Consensus Handbook

This book, the handbook for consensus decision-making published by Seeds for Change, the group who run training workshops about all that jazz, is literally what it says on the tin. I don't really have any substantive thoughts of my own on it - it's just a really helpful book for anyone engaged in community-level organisation or activism, or any group that could potentially benefit from making decisions using consensus (could be interesting for groups of church leaders/elders - whole congregations even maybe). As such, if you're currently involved in a group that makes decisions and you feel that that group's method of making decisions often doesn't take full account of everyone's viewpoints or concerns, and would be open to investigating a super-democratic super-inclusive surprisingly-streamlined method of decision-making that is great for effective solutions and group cohesion (speaking from experience as someone who's been part of a couple of groups that use consensus decision-making for over two years), check consensus out. The whole book is available for free as a .pdf from the link at the head of this post.

   It walks through, in helpful terms and constantly setting its principles in the context of its values, how to do consensus decision-making, how to facilitate meetings using it, techniques and activities that can be helpful in consensus-facilitated meetings, and common troubleshooting problems that may arise when trying to make decisions or run meetings by consensus. (if you've got this far through the paragraph and you don't know what consensus decision-making is, I'm not going to bother to explain it, click here.) There's a fairly thought-provoking chapter at the end too about some of the problems we have in the lack of democratic decision-making in wider society, and how community organisers starting to favour consensus plays a role in slowly changing that.

Moby Dick

This book, an indisputable classic and oft-touted 'Great American Novel' by Herman Melville, is basically about whales and the men who hunted them, more specifically one big white whale nicknamed Moby Dick and one big white male human named Captain Ahab who becomes obsessed with the pursuit of the eponymous cetacean. Notably (to my blog, not to general discourse on this book) this book is second to Frank Herbert's Dune as the book that has taken me the longest to finish ever.* I've just finished it in a mad day-long splurge because the last hundred pages or so start ramping up a little bit (and the last sixtyish were actually gripping) and, well, I'm on holiday in Spain with my family, and everyone else has gone to the beach (regular readers will know that 'holiday', to me, in large part consists of setting aside Time For Reading, i.e. eschewing more sociable activities for a four-to-ten-hour chunk, perhaps every other day) which means it was a Nearly Get Sunburnt Back At The House While Finishing A Book Day for me.

