the Lord of the Rings: book five

This book is the second half of The Return of the King, the final instalment of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which as with the rest of the series I've read before (see hence that link going to my prior post about this) but am re-enjoying thanks to dogged YouTuber Tolkien Trash's project to read the series in full, aloud, live, a chapter a week.

Isaac and I

This book is the autobiography of Chris Searle, who more or less dedicated his life to the promotion* of poetry - the eponymous Isaac being his greatest artistic influence, Isaac Rosenberg, an East London Jewish poet & painter who was killed at 27 in World War One, and according to Searle deserves to be much more widely known & read. Searle grew up with a hunger for the poetic, and carried this passion with him throughout quite a travelled life - he taught in Canada & the Caribbean for a stint before returning to the familiar East End, where he almost immediately got fired from his role as a secondary school English teacher because he published a collection of his students' work. It all worked out sooner or later thanks to a combination of union pressure & his outraged students going on strike, making headlines as they did so. Political consciousness & activist struggle are wrapped closely up with his understanding of the functional social power of spoken word, as we see throughout - as he brilliantly puts it, "the further dimension of true poetry is also the power to become others in the constant provocation and 'penetration' of revolutionary human empathy". Poetry is intrinsically democratic, egalitarian, progressive, and Searle's own ethics on socialism & anti-racism demonstrate that he fully comprehends this & follows the path of speakable truth; I was mildly alarmed on a few occasions at the sheer backwardness of the surrounding culture he found himself in, especially regarding race, but I suppose that goes to show how far we've come since the mid/late 20th century. Overall this is a very readable book & a solid testament to the liberatory power of creative expression, be that through individual influence & inspiration as with Chris & Isaac** or with grander collective acts of embodied imagination shown in the activist tendencies running throughout. A final thing I will say is that for an autobiography Chris is remarkably uninterested in talking about himself - it's always "this kid or colleague or acquaintance inspired me in such & such a way" and the text is littered with quotes or the entireties of poems by people who he's had in his life, which adds an erratic but edifying diversity to the reading experience. I doubt you've heard of Chris Searle*** so this is not a book to read out of celebrity curiosity - but if you're looking for a grounded, relatable, inspiring story about the active power of art, community, and hope, this is a good book.

* He is clearly very passionate about poetry, but from how he talks about it in the course of this book it seems he cares less for the aesthetic form of how it is written or performed & more with ways in which it can empower people to express & celebrate themselves together. Quite inspiring stuff to me given my ongoing role as host of a monthly spoken word evening (which yes is still going really well thanks for asking)

** Yes, I did buy this book because it has my name in the title. My copy's signed by Chris even - albeit to Paul... whoever you are Paul, I hope Chris doesn't find out you dumped his signed autobiography off to Oxfam.

*** Or case in point Isaac Rosenberg, sadly.

Humility and the Elevation of the Mind to God

This book by Thomas á Kempis was something of a disappointment (unlike the author's more famous work). Don't get me wrong, it's a classic of western Christian spiritual education, and fully deserves to be read as such - but it's essentially an elongated series of urgent commendations for the reader to discipline themselves in holy obedience, offering very little practical insight of substance or originality in its coverage of humility as a virtue to be cultivated (thankfully other accessible short books exist that do) nor consideration of the via contemplativa, which I assumed from the title this book would at least deal with in some detail (again). So yeah, I didn't get much from reading this, but that doesn't mean that nobody will - if you're yourself exploring Christian spirituality and want to go deeper then the advices and admonishments herein will likely be useful to you. And even if you find after all that they're not so much, it's a very short text (I read it in a single ninety-minute sitting) so you won't be investing wasted time.

On Peaceful Unity of Faith

This book [available as a free .pdf online from that link] by Nicholas of Cusa is, as with his other work I recently discovered, remarkably ahead of its time for what it is - what it is being a holistic statement of Christocentric religious universalism. In a series of dialogues between the Word of God and Saints Peter & Paul on the explaining side & various representatives of the nations on the questioning side, we start by exploring the conceptual foundations of what we philosophically and/or religiously consider "wisdom" to be. Cusa defines it as divine oneness, which is the foundation for his next argument for the perfect simple unity of the Trinity, despite it seeming such a bizarre doctrine to people who have grown up in other faiths. Next the conversation turns to Christology, building on conceptions of divinity and common understandings of human nature to sketch a cosmic anatomy of the Son of God that, while far from intuitive, is straightforward enough to grasp, orthodox enough to grow into, and compelling to ponder.

