Ponderings

Tag: books

  • England’s Dreaming

    On the 14th July, 1943, the British science fiction writer Christopher Priest was born. He was born and was educated in Cheshire, but he spent his childhood holidays in Dorset. The magic and mystery associated with that county, especially its castles, had a powerful impact upon his imagination. He developed a great insight into this region of England which, unlike the rest of the country, remains timeless, and more authentic.

    When he left school he worked as a clerk in an accountancy firm, but his love of reading never waned, he was an avid reader. The work of H.G Wells and the speculative fiction of J.G Ballard left an indelible impression and inspired him to write his own distinct style of fiction. Priest later became a prolific contributor to science fiction magazines.

    His uniquely prophetic vision of alternate English landscapes acquired a new audience of admiring readers. In 1972 he published his first full length novel. It was entitled “Fugue for a Darkening Island”, and in spite of the plaudits that he received at the time of its publication, in the decades afterwards it was shrouded in controversy owing to the politically contentious subject matter.

    In the 2011 revised edition, Priest amended the text and prefaced it with contextual notes to avoid any unfair accusations of racism. In the novel, the main protagonist is Alan Whitman, a white English man living an otherwise unassuming life on the coast, until global events literally arrive on his doorstep. A refugee crisis from an unnamed African country has a devastating effect on the ordinary people living on the English coast. Hundreds of African refugees in boats pour on to the beaches, in a desperate bid to escape a war primarily engineered by American and European powers. Until this moment, it was just a distant event from a faraway place. However as the drama and the danger worsens, this global crisis becomes deeply personal for every citizen. Nobody emerges unscathed.

    The British public are forced to become an unwitting part of this war, and the sleepy villages are transformed into a new frontier in this global conflict. They recoil in horror, and they are terrified of losing their culture, safety and identity. Consequently they elect a right-wing nationalist prime minister from a party called Reform UK. Once this hardline regime is established the African minority are compelled to create their own political party and militia called the Secessionists. This is in response to the Reform government’s main policy, a campaign of arrests and deportations, including Caribbean families suspected of sympathising or even being in alliance with the rebels.

    Civil war breaks out, and most of the country is engulfed in a conflict between the government loyalists and the African rebels. Even the most peaceful and sedate communities become embroiled in it, and emergency measures are enacted, including rationing. Whitman learns a bitter, harsh lesson as all of this unfolds before him, initially he is indifferent to the situation in Africa, but he is filled with pity when he sees the emaciated state of the refugees arriving on the beaches.

    However these feelings do not last very long, as the country is rapidly plunged into chaos. Amidst the crisis he loses his comfortable middle-class job, his home and nearly loses his wife and daughter. Eventually, Whitman is given the address of a safe house, away from the worst of the fighting. He arrives in a remote location where he descends into a state of deep contemplation.

    This is a prescient and prophetic book, rich in potent imagery. The images are raw and visceral, and illuminate the psychological sensibilities of an island people living under siege. It is clear from the thoughts that emerge from a humbled and pensive Whitman. He ponders his fate. While sat on the shoreline, he makes an important and pithy observation about the future destiny that awaits on the island, opining that “this small British island we lived on, resistant to invasion for so many hundreds of years, a coherent, eccentric, tolerant place rich in tradition, filled with a relaxed regard for history. The British were welcoming to strangers but also cautious of them and sometimes given to pointed but affectionate mockery after they left, but this time crucially, they had allowed a massively disruptive refugee incursion almost by default. Tolerance and eccentricity were luxuries of the past, and the British had revealed themselves as congenitally unable to react moderately to an extreme event”. He continues to reflect upon this theme.

    He looks out on to the horizon, and overwhelmed by its beauty and serenity, remarks

    “That sea, so calm and silver at low tide, was always a symbol for the British, the image of isolation and difference from the rest of the world…Yet the sea also suggested connectedness with that larger world, because the maritime heritage had taken the British out of the world, for good or ill”. It is extraordinary to read this now, considering the fraught political situation of today.

    The book predicted our twenty-first century fears, particularly the prospect of civil war. These fears are evinced so vividly in this book. Priest had the foresight and immense courage to detail the possibly fatal consequences of excessive tolerance and kindness, and the psychological effects of apportioning inappropriate historical guilt. Two years later, he published yet another subversive work of fiction. The novel was called “The Inverted World” which presented human life on a planet measured in miles rather than years. The central protagonist, Helward Mann is a trainee guildsman. He is due to leave the confinement of the creche to serve his apprenticeship.

    He is destined to work up an almost interminable career ladder in which his final position and destination is unknown. He is sent to the “city”, an urban metropolis functioning solely on tracks. Mann and the other apprentices are commanded by their bosses to maintain the tracks in order to ensure that gravitational forces remain at an optimal level. However he encounters other characters who are determined to sabotage these grand plans. This was yet another prophetic work which predicted the technocratic age.