   I did not enjoy and do not personally recommend this book.
   At the same time, it is an immensely deep, complex, and powerful work of genuine literature, and I'm sure many people would find a lot in it to make it worth reading. Certainly I didn't hate it; I'll try to talk first about bits I liked. The overall style of the prose was probably my favourite aspect - Melville writes with an eloquent ruggedness that carries the novel, a balance of pragmatic jargon and poetic flights; as such the text's atmosphere feels both hyper-endowed-with-meaning and like a cross between a classical library and an actual whaling-ship. Then there genuinely are many good parts, truly excellent parts that one cannot help reading without feeling the recognition of a fantastic writer: occasional brilliant turns of dialogue, or extended reflections** from the narrator (Ishmael***), or descriptive passages that paint such gorgeously atmospheric scenes of whaling that I found myself looking at harpoons on eBay.
   Now, onto things about it that I didn't like so much. Firstly, while this is admittedly more of a hippy's whinge than an actual complaint against the novel (but what kind of hippy would I be did I not make one); the romanticised masculinised glory of man's conquest over nature, as portrayed in one of the most enduring grudges in literature (Ahab & the whale), has, given the novel's culturally ubiquitous suffusion in the West, undoubtedly contributed to the development of an anthropocentric social normality which at this point a century and a half since its publication has all but severed humanity's felt and known relationships with nature, to our peril and to the peril of many animals we now unthinkingly steamroller in the name of progress. Less hunting, more saving - and forget about the dogged hunting-down of one single specific whale, that's actually bonkers.****
   Secondly, while this is probably more excusable for an 1851 Nantucketer than a 2014 Swede, it's still unpleasant and uncomfortable to read and almost just feels clumsy - the non-white characters, of whom there are several, are portrayed within the narrowest array of affectionate caricatured stereotypes of 'the exotic'. Though that said, literally none of the characters except Ahab***** (unless you count Ishmael on account of his endless paragraphs of reflection) display any emotional depth - they're rough-and-ready experienced whale-catchers whose actions and words betray nothing of even a hinted-at internal life, instead dutifully fulfilling the slow-burning chain of events that constitutes the plots or spouting the author's thoughts in clunky dialogue. This leads me to my final and main thing - either there has been a genuine lapse in constructing interesting and believable characters, or it's all part of the plan...
   Finally, the main thing that annoys me about the novel is the fact that it might actually be, in ways I suspected during the reading of it, genius; all the things I found most infuriating and tedious about the book are (quite probably) in there for very good reason, to create a text that further illumines both the narrator's inner life during the plot's events and the author's inner life during the book's writing, and to thus create a readers' experience that amplifies the very core themes of the book. This core theme is the meaninglessness of obsession, the futility of straining to assert oneself against the void; obviously explored via long dragged-out metaphor in Captain Ahab's vengeful pursuit of Moby Dick, a whale that, while it may have wronged him, bears him no ill, and has no frameworks for comprehending the vindictive nature of its being hunted - Ahab, throughout the course of the novel, descends into madness and pushes his crew out of sensible patterns of activity as this obsession takes hold, only for both encounters with the white whale to be completely devoid of any reciprocated sense of poignancy, the beast merely doing what whales-avoiding-capture-by-whalers do.
   Back to infuriating and tedious - the bits of the book that rendered my enjoyment of it so difficult. Primarily, an enormous proportion of it (like, seriously, between a third and two fifths) is huge dumps of non-fictional information about whales, whale anatomy, whale-catching as an economic activity and its history and techniques, cultural or anthropological or philosophical reflections on whales or whaling, various tools and processes using by whalers when whaling, and so on - in painfully exacting and extensive detail. Some of these chapters were among the most boring passages of novels I think I have ever read (but they are still written beautifully, however far that goes). Secondarily, it's strewn, especially in Ishmael's 'inner monologue' parts, with extensive and obscure references to 'classics', to such a degree that it genuinely feels like Melville was insecure and thought he'd chuck in as much of these as he could, even when adding barely anything to the flow or stock of the prose, to come across as a Legit Man Of Words.
   Here's the really annoying bit: these aspects actually complement the theme of obsession perfectly. Ishmael draws us into this story about Ahab keenly chasing a whale. We are slowly introduced to the crew and the world of whaling, and before long, we are plunged into chapters and chapters of Just Stuff About Whales/Whaling - reflecting Ishmael as he is forced by necessity to learn, extremely in-depth, more of his trade and its objects (whales). Likewise, Herman himself must have accrued an immense amount of knowledge about whales and whaling to have been able to write this novel - I quite enjoy the speculation that once his research hit a certain point he might've just thought "allow this, I'm basically a genius on whales and whaling now, I'm gonna paraphrase this into atmosphere-enhancing prose and stick it all in there to make it seem like the character's getting sucked in"; and once at that stage, he may have further thought "if obsessiveness itself is an aspect of how I'm choosing what to put in, I may as well decorate and flourish it with literary and historical and sociocultural references that would seem ostentatious in any other context!" Who knows what Herman thought? This theory would also explain why all the non-Ahab characters are so flat (they're only there to help display obsessive whaling!), including Ishmael himself (he's only there as a viewpoint for watching Ahab's obsession but also to vent his own meta-obsessive stuff about whales!). Regardless, I am more inclined now to think that some degree of deliberation went into the novel as a whole and Herman Melville wasn't just some cetacean-mad writer with a grand vision and literally no skill at self-editing. Even so, the sheer amount of these bits just makes the whole experience of reading the novel a frustrating and sometimes seemingly endless one - remember, I only finished it at all out of persistent refusal to let Moby Dick beat me.
   Wait a minute, that sounds familiar.
   So maybe the reader's experience is meant to mirror that same grudge-building patience-testing dogged-pushing-onward-to-the-finish of Captain Ahab and Ishmael and Herman Melville himself? Maybe it is. Whatever the case, my gut feeling when thinking back over this book is "I'm glad I read it but I am more glad that I don't have to read it anymore." Annoyance, mainly.