   I won't lie, I was hoping for more interfaith dialogue from this book.* It's not a long read by any measure but I would have happily spent twice as long reading it should there have been considerations of the Indian & Chinese religions - but alas we are left with solely the Abrahamic trio. I suppose Germany in the mid-1400's is quite a way away from the heartlands of Hindu or Buddhist worshippers. Despite this quibble I found this a very engaging and readable text, and though it is nowhere near sufficient as a total apologetic of Christ over the limited fragments of truth contained [spermatikos logos innit] in other religious traditions it does still provide some very deft philosophical ripostes for the two biggest stumbling blocks in communicating intellectually the fabric of Christianity to those of the other Abrahamic faiths.

* Beyond mere apologetic dialogue I was half-expecting it to be in & of itself an attempt to sketch the metaphysical & theological outlines of all religions brought together in peaceful unity, á la Blake's All Religions Are One.

On Learned Ignorance

This book [available from that link as a .pdf online for free] is a text by 15th-century German Catholic cardinal & polymath Nicholas of Cusa, although to read it (apart from its obvious grounding in Christian orthodoxy) you could be pardoned for assuming it's a work of ancient Greek philosophy, so inchoate & fundamental does it seem in its scope & gist.

   Whereas other medieval mystical Christian texts concern themselves with the nature & practice of contemplation or the spiritual rigours of a life as a disciple, in this extremely concise & precise work Nicholas presents us with a solid axiomatic procedural argument for the fundamental incomprehensibility of God in his infinitude, yet given the nature of that infinitude he remains knowable, relatable to, enjoyable even, in his personal triune essence. The logic undergirding this position draws on mathematical geometric truth [similarly to Spinoza's method but superior, as it employs geometry as essential fact rather than merely the axiomatic method of logical procedure], pure as it is, to fabricate images of infinity & possibility, thereby to provide handholds for the imagination in its fruitless attempts to imagine anything more transcendently perfectly plausibly than the Trinity itself in its divine community & personality.

   This is easily the most compelling argument for Christianity that I have ever read - an apologetic for our admittedly weird & paradoxical notions of God in his truest fullest being that proceeds not from eclectic esoterica or theological winds but from extremely basic self-evident truths about consciousness, cognizance, structured thought & imaginings & possibility, walking you straight up to the doors of perception of God then ringing the doorbell & running away, leaving you to stand empty-handed & dry-mouthed to explain yourself to the triune God whose ineffable presence has just been more or less proven yet about whom you realise you can say or know nothing suitable. God is bigger, God is more beautiful, God is far beyond - as much as right here. This text achieves what in my view is one of the most outlandish victories in the history of philosophy, and I am alarmed that old Nick isn't better-known (see - he doesn't even get a single mention in Russell's History); it's also extremely readable, far more so than the majority of philosophy or theology books that pop up on this blog. I would implore anyone to read it & take a serious hammer of intentionality to see whether there are any cracks in the edifice of this text's idea, because I can't discern any.

   I'll leave you with a copy-paste of the book's contents page, as the chapter titles alone give a clear idea of how the argument proceeds:

1. How it is that knowing is not-knowing.

2. Preliminary clarification of what will follow.

3. The precise truth is incomprehensible.

4. The Absolute Maximum (coinciding with the Minimum) is understood incomprehensibly.

5. The Maximum is one.

6. The Maximum is Absolute Necessity.

7. The trine and one Eternity.

8. Eternal generation.

9. The eternal procession of union.

10. An understanding of trinity in oneness transcends all things.

11. Mathematics assists us very greatly in apprehending various divine [truths].

12. The way in which mathematical signs ought to be used in our undertaking.

13. The characteristics of a maximum, infinite line.

14. An infinite line is a triangle.

15. The maximum triangle is a circle and a sphere.

16. In a symbolic way the Maximum is to all things as a maximum line is to [all] lines.

17. Very deep doctrines from the same [symbolism of an infinite line].

18. From the same [symbolism] we are led to an understanding of the participation in being.

19. The likening of an infinite triangle to maximum trinity.

20. Still more regarding the Trinity. There cannot be fourness, [fiveness], etc., in God.

21. The likening of an infinite circle to oneness.

22. How God's foresight unites contradictories.

23. The likening of an infinite sphere to the actual existence of God.

24. The name of God; affirmative theology.

25. The pagans named God in various ways in relation to created things.

26. Negative theology.

Ignorance of the learned type described herein is a powerful humbling tool in the quest to know God; here, with brute-force mathematical logical brushstrokes, Nicholas of Cusa makes it easy - we are able to shake the hand, in a tiny, silent, virtually meaningless yet utterly unignorable manner, of the triune God who defies knowledge.