    At the time of its publication, the world that he depicted would have seemed unrecognisable, surreal and bizarre. However it is a totally different scenario now. In the post-millennial era, it is an eerily familiar landscape. It is a sterile, inhuman and artificial world, devoid of any feeling, particularly love. Only cold efficiency dominates. Notions of family ties, or individuality have been sacrificed to satisfy the ruthless ambitions of the globalist overlords, where human dignity is absent and everyone has been reduced to a machine.

    In 1976, he returned with a book called “The Space Machine”, an homage to his favourite author, H.G Wells. One year later, he returned to familiar territory, his beloved Dorset, with the publication of “A Dream of Wessex”. Priest imagines an England colonised by extreme left-wing and Islamist forces, except a remote part of Dorset.

    Ensconced within Maidan Castle is a clandestine project to recreate an alternate future-past vision of England through the power of psychological suggestion. One of the main characters is David Harkman, who, it is later revealed, is a semi-illusory figure hidden deep within the imagination of another character, Julia Stretton.

    Stretton and Harkman are in love, and in spite of the potential dangers of this mental experiment, they are committed to the recreation of this England. When they reflect on the troubled history that inspired these developments they realise to their chagrin “that the worst result of the Soviet regime was the fact that English culture and society had stagnated. The country was ready for a social revolution of the same scale as the political revolution that had taken place at the end of the twentieth century”. It is eerie to read this book in the light of contemporary events.

    The book demonstrates Priest’s predictive powers of imagination yet again. He explored the concept of Anglofuturism years before anyone conceived of it. Again, nobody at the time would have ever believed that English civilisation would be destroyed by malign political and cultural forces, nor would they have ever believed that technology could be used to manipulate the feelings and thoughts of a demoralised people.

    Priest had an illustrious and productive literary career throughout the eighties, nineties and into the new millennium. His fiction focused on parapsychological themes, and the preoccupations of modern life, a mirror of his literary hero, Ballard. His career was cut short by a diagnosis of cancer, and it prevented him from finishing a biography on the author who ultimately gave him the motivation to write his own brand of fiction. His wife, the author Nina Allan completed the work. Priest died in 2024, but he left a vital legacy which continues to inspire.

  • Dreams of Wessex

    On the 2nd June, 1840 the English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy was born. Many readers have admired him throughout the ages as one of the best chroniclers of “Deep England”. This is a concept which evokes much more than a sense of a specific place and time, it is the encapsulation of a feeling of innocence and wonder, and a yearning to return to a simpler existence.

    Hardy was born in Dorset. The location of his birth is significant. All of his novels were set in the South West of England, he referred to this corner of England as Wessex. This was the archaic name for a region which encompassed the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and Berkshire. Hardy was essentially a pastoral writer, illuminating the climate and landscape of the furthest fringes of England.

    He defended this parochial style by declaring,

    “It is better for a writer to know a little bit of the world remarkably well than to know a great part of the world remarkably little”.

    He left Dorset to train as an architect in London, but he felt lost and homesick. Increasingly despondent, he retired to the college chapel to ponder his fate. Then the ghost of William Wordsworth appeared to him, almost like a talisman to guide him on his future path. This was seared in his memory as the unmistakable, yet shadowy figure of the poet appeared, “lingering and wandering on somewhere alone in the fan-traceried Vaulting”. He took this as a sign that his destiny did not actually lie in architecture. He knew that he had to pursue his literary ambitions, just as Wordsworth illustrated the magic and mystery of the Lake District, Hardy endeavoured to bring out the majesty of the West Country.

    Both were part of the Romantic tradition, a form of cultural conservatism rooted in place. They understood that the landscape moulded the people who lived, worked and depended upon it for their sustenance. It was precious and there was an urgent necessity to preserve it, as it was so much more than a random patch of land, it defined their identity, perceptions and outlook on life.

    Hardy declared,

    “There exists a great background, vital and wild, which matters..”

    Similarly, Wordsworth waxed lyrical about the magic of the Northern landscape in his book, “A Guide Through the District of the Lakes”. He imagined a lone walker wandering the lakes and fells. He described how this solitary pilgrim of nature felt overwhelmed by the beauty that surrounded him. As he contemplated the landscape, he experienced a kind of epiphany, as if encountering the sublime.

    In one passage he recalled that as “the winds sweeping over the lakes, or piping with a loud voice among the mountain peaks…(he) may think of the primeval woods shedding and renewing their leaves.” This distinct landscape was haunted by the footsteps of other lone travellers, who also trod the same paths.

    The land resonates with the memory of these wanderers. Wordsworth felt their presence and described the “low breathings coming after him”. The profound sense of the elemental reverberates throughout the work of Wordsworth and Hardy.