* Arguably longest, depending on whether you count Genuinely Giving Up as a factor. I started Dune when I was 13 and then had it more or less on-the-go very slowly before finishing it in a spurt of realising it was actually excellent when I was 22. Moby Dick on the other hand, I ill-advisedly embarked upon as a 7-year-old, having just seen Matilda (she reads it in that), only to bail out after a chapter or two, understandably spooked by the dense prose and scary exotic characters (though for whom upon more recent reading, my 'wow this character is a bit much' had matured into 'wow this portrayal is very racist'), and then re-attempting the novel in my second year of A-levels. I'd planned to do some kind of comparative coursework thing about narrators using Ishmael alongside Pi Patel and Holden Caulfield and Christopher Boone, but ended up just using the other three, as Ishmael's story was an epic one horribly told, and it took me the next five years to finish reading it. The only things that kept me going were a grim (almost Ahab-like) determination to not be defeated by the infamous Moby Dick, itself the white whale of classic novels (by which I mean fatty, not elusive or supreme), and the creeping hope that the ending would be epic, which it sort of almost was. There were a fair few good bits - read above.

** One part that springs particularly to mind, for me at least, is the first paragraph of chapter forty-nine - Melville's capacity for sweeping-yet-accurate philosophical musings couched in well-textured writing shows well. There are many other bits like that but this is the only one I can summon from the top of my head, as it resonated with me.

*** Narrators are (complete the sentence) [vessels for the conveyance of story] AND/OR [vessels for the conveyance of reflective musing] AND/OR [vessels for the conveyance of factual information relevant to events in the story] AND/OR [characters].
   When I asked Herman Melville to complete that sentence, he excluded characters! That does explain why despite Ishmael's inner monologue comprising probably way over 70% of the book, we finish Moby Dick knowing nothing tangible about him - except that he knows a lot about whaling - which is something I vaguely expect of a narrator. See the paragraph above about obsession being a theme of the novel having an influence on its content choices - it may excuse Ishmael somewhat.

**** Suggestion for a sequel: Ishmael, some years after the [SPOILER ALERT] death of Captain Ahab during a misjudged attempt to bring a certain white whale to justice, goes full circle. His insane obsession with whales (see above) brings him to value them above their economic instrumentality, and he gathers a ragtag troupe of whatever the equivalent of PETA activists was in mid-19th-century America, and they row about all over the world forcibly but peacefully disrupting whale hunts. It ends with Moby Dick showing up and trashing their boat - Ishmael is holding his harpoon when it swallows him, and at the last moment he thinks "you don't deserve to be saved you evil whale!" and stabs it through the roof of the mouth. They both die, the end.

***** And to an extent Pip, a black kid who nearly drowns and dies on the inside.

the Prophet

This book, an exquisite masterpiece by Kahlil Gibran, is ostensibly poetry,* but reads like some variety of holy scripture - which is sort of the point. It opens with (you guessed it) a prophet, Almustafa, who has been living in the city of Orphalese for twelve years - but it is his time to leave, a ship is coming to return him to his birthplace. He dithers slightly on the way to the harbour, reflecting upon the time he has spent here and the pain of departure, and as he does so, the people of the town see him going and rush out to both say farewell and implore him to stay.

   Of course, he cannot stay, but the crowds stir Almustafa's heart to allow him to linger long enough to impart some of the wisdom he has (found? realised? built?) while living among them. Thus lays out the bulk of the book, two-or-three-page chapters in which a citizen of Orphalese asks him to speak on a particular topic,** which he then does - expounding in concisely enormous, universally everyday, ambiguously particular, incisively encouragingly challengingly wise terms upon that topic. Gibran's writing here is sublime - the choice of words, structure of phrasing, even layout of the whole book, emulates something akin to the Q'ran (at least English translations of it which I have read parts of) or the Judeo-Christian wisdom books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes - and yet the content of this wisdom does not seem clearly derived from any one specific religion, but seems to draw on all of their overlaps, as well as their overlaps with earthly wisdom and the highest orders of philosophy and ethics, to develop a point of view for the prophet that reads like something truly transcendent and fundamental. And yet, beautifully, it is not difficult to read! His poetic imagery is at times dense, and as I said earlier, regularly ambiguous - but far from impenetrable, as the actual text is grounded very much in common social experience. Anyway, the prophet does a shortish super-deep spiel about the twenty-six topics listed (see **) below, then gives a longer farewell speech which digs up some stirring reminders to both his crowd and the reader of the importance of wisdom, of heeding it, of remembering it, of the ease with which it is forgotten and the brokenness that often ensues when it is; he then gets on his boat and goes home.