Fox's Socks

This book, by Julia Donaldon & illustrated by Axel Scheffler (the duo of Gruffalo fame), is a perfectly framed lift-the-flap book for children under five or so. It follows a fox who is searching various locations in his home for his socks, discovering various other items of clothing beneath the flaps on the way. The pictures are delightful, the language is simple & the rhyme scheme satisfying; a great one for reading with the grandkids.*

* Which is presumably why my parents have it, I don't imagine they're reading this themselves recreationally. Yes, I'm still at my family home for the holiday season - I have my own stack of books to read, but this took me a minute or two to breeze through so it doesn't really count as a meaningful diversion from my own list. It is, interestingly, a very appropriate book for me to have clocked in as the first read of the new year - my mother's surname is Fox** and I recieved a surprisingly large number of socks*** for Christmas, so maybe that combination of factors subconsciously oriented me toward this book.

** As such, the house is strewn with artworks, mugs, a stuffed doorstop, etc, that feature or resemble foxes - capped off with a real roadkill fox head as you go up the stairs.

*** About half of the socks that I currently own have holes in the heel or toe, which I personally don't mind, but my parents seem to perceive this as a sad state of affairs.

10 Second Sermons

This book by comedian Milton Jones is a collection of (as the title implies) very short reflections on various dimensions of Christian life and faith. Most are at least chuckle-worthy and more than a few are laugh-out-loud funny; despite being so entertaining it is also quite consistently thought-provoking, offering sharp sideways insight into Christianity that can be quite disarming. I'd heartily recommend this book as a gift to a Christian friend who you know likes to laugh and think at the same time.

the Hypnotiser

This book is a collection of very amusing poetry by the inimitable Michael Rosen (and illustrated by Andrew Tiffen, whose style is charmingly reminiscent of Quentin Blake).

   It belongs to my dad so I've taken the opportunity to binge-reread it while I'm staying with my family over the holidays - it's the first time I've reread it in well over a decade but I must have read this book twenty times growing up.* The poems are all free verse and incredibly readable, making this a great book for children who are just starting to explore poetry. Their content varies from short absurd skits to reflections on a theme or object (the two-parter about tomatoes I really identify with), to longer more anecdotal pieces (alongside the one about Richard at school who could hypnotise people, hence the title of the book, probably my favourite of these ones is the story about his brother taking him to London Airport on his birthday when he needed a wee) that draw on Rosen's experiences of both childhood and parenthood. His brother Brian and his step-daughter Laura both emerge from this collection as distinct, consistent and entertaining characters in their own right.

   Although I think it's out of print these days this is still a brilliant collection of comedic children's poetry and if you find a copy in a charity shop or on eBay ever you should absolutely snaffle it up - read it yourself first and then give it to a kid who will almost certainly get a kick out of it.

* It's probably a strong contender for the book owned by my family that has been reread the most times. Certainly the state of the physical object will suggest such, as its spine has almost entirely fallen apart and more than half the pages have resultingly come loose. You have to be careful reading it that they don't all slip out all over the place.

Enjoying God

This book is another straight-up easy-to-read edifying banger from Tim Chester, who has made a habit of writing that kind of book. I've just binged it in more or less one sitting, which is particularly impressive at it's Christmas Day so to find such an uninterrupted run of free time is frankly shocking* - I'm staying back at my family's house for the holidays and this book was on the shelves of the absent lodger whose room (which is technically my old room anyway) I am temporarily occupying, so I decided to borrow** it as it's been a while since I read a theology book by myself.

   The book is organised in an extremely straightforward and helpful way. The first couple of chapters are largely introductory, initially opening a broad discussion of what we mean when we say or feel that we want more of God, before conducting a brief examination of what we mean when we say or feel that we're experiencing joy. Then the meat of the book is arranged into nine chapters, three for each Person of the Trinity, walking attentively through ways in which God breaks into our lives in the everyday and thus can be enjoyably related to therein. We enjoy the Father's generosity in every pleasure, His formation in every hardship, His welcome in every prayer; we enjoy Christ's grace in every failure, his presence in every pain, his touch in every supper; we enjoy the Holy Spirit's life in every temptation, her hope in every groan, her voice in every word. Following this, before a perfunctory concluding chapter, are a final pair discussing how we can enjoy God's love through one another and enjoy God's freedom through daily repentance and faith.