    The haunting memories of Egdon Heath were revealed within Hardy’s powerfully affecting novel “Return of the Native”. In his imagination, he thought that the Heath “had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities”. Hardy maintained that all of the land possessed this tragic possibility. Hardy’s childhood on a bleak, windy corner of England left an indelible impression on him.

    Outsiders were oblivious to the reality of such an existence, for them, on the surface at least, country living was benign and bucolic, unaware that horror and drama are buried beneath, and arise at the most inopportune time. When they least expect it, the characters soon succumb to their fate. Hardy lived through a time of dramatic change, the late Victorian era when England was on the cusp of modernity. He was deeply sceptical of the supposed benefits of industrialisation. In his eyes it simply destroyed rural communities and people lost their connection to the land. He maintained that it was natural to remain on the land and to eke out an existence despite the hardships.

  • Butterfly On A Wheel

    On the 30th May, 1744 the acclaimed English poet, satirist and essayist Alexander Pope died. He was renowned for his sardonic wit. He was also a fierce critic of the Whig party, an indomitable political force which dominated British politics for six decades. Its prominence in the political sphere was embodied by its leader and Prime Minister, the gargantuan, statuesque figure of Sir Robert Walpole.

    Whig supremacy was immortalised in British history. It was remembered in historical records as the Restoration of Political Stability. However, one party rule is always fraught with danger. Sixty years of unlimited power can wreak immense damage, and ultimately ruin a country. It took almost a century for the Tories to seize the reins of government back from the Whigs.

    Whigs and Tories were bitter enemies and polar opposites, both ideologically and culturally. They emerged as parliamentary factions during a period of immense political turbulence. They battled with each other during the most tempestuous times, through the heady years of the Civil Wars, the Interregnum, the Restoration and the reign of the Hanoverian Kings.

    The origins of their names were coined as insults, “Whiggamore” was a derogatory term for Scottish Presbyterians and “Tory” was an equally demeaning term for an Irish outlaw. Inevitably, this ugly and hostile political climate marred politics and damaged the reputation of politicians. Politics was soon tainted, and it was no longer an honourable or noble pursuit. The culture, society and the sensibilities of this nation were impacted in irrevocable ways and a vicious political divide continues to reverberate today.

    Political debate was poisoned in this febrile atmosphere. Civility, politeness and cordiality was cast aside. Instead, vulgarity was given a free rein. In spite of the overarching impact of the Whigs on the rest of society, Pope remained a traditionalist, a Tory and a Roman Catholic. His influential status as a wit, and an outsider alarmed the Whig establishment.

    However the Whigs employed their own polemicists to denounce the Tories who were castigated as “Dumb Dogs, Jesuitical Dogs, Dark Lanthorns, Baal’s Priests, Damned Rogues, Jacks and Villains, the Black Guard and the Black Regiment of Hell”. Whigs were deeply suspicious of the political motives of the Tories, and utilised black propaganda and propagandists in an attempt to counter the threat of any Tory resurgence.

    Whigs were characteristically arrogant and entitled. Their greatest hope was that the Tories would never darken the corridors of power ever again. Whigs associated the Tories with religious piety and tyranny. They were afraid that they were still loyal to the House of Stuart. Many believed that they were sympathetic to the Jacobite cause, the campaign for the last surviving heir in the Stuart dynasty, James, to succeed to the throne.

    At that time political detractors condemned James as the “Old Pretender”. Whigs had a genuine fear that all of their precious freedoms and liberties that they reaped from the Glorious Revolution would be reversed if the Tories replaced them. However Tories disliked the Whigs for their historical connection with Scottish dissenters and they were terrified of the spectre of Puritanism and the downgrading of the Established Church. They did not want the Church of England to lose its privileged status.

    These parties were not just ideological opposites, they also represented entirely separate and distinct constituencies. The Whigs were popular with the new mercantile class who were liberal and internationalist in their outlook. However Tories represented the old guard of landed gentry who resisted change and regarded continuity as a form of virtue.

    Pope disliked the Whigs intensely. His favourite method of satire was to lampoon authority figures, puncturing their pomposity, pretension and earnestness. He was the literary equivalent of Hogarth. Hogarth employed familiar elements in his paintings, including the use of cartoonish caricature, comic exaggeration and grotesque. He illuminated the seedy decadence of the rich and privileged in the most garish fashion. It was tremendously evocative and effective.

    Hogarth was obviously more than a painter, he was a polemicist and one of the greatest political artists in this country. His work continues to resonate even today. Many other artists have used his techniques, and continue to do so. Satirical portraits of authority illustrated a pertinent point. They were revelatory. It was clear that the rapid urbanisation of Britain did not improve the lives of ordinary people, it simply made them feel more detached and alienated from their traditional communities.

