Consolation

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This problem [of election] deeply troubled the rabbis and early Christians. It became, as we all know, a major source, if not the major source of controversy, in the time of the Reformation. Writers across the spectrum, from Catholic to Lutheran to Calvinist, probed the Bible, and especially the key text in the Bible on the problem of election, Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, for an answer to the question: Who is chosen? (and its corollary: How do I know if I am chosen?). On this issue alone wars were fought and thousands brutally slaughtered, as well as the greatest poetry written, in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And though the Enlightenment brought an end to the bloodshed, the continuing importance of Romans in Protestant theology testifies to fact that it remains a central issue in Christian thought. In light of this it might appear casual, to say the least, to suggest that the question has been wrongly posed, but that is what I propose to do.

And, incisively, and entertainingly, Gabriel Josipovici develops his argument in the first of his collection of essays in The Singer on the Shore. 

Tackling the luminaries of contemporary English literature with aplomb is a playground spat by comparison.

This first essay is an auspicious beginning. Without marring the development of Josipovici’s argument I will end with a short excerpt of the conclusion:

It is remarkable that a religious document should place narrative above theology, reality above consolation in this way. But the Bible does. And it does so, it seems to me, because it recognises that in the end the only thing that can truly heal and console us is not the voice of consolation but the voice of reality.

Josipovici’s Insight

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Although I have read Barnes and McEwan fairly extensively, I find myself agreeing with Josipovici’s argument:

Reading Barnes, like reading so many other English writers of his generation – Martin Amis, McEwan – leaves me feeling that I and the world have been made smaller and meaner. The irony which at first made one smile, the precision of language which was at first so satisfying, the cynicism which at first was used only to puncture pretension, in the end come to seem like a terrible constriction, a fear of opening oneself up to the world.

The insight of that analysis is precise and powerful.

Josipovici also summarised my own recent response to Sarah Hall’s How to Paint a Dead Man:

While great novels deal with complex events beyond the full understanding of both the characters and the reader, too many contemporary works follow traditional plots with neat endings, he said.

And:

Referring to graduates, like McEwan, of the University of East Anglia’s famous creative writing course, Josipovici said: “They all tell stories in a way that is well crafted, but that is almost the most depressing aspect of it — a careful craft which seems to me to be hollow.”

Its all a tad depressing having two favourite authors lowered from their pedestals, but Josipovici describes the process of disillusion with considerable insight. The criticism is timely. I have been pondering what serious novel I can read with any conviction after reading Ulysses. Joyce’s book makes so much that I planned to read paler by reflection.

I am looking forward to reading Josipovici’s forthcoming What Ever Happened to Modernism?
[Via]

Dubliners by James Joyce

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There are a few artists capable of consistently constructing powerful short stories: Chekhov, Turgenev, Hemingway; contemporaries include Julian Barnes and Julie Orringer.

My Joycean summer enables me to add another to my list, though in completing Dubliners, I have completed Joyce’s short story collection. The stories in Dubliners stand shoulder to shoulder with Chekhov’s oeuvre. Is there a weak story in the fifteen that make up Dubliners? After the Race perhaps, but it may open up on future readings. My favourite three, this time around, in ascending order would have to be: Araby, The Sisters and The Dead. There is sufficient subtlety and depth in the stories to repay many readings.

Twenty years ago I was fortunate to spend part of my education in Dublin. At that time, the city and, in many ways, the people that Joyce portrayed in Dubliners were recognisable. Given Joyce’s apparent manifesto in Dubliners, to portray the city in all it’s iniquity in order to “lead to the spiritual liberation of the city”, it is arguable whether he would feel sufficient progress has yet been made. But perhaps that edginess is what is required to make great cities.

How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall

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There is much to admire in Sarah Hall’s How to Paint a Dead Man: her elegant style and exceptional use of metaphor, her contemplative and complicated narrative that weaves together four related stories and her ability to construct memorable characters. I enjoyed, in particular, the renowned Italian painter at the end of his life, contemplating significant events whilst being harried by his over-solicitous house-keeper.

Why, in the end though, did this story leave me cold? The drawing to a conclusion of the four narrative threads felt orchestrated and forced. The fate of Annette, the blind girl who doesn’t know how beautiful she is, was obvious from the start and unsatisfying. The characters, though memorable, were straight out of central casting.

Hall writes beautifully, with a painterly touch of building up her character, scene and plot layer by layer, slowly. This story has a sense though of painting by numbers.

A Hero Like Us

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In Slovenia at present on holiday. The thirty degree heatwave has been punctuated by an operatic thunderstorm.

I wanted to second this endorsement for the crime fiction of Jean-Patrick Manchette. His novel Three to Kill is an exemplar of the genre.

Our protagonist Georges Gerfaut lives an ordinary life: dull job he diligently works too hard at, while finding an outlet in West Coast jazz and drinking a little too much. After rescuing a stranger, the consequences impel him to prove to himself whether he is James Bond or the mouse. (Fleming’s Bond that is, not Cubby Broccoli’s Bond). In insomniac moments, is this not a challenge we all dream of?

In his journal he reflected that he could have been an artist or, better, a man of action, an adventurer, a Foreign Legionnaire, a conquistador, a revolutionary, the list goes on.

It’s a terse 140-odd pages, thrilling and powerful enough to keep you reading way into the owlish hours.

By the way, please don’t come to Slovenia, at least please don’t rush. There is much here that is reminiscent of the stories intrepid travellers were telling of the France, Italy and Spain of the thirties.