   As is his wont in his depth of distilled wisdom and insight, Chester has stuffed every one of these chapters chock-full of dense complex theological ideas - communicated helpfully in language that a twelve-year old could engage with without difficulty. I always recommend Tim Chester's books and this is no different - if your walk with God has started to feel a bit too austere, too ordinary, too rote, this book could be a great resource to kickstart your heart a bit in the direction of attentively and gratefully enjoying God for who He is more. Highly recommended reading for all Christians but especially if you're going through a bit of a slump.

* To be fair Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was on in the background.

** Cheers Bethan - though you'll likely never know.

Tao Te Ching

This book is the ancient text attributed to the probably-legendary Lao Tzu, and forms the foundation of Taoist philosophy. Check out the link at the start of this post for my main thoughts on it from the last time I read it - something that I now plan on re-doing every year, as there is much to be mined from this beautiful, elusive, deeply mysterious little book.

Imprint

This book is Kathryn Millington's debut poetry pamphlet. Kathryn is a recent newcomer to the spoken word night I host, and my mum happened to be in attendance at the first event Kathryn performed at, and really liked her work - so I've bought Kathryn's pamphlet as an early Christmas present for my mum. I've just read the whole thing through to get a better feel of it but I'm sure my mum will enjoy the collection considerably. All the poems contained herein deal with the oft-neglected grief and trauma of involuntary childlessness; loss and longing positively drip off every stanza. This Is Disenfranchised Grief is probably the central poem of the pamphlet, walking heartrendingly through the detachment and homelessness of feeling for these women. Short but powerful, this is a very strong poetry collection - highly recommended for those who either share or want to better empathise with the condition with which these poems deal.

101 Zen Tales

This book is, as it says on the tin, one hundred and one short stories circling and elucidating the mysterious Buddhist doctrine of Zen, edited by Nyogen Senzaki (at least I'm assuming Senzaki was primarily the editor but could feasibly have taken part in translating or rewording the stories themselves). As nobody familiar with Zen will be surprised by, these tales are all pithy and paradoxical, counter-intuitive, almost anarchic little parables about the nature of reality, wisdom, enlightenment, religion, and so on, each short provocation an opportunity to ever-increasingly turn one's back on what is known or predictable or even respectable, and to instead embrace the simplicity and emptiness of the Zen way. I'd highly recommend this as a resource more for anyone who wants to sincerely engage with Zen as a spiritual way of life rather than for anyone who wants to properly understand it as a religious philosophy (something that most Zen masters would likely look down upon as a pursuit anyway) - it will make you confused as much as it will make you laugh, and along the way it may help you shed the trappings of constrictive but unconstructive rationality, and walk ever further down one of the many paths of enlightenment.

the Lord of the Rings: book four

This book is the second part of the second book in J. R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I am still very enjoyably reworking my way through by means of TolkienTrash's weekly chapter streams.

Mr. Bliss

This book is a J. R. R. Tolkien work that I before receiving a copy for my birthday* from my eldest brother I had had no idea existed. He wrote it as entertainment for his children when they were young - each page of the book is a scan of his own original handwriting** plus basic but entertaining illustrations by Tolkien himself. The story itself is incredibly simple - Mr. Bliss buys a car and gets into a series of minor inconveniences which strung together pass as a legitimate if somewhat mundane adventure. It's not particularly inventive or clever but I imagine it would work as a bedtime read for children between three and six. That's where I'll leave my recommendation - this book is probably only worth reading if you are of, or are reading to someone of, that age; though that said anyone with an interest in Tolkien will get some degree of tickle out of the sheer quaintness of this little book, the story*** as much as the pictures.

* I turned thirty-two yesterday. Cash and gifts to be sent to my PO box.

** Which is a lot neater than you may expect if you've ever heard Tolkien speak in recordings (man was a mumbler).

*** I wanted to mention this but didn't leave any gaps for an appropriate segue in the main body of this post - Mr. Bliss has a pet girabbit. You know, part giraffe part rabbit. Other than anthropomorphised bears this is the only fantastical element to be found in the book.

the Subtle Knife

This book is the second instalment of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. As I said in my previous post, as I always do for serieses I will be reserving my fuller thoughts on the whole for the final post & here will simply give a rough, spoiler-free sketch of the story's gist.