    The growth of metropolitanism had a deleterious effect on cohesion in this country. Then, as now the urban sophisticates were the chief beneficiaries of it, but for most people it had little or no impact on their everyday struggles. Pope was inspired to compose “The Dunciad” as a reaction to the fulsome praise accorded to the people he perceived as frauds, charlatans and poseurs. He loathed the fakery and the manipulative tactics employed by these people, who in his eyes were simply cynics and svengalis, using devious tricks solely to enhance their social status and to enrich themselves.

    He expounded,

    “Hell rises, Heav`n descends, and dance on Earth:

    Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage and mirth,

    A fire, a jigg, a battle, and a ball,

    `Till one wide conflagration swallows all”.

    Pope derided the fashion for scientific learning at the expense of the imagination. The trend for acquiring knowledge for its own sake seemed empty.

    In his mind, the gilded life of the intellectual had little merit or value, but for the Whig elite these were the favoured people who had the necessary skills which they could deploy in their progressivist quest. In contrast, Pope and his fellow Tories looked upon these self-appointed experts with disdain, they were not special or even that interesting. In their eyes, they were simply soulless bores and sycophants.

    They had a cold and calculated ethos which offended the poetic sensibilities of the traditionalists. This was exemplified by the pragmatic attitude of King George I. The new King was perceived by the Tories as a Whig puppet who supported their militaristic endeavours. George saw his role as purely diplomatic, he cared little for the pomp, pageantry and ceremony that his predecessors enjoyed. He had great suspicions about the Tories, and loathed how they once fawned over the Old Pretender.

    The King was deeply unpopular with vast swathes of the British public, who viewed him as a foreign interloper. He seemed to embody the worst stereotypes of Germans, which are immediately recogniseable even today. He had a spare utilitarian approach and was exacting and almost pedantic about tiny details. Even his remote, often cruel relationship with his son was remarked upon, one quipped that, “the Hanoverians, like pigs, trample their young”. The Prince of Wales, the future King George II was the polar opposite.

    King George II was cultured, vivacious and absorbed the culture and heritage of his adopted country. His outlook was romantic, as opposed to the crude rationalism of his father. Consequently, his court attracted literary luminaries like Pope. However there was a sordid side to the King’s court. One notable Whig politician, John Hervey was aware of this dark side, and was busily making a compendium of it.

    His devious subterfuge attracted the ire of Pope, who was inspired to write the “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot”. This was a satirical poem with a heavily disguised portrait of Baron Hervey at the centre of it. Hervey is “Sporus”, a malicious, dangerous, absurd and sexually perverse figure.

    In the poem he despairs of the callousness of Sporus and his determination to destroy a revered figure, proclaiming,

    “Let Sporus tremble-”What? that thing of silk,

    Sporus, that mere white curd of ass` milk?

    Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?

    Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?”

    Pope was so enamoured by the King that he was prepared to overlook his obvious flaws for the sake of maintaining the continuity, stability and tradition of the Crown. Pope’s battle to save the soul of this country is still being fought today, but rather tragically it appears that the heirs of the Whigs, the liberals, the globalists and the cold hearted pragmatists are winning.

  • The King Is Not Dead

    On the 1st May, 1700 the English poet and playwright John Dryden died. He was the first Poet Laureate, an honourable title that was bestowed upon him by the office of the newly restored Monarchy. His work eventually defined Restoration England, and his appointment heralded a triumphant return of English culture after the sterile and barren years of Cromwell’s Puritan regime.

    Dryden understood the powerful allure of Monarchy, and the spell that Kings, particularly the Stuart King, Charles II had over the populace. This prevailed despite the violent schism that tore the nation in two. The divide between religious dissenters and loyalists sparked the English Civil Wars, yet a sizable part of the population was committed to the King.

    His most devoted followers helped to support him in exile. There was a secret society of Monarchists who would assemble at Ham House in Richmond on Thames. They were called The Sealed Knot, and when the King returned from the Netherlands he rewarded the owner of the property with an annual pension. The belief in the divine powers of the King became so pronounced and ingrained that there were people who believed that even after his demise they could sense his ghostly presence, and some claimed that they could smell the scent of his pipe. The King almost had a cult following. Every Friday, devotees would assemble outside the Banqueting House in Westminster to receive the King’s healing touch. They were convinced that the King’s hands could cure them of the most disfiguring disease.

    The notion of the divinity of Kings had not expired, in spite of all of the political and religious upheavals that afflicted England throughout the centuries. The King had inherited the traditions of the early church, and although he was ostensibly a “Protestant” Monarch he had not abandoned the Catholic past entirely. He merely adapted it. Dryden had a profound insight into the prevailing sensibilities of English Catholicism. He expressed it in perceptive and lyrical terms as the “milkwhite hind, immortal and unchanged”. The root of English spirituality itself remains deeply embedded within the psyche of the English people, even if the practice and form has changed.