   This is a book I wager almost anyone could read and feel both deeply affirmed and challenged by - and is that not the point of wisdom?*** All in all, this is an utterly astounding little book: the pages become papyrus as you turn them, such is its ancient sagacity - all the more incredible when you realise it was written in New York in the early 20th century. (Whatever floats your own boat, but if you're going to read this I'd strongly recommend doing so in a single sitting under a tree in nice weather - I mean, that's a great way to read most things, but particularly this.)

* Weirdly, I acquired this in the same manner, and from the same person, albeit from a different bookshop and about a year later, as the last poetry book I read. I've asked them to stop doing this as it's becoming a bizarre habit, as amusing and meaningless a symbolic gesture as it may be.

** In order: love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

*** [Christian-blogger-footnote]: well... no. "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom", and while quests in search of a universal truth may well often take us there, it is not the same thing from a human perspective. If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not its conclusion or outcome, that implies that any genuine wisdom cannot be attained or anchored without first fearing the Lord - certainly the wisdom of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Jesus take us to this point. (It is interesting to note that Kahlil Gibran was himself a Christian.) But human wisdoms have developed in the surrounding social, cultural and historical spaces as Lord-wisdom, and because Lord-wisdom, being the God-defined nature of life and reality, holds its water as wisdom, we tend to find that many human derivatives of wisdom, from Buddhist philosophy to complex secular constructivist ethics, share a fair amount of surface content. This is unsurprising, if God exists then he defines what is good, and obviously people prefer what is good, so he forms a gravitational centre to those ideas (see Robert M. Adams on this) - but a human seeking of 'goodness' in an abstracted form that does not have an intentional and humble pursuit of God at its core seems, frankly, flimsy. Yes, it may well make people wiser, happier, more moral, but without a personal God of love as its foundation and centre (alongside a worked-out understanding of theology surrounding one's relationship to that God and to a reasonable degree the nature of that God's love), this wisdom, however much it may seem to be approaching universal truth, is like an incredibly beautiful chair that you can never sit it because it can't hold the weight of a person.

the Jesus Comic

This book by Jason Ramasami (this guy) is a graphic illustrated retelling of the biography of Jesus, based on selected extracts from the four biblical gospels. Ramasami does a stellar job of communicating the life and character of Christ and his contemporaries in engaging and likeable drawings, using a small set of simple recurring symbols to convey grand theological truths in simplified-but-that's-exactly-appropriate-in-a-comic forms. These drawings are striking, often amusing, and once you get the gist of the semantics of his pictures, very easy to follow - lubricated nicely by a small amount of text explaining the theological, historical, or social events depicted in each panel, page, or spread. There are twelve sections to the comic, following a particular chunk of Jesus's life (e.g. his birth, his temptations, one or two healings, angering the Pharisees, his trial, his crucifixion, his resurrection and its implications, etc), by no means comprehensively covering the contents of the gospels - Jason prefaces the comic with a short note explaining that it is not a replacement presentation of the gospel, rather a supplement to aid the flow of understanding for people who engage better with comics than with tomes of systematic theology or YouTube videos. It's extremely readable - I breezed through it while lazily half-watching the tennis after a family picnic (indoors, it rained, #England) earlier this afternoon. Jason Ramasami also does a really good job throughout of showing how the theological truth's he's conveying tied into the story of Jesus have implications for the beliefs of the reader - obviously a comic isn't the place for robust apologetics, but the appeal and cohesiveness of it will no doubt help embellish and give graphic life to readers' understanding of Jesus's story and significance. A pretty great little resource for anyone who's keen to explore scripture and the gospel in a fresh way, and it might even work as an evangelical prompt for visual learners (provided the prompter is willing to discuss the theology and biblical narrative padding behind the graphic system in considerable depth, as despite how accessible this book is, there's still a great deal I'm not sure the average non-Christian reader would grasp).