    Our ancestors always revered immortal figures, like King Arthur. Arthur was the archetypal eternal King, who had the power to unite a fractious nation. The legend was that he had not actually died, he was merely sleeping and his spirit would revive the fortunes of an island people who suffered repeated invasions and tribal wars. This fanciful legend was incorporated into the literature of the Restoration and indulged by the King, who was fond of theatrical excess. Thankfully, through the patronage of Charles II, we continue to enjoy the artistic legacy of pioneers like John Dryden.

  • Dark Horse

    On the 19th April, 1824 the English poet Lord Byron died. He left an enduring poetic legacy, but also a dark reputation, both historically and culturally. Byron became a legend and a kind of totem for a new and startling epoch. The Romantic age was signified by its individualism, and its cast of unique characters. Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein” symbolises this, the narrative and characterisation almost mirrors the life and times of Byron. Byron was the bete noir of the English establishment and in the wake of scandal was exiled to the far fringes of Europe. Byron personified the louche sensibilities of the aristocracy. His behaviour demonstrated all of the worst characteristics associated with the upper echelons. He was libidinous and profligate with money.

    He represented amorality, and displayed the kind of behaviour that fuelled widespread resentment, but in particular within the lower echelons of society. While banished to a remote corner of the continent, he attempted to restore his literary reputation. He was accompanied by his personal doctor, John William Polidori. On that stormy weekend Byron devised a test for his friends and fellow literary luminaries; he wanted to discover who could tell the best ghost story.

    Dr. Polidori presented an early version of his story “The Vampyre”, the first prose piece of a legend only evinced in poetry. This mythic creature was also unearthly and immortal, and in Polidori’s imagination an alter ego of Byron himself. This was the first example of a “Byronic” figure before this term had even been coined. It is now such a familiar literary trope that we often fail to remember the origin. The Vampire is high born and has an impressive intellect, he is also tremendously alluring and amorous.

    In the story, a young man called Aubrey is intrigued by the presence of a strange and enigmatic figure called Lord Ruthven and the unsettling infamy entwined within the character. Ruthven’s powers are legendary but they are also terrifying, which Aubrey encounters when he meets him in Rome. He leaves under a cloud, but Ruthven’s presence continues to haunt him. This story was a formative and important influence on the Irish writer Bram Stoker, who regenerated this theme nearly eighty years later.

    “Dracula” is a new European reanimation of Ruthven, transmogrified into a dapper and urbane Count inhabiting a ghostly castle, rumoured to be the seat of Romanian aristocrats. This remnant of a palace is situated amidst the misty Transylvanian mountains. The trope is revived once more. The vampire seeks the vitality of youth and draws blood to remain immortal, and in the process ensures that the host also remains immortal. However this vampire story was simply a clever version of an old folk legend and not particularly shocking nor surprising.

    However the world was undoubtedly disturbed and shaken by the unique and unforgettable creature created by Victor Frankenstein. It is a testament to Shelley’s originality and literary brilliance that her work had a much greater and wider cultural influence, and legacy. “Frankenstein” subtitled “The Modern Prometheus” subverted all of the conventions and mores of the age.

    All of the characters imagined on that stormy night were Promethean figures. This was an entirely new concept of the Romantic era. They imagined characters imbued with superhuman and supernatural powers, defiantly challenging the natural order with their quest for omnipotence. Romantic literature exposes the flaws of the human ego when it is left unchecked. The romantic poet is a fragile figure, forced to play an unnatural role in a world of artifice. He is a ghostly presence in an arena that demands authenticity and spurns pretension.

    Ghost stories themselves are allegories, designed to illustrate transgressive or repressed sexual desires. This theme resonates throughout “Frankenstein”. There is an all pervading sense of sexual repression, a blight upon the age. The notion that an immortal being could be created and then given life by a mad scientist was in itself a shocking concept.

    However Frankenstein manufactured an unearthly and ageless being, utilising the tools of science. It was an entirely artificial construction devoid of original sin and in his own godlike vision it was a creature destined to supersede the follies of mortal men and eventually transcend death itself. Frankenstein himself does not feel ashamed that he has meddled with nature. He only feels a sense of enormous personal achievement, as the inventor of an entirely new kind of creature, one that will never die.

    His delusions of grandeur render him a secular deity, entirely detached from the historical and clerical foundations of European civilisation. Imagining a creature that is neither dead nor alive in the conventional sense is now a familiar literary trope, but it was an innovative idea for the time. This was a time of political foment on the continent, particularly in France.

    In spite of growing alarm in Britain, the antics of the French revolutionaries left a trail of devastation. They were defiantly and belligerently anti-clerical and looted the churches and monasteries. It was a repudiation of the proud legacy of religious women who raised the status of women after the indignities of Pagan Rome. They had chosen to devote their lives to Christ for centuries, until the revolutionaries forced them to relinquish their property and divest themselves of their visibly religious status. In 1794, 16 Carmelite nuns refused to surrender to them and they were arrested and put to death. Each nun approached the guillotine in calm defiance singing a hymn to the Holy Spirit, their voices silenced by the sound of the blade. It was a scene of true courage.

    Percy Shelley was another louche scion of the aristocracy. Shelley also had Byronic characteristics. He too, was profligate, promiscuous and almost by default, intensely alluring to women. The young Mary Godwin was just one out of many young women who had fallen under his spell. Their alliance was scandalous, and they too were exiled to Europe. Yet Europe was unfamiliar, strange and detached from civilisation. It was a continent that would be torn apart by the Napoleonic wars. The Faustian spirit that inspired the greatest art and literature also contained the seeds of its own destruction.

  • A Handful of Dust

    On the 10th April, 1966 the English author Evelyn Waugh died. He was part of a distinctly illustrious literary set. This was a contingent of writers who enjoyed and participated in the decadence of the Jazz Age, but in later life found a much greater meaning and solace in the Church of Rome. This was a distinguished group which also included literary luminaries such as Muriel Spark and Graham Greene.

    In a strange twist of fate, Waugh died on Easter Sunday. He had just returned from a Latin Mass at his local church. The date was significant, representing not the end, but a new beginning. Waugh’s Catholicism was not a sudden epiphany, but a gradual, and often fraught process of re-examination, self-recrimination and ultimately atonement.

    Waugh’s magnum opus, “Brideshead Revisited” is considered to be the primary conversion novel of the twentieth century. It details the long friendship of two Oxford students, Sebastian Flyte and Charles Ryder. Flyte is aristocratic, cultured, but most importantly Catholic, the descendant of an old recusant family living in the fading grandeur of Brideshead Castle. Ryder is from a comparatively ordinary, suburban and provincial family. However he is drawn into this intoxicating, exotic and rarefied world of the Flytes.

    Ryder’s first meeting with Flyte is purely accidental. Flyte is a “hearty”club of Oxford students who have dedicated themselves to high living. The hearties are hedonistic and libidinous. They are seemingly unconcerned by the intellectual rigours of Oxford and instead spend their time eating luxurious dinners, drinking and carousing. Ryder witnesses a dishevelled and shambolic figure vomiting on the lawn outside his room, this is his first and unlikely introduction to Sebastian Flyte.

    Unwittingly, this inopportune encounter leads him on to a path of discovery. The burgeoning friendship also opens up a once hidden corner of England. He discovers the ancient and sublime encapsulated in the grounds of Brideshead. This country pile is a symbol of England’s half buried past. It represents the old religion and the old ways that in spite of numerous attempts to destroy it, have never truly died. There are still traces of it, barely perceptible to us in the modern world, but remain deeply embedded within our history and our culture nonetheless.

    All of Waugh’s novels are profound and moving elegies to old England and the Catholic foundations that built it. Political saboteurs like Oliver Cromwell sought in vain to erase it, but failed. Although Waugh is considered a satirist, his cynicism does not sour his fundamental message. The epicurean antics of the young and foolish are contrasted with sombre scenes of aging, death and transfiguration.

    It is intensely revealing to observe the shallow nature of many of the characters that inhabit his novels. The Roman Catholic Church became a dominant presence in his life because it offered certainty. The moral strictures provided a constancy and comfort which have never wavered in spite of modern, fashionable opinion. This dependence on tradition has inspired many other writers and thinkers, and continues to do so today.

  • Southern Mystic

    On the 25th March, 1925 the American writer Flannery O’Connor was born. She spent all her life in Georgia, and her writing was inspired by the people and the culture that surrounded her. This was a Southern state with a unique reputation. It was characterised by its deep religious piety, but it also attracted notoriety for something altogether darker and unsettling.

    Smalltown Georgia in the forties and fifties was not an especially tolerant place. It maintained an outward civility but it remained hostile to anyone who was perceived as different. Black people, especially young black men were subject to the worst kind of prejudice and discrimination. In the pre-civil rights era, an astonishing 531 lynchings occurred, the second highest number of extralegal executions within the entire southern United States.

    O’Connor writes in an unsparing and pitiless tone about this climate of suspicion and fear, and the obstinacy displayed by the people living within it. It is a stark contrast to the wholesome and glamourised image of the south as evinced by Margaret Mitchell in her romantic novel “Gone With The Wind”. In Mitchell’s imagination this is a rich and lush landscape inhabited by a happy and harmonious set of people unscathed by slavery. O’Connor’s version of the south is bleak, and steeped in bathos. Her 1952 novella “Wise Blood” illustrates this perfectly. The narrative is nihilistic and cynical. It is purposefully stripped of any superficiality and romance to reveal the decadent underbelly.

    The book uncovers the harsh reality of post-war America. It is a battle scarred nation that is wrestling with its identity. Many of the characters are solitary figures who privately struggle with afflictions of one kind or another. Empathy is entirely absent and all that emerges from the story is the sense that desperation is the most valuable commodity. This is exploited for maximum gain. It is a merciless system where the most vulnerable are manipulated and corrupted to enrich others.

    However the individuals depicted are not presented as helpless victims of fate, they are painted as proud, dignified and singular in their suffering. They are the embodiment of martyrdom. They resemble Biblical figures who strive only to seek meaning in a place and time that has no real semblance of meaning, and seems just random and cruel. O’Connor herself had her own private health battles, and died aged only 39, but her legacy endures.

  • Scarred Nation

    On the 9th March 1997 the Welsh screenwriter and novelist Terry Nation died. He was remembered with fondness and affection as a stalwart of British television, and the pioneering force behind television classics like “Doctor Who” and “Blake’s 7”. He was a tour de force in British broadcasting for many decades, and his example remains unmatched. He wasn’t just respected by his contemporaries in broadcasting, he was also immensely popular with audiences.

    However it is sad to reflect that imaginative, challenging television does not exist anymore, and it is less likely to be commissioned by a staid and declining art form. He was the heir to science fiction and folk horror innovators like Nigel Kneale. Kneale’s numerous films and programmes were disturbing reflections of a rapidly changing nation.

    He chronicled the difficulties of living in twentieth century Britain, exploring its uneasy relationship with the rest of the globe and vice versa. He observed how tradition jarred with modernity and how superstition conflicted with reason. He had a profound insight into the sensibility of a nation wrestling with the new whilst continuously clinging to the past. He had more of an understanding than the glut of metropolitan commissioners and producers that inhabited the echelons of British broadcasting, as he came from the Isle of Man.

    His output on the small screen exemplified the problems when modern, universalist notions were imposed on well established communities with enduring local traditions. Many will inevitably resist such an imposition, and cling to their old ways as these are more familiar to them. Our ancestors viewed themselves as an integral part of the natural world, as opposed to the modern belief that we are separate from it. There was no attempt to battle with the forces of nature, or to dominate and subdue them. This was simply unthinkable.

    The future was unfamiliar and strange. Such an intangible notion would have seemed an artifice, yet Kneale’s characters stand on the threshold between the past and the future. They are gazing into an abyss. They are standing on the precipice looking down on an open chasm of unfamiliarity, confusion and disorientation. In “Quatermass and the Pit”, an archaeological dig at a defunct Tube station recovers the remains of a Martian spaceship. This one discovery challenges the preconceptions and prejudices surrounding what actually constitutes humanity, and even material reality itself.

    It is later revealed that these Martians interbred with proto-human hominids to maintain their survival on Earth. Clearly alien and human are merely social constructs, and the distinction between them is purely arbitrary. In the final serial of “Quatermass” a new generation of Planet People yearn to escape into another cosmic dimension. Amidst the malcontent, armed street gangs tour the barricaded streets.

    This is Kneale’s bleakest vision of the future. There is no hope left in the shell of this urban wasteland, only the ghosts of a past that no-one remembers. Alien and human are disconnected, and atomised. All that remains is the overwhelming desire for annihilation, and the vain belief that they will ultimately regenerate in another manifestation in a faraway solar system.

    Time travel, and alien beings were a popular combination of subjects for prime time television. It was this interesting juxtaposition of themes that inspired the work of Terry Nation. Nation was originally a comedy writer, but branched out into science fiction when he realised the immense commercial potential. In 1963 he conceived “The Daleks” for the second series of Doctor Who. These were alien creatures created after a nuclear bomb, and who survive purely on the radiation in the atmosphere. They are war like, and in constant battle with their pacifist foes the Thals. The Doctor’s nemesis is Davros, the progenitor of the Daleks.

    Terry Nation continued to contribute to Doctor Who until 1979. He was also commissioned to write “Survivors” in 1975. This was a television series that imagined the last human lives on a planet devastated by a deadly plague. Three years later he was responsible for the science fiction series “Blake’s 7”. This followed a group of criminals and political prisoners escaping from the evil “Terran Federation” on a spaceship of an unknown origin.

    Blakes 7 ended in 1981, and Nation sought new creative opportunities in Los Angeles. He was a scriptwriter for “Macgyver” and “A Fine Romance”. He was also the author of numerous works of fiction. Nation’s creations have left an indelible mark on generations of British people, and they have even shaped our consciousness and our very identity. It is hard to imagine what our psychology would have been like without his stellar work, and we will continue to celebrate him.

  • A Short Shrift

    On the 17th February, Christians all around the globe will observe Shrove Tuesday. It is an occasion of great significance, as it is the day before Ash Wednesday and the tradition of the Lenten fast. In many cultures, Shrove Tuesday is traditionally a day of feasting marked by communal indulgence and celebration. Pancakes are made with the richest ingredients. Families participate in the cooking and games like pancake racing are all part and parcel of community celebration.

    In more devout communities, Lent is a time of complete abstinence. During this period a plain vegan diet is adopted and eggs, butter and sugar are totally forbidden. However Shrove Tuesday is a day when these strict dietary rules are ignored, in fact the direct opposite is true. Pancakes are topped with jam, chocolate and sweetened lemon. It is a day dedicated to fun, and family celebration before the austere ceremonies of Lent begin. Lent is not just about fasting, it is a time of atonement and reflection on past sins and dishonourable behaviours.

    Our ancestors understood the significance of events like these, and the profound meaning embedded within every ceremony and spectacle. They were more aware of occasions when food was scarce, and were eternally grateful when there was a surfeit. The connection between honourable behaviour and heavenly reward was inextricable. They literally believed that this was true. Human wickedness may have material rewards in the mortal realm, but the punishment in the hereafter was guaranteed. “Shrove” is a now obsolete English word meaning absolution. Derivations of this word include “shriven” and “to shrift”. Also the phrase “short shrift” is still in common parlance, albeit with a slightly different meaning and connotation.

    In everyday conversation, “short shrift” is only understood as receiving unsympathetic treatment, but originally it referred to the quick method of absolution granted to a condemned prisoner destined for the gallows. The religious aspect to this term has vanished, along with the religious nature of Shrove Tuesday itself.

    However in Shakespeare’s time, religion was integral to the discourse. His audience would have been god fearing and devout. He utilised these sensibilities for his own dramatic purposes, creating dastardly caricatures who meet misfortune as a consequence of their behaviours.

    His play “Richard III” was effectively Tudor propaganda. The last Plantagenet King is presented as a grotesque, the personification of evil. The brutality of his character is exaggerated for theatrical effect. His scheming and callous disregard for human life is all laid bare.

    The King’s cold condemnation of Lord Hastings, who he believes is plotting against him is revealed. He sentences Hastings to death, and on the day of his execution these same ominous words are uttered by Richard’s closest aides Sir Richard Ratcliffe, and are appended rather chillingly with “the King longs to see your head”. However the King’s underhand tactics were destined to end badly, in a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Bosworth.

    The history plays of Shakespeare, and the intricate poetry, inspired by Biblical truth continue to resonate. Throughout the festivities, it is apt to recall the poignancy and piquancy of these lost words and phrases as a distillation of a simpler time.

  • Native Wit

    On the 7th January, 1891 the African-American writer, anthropologist, folklorist and filmmaker Zora Neale Hurston was born. She grew up in Eatonville, Florida, one of the first autonomous black principalities in the United States. Her father was the Mayor, and a Baptist minister in the town.

    She was educated at a Baptist boarding school in Jacksonville but was forced to leave after her father failed to pay her tuition fees. She worked as a maid and attended night school, before leaving for University in Washington. While on the course she grew fascinated by anthropology and folklore.

    It opened up her mind to other cultures, which seemed so remote and distinct from the earthy humour and superstition of her hometown. However, as her upbringing was so detached from the experience of white Americans, it gave her a much greater sense of appreciation for the wisdom that she acquired growing up in an all black neighbourhood. She realised that her memories of the stories, traditions and rituals had a profound significance. She decided to continue to pursue anthropology as an academic subject, and she also composed short stories and satirical pieces.

    In 1925 she was granted a scholarship at Columbia University, and three years later she received her B.A in anthropology. Her literary and scholarly talents were recognised by the philanthropist and literary patron Charlotte Osgood Mason. She provided Hurston with a stipend of $200 a month to help further her research into folklore. In 1935 she published her first literary anthology on African-American folklore called “Mules and Men”. This was swiftly followed by the novels “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and “Moses, Man of the Mountain”. Her extensive research work took her to the Southern states of America and also the Caribbean, where she collected stories and testimonies from the African diaspora.

    In 1938, another collection of folklore was published. It was called “Tell My Horse” and it details the syncretic beliefs of the post-colonial world. Hurston’s work was overlooked in her lifetime, as she was overshadowed by literary titans like Richard Wright and Langston Hughes. Both Wright and Hughes were overtly partisan in their political beliefs, and this inevitably gave them more gravitas culturally. Hurston only reflected her experiences, and did not perceive herself as a propagandist for the cause of racial equality. Her objectivity, and obvious affection for the community of Eatonville resonates in her writing.