   Will Parry, a teenage boy from our world, whose chief concern in life is caring for his mentally-ill mother, accidentally kills a man who has broken into the house. Naturally, he leaves his mum with his piano teacher to keep her safe while he runs away - then, almost immediately, he finds a magical window into another world. This other world, called Cittágazze, is a crumbling coastal city, deserted by everyone but children. While exploring, the first other person Will encounters is a girl slightly younger than him who introduces herself as Lyra Silvertongue (aye, the very same heroine from the first book - she was renamed by Iorek Byrnison), who tells him that great things are afoot. Together they start travelling back and forth between Will's universe & Cittágazze as Lyra searches for her father for clues as to where her path leads & Will in turn seeks his own father, an explorer who went missing on a mission in the far north when Will was a baby. Their hunt soon leads them into contact with a pair of notable adults - the seemingly helpful museum-enthusiast Sir Charles Latrom & the bewildered dark-matter research scientist Dr Mary Malone; mysteries begin to resolve somewhat into focus & conspiracies continue to plod inexorably along, and soon the duo find themselves seeking the eponymous subtle knife, an item of immense cosmic power that people from many worlds would kill to possess. I will discuss it along with the alethiometer (and Dust! I haven't mentioned Dust in either post yet, oops) in the post about the final book in the trilogy, coming soon. Oh, forgot to mention, Lee Scoresby is still hanging about looking for a shaman, and Serafina Pekkala (a witch-queen) is here too.

Northern Lights

This book is a children's fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, standing as the first book in his His Dark Materials trilogy, which I've never read before & intend to finish over the next week or so. As is my wont with serieses, I'll reserve my commentary and reflections on characters, overall plot, themes, etc until the post about the last book and here concern myself only with providing a quick spoiler-free sketch of the story so far.

   The novel opens in Jordan College, Oxford, albeit not in our universe but in an alternate reality where all humans are perpetually accompanied by their daemons - animal-form embodiments of their humans' souls. We are introduced to Lyra Belacqua & her daemon Pantalaimon, as her uncle Lord Asriel returns to Jordan from an expedition in the far north. It becomes clear that conspiracy is afoot, and after an unexpected gain (the Master of Jordan gives Lyra one of the only existing alethiometers; a curious arcane instrument which I will discuss in more depth in my final post about the trilogy) followed by an unexpected loss (Lyra's best friend Roger goes missing; she presumes he has been taken by a nefarious mysterious group nicknamed "the Gobblers"), Lyra is sent away from Jordan to live as the assistant to a glamourous & powerful woman named Mrs Coulter. However - just as she's starting to adjust to the high-class lifestyle, Lyra notices that the tendrils of conspiracy don't even leave her safe here - so she runs away, ending up in the company of the gyptians (a community of people largely comparable to gypsies in our universe, only with barges instead of caravans), who she urges to go north to track down the Gobblers & rescue Roger (along with the many other children, some of them gyptians, who have been taken). The icy wastes of the far North then play background to a rollercoaster of captures & escapes, near misses & fatal mistakes - we meet Iorek Byrnison, an armoured bear, and Lee Scoresby, a Texan aeronaut, and Lyra & the gyptians do their best to muddle through the deepening dangers of the conspiracy they're uncovering, including whatever roles in it Lord Asriel & Mrs Coulter seem to be playing.

   I read this in two big sittings. Pullman writes extremely well & I found this a highly compelling page-turner - as an adult! Had I been exposed more fully to these books when I was of their target audience age (say, ten to thirteenish maybe) I'm confident they would have displaced The Franchise That Must Not Be Named as my go-to rereads. Strongly recommended. Stand by for posts about books two & three.

War in the Museum

This short story by Robert Rath follows everyone's favourite pair of rival bickering necrons, Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner (of The Infinite and the Divine novel fame). Trazyn, whose quasi-eternal life's effort is to construct and fill a series of planet-sized museums with stasis-trapped specimens of cultural and historical value, may have bitten off more than he can chew with his new acquisition of a tyranid splinter fleet, complete with its hive tyrant. Once his attempt to rehydrate the damaged tyrant is nearing completion, psychic tweaks between the supposedly-locked tyranid horde start manifesting, and in no short order they're all awake and rampaging through the museum. Trazyn must commandeer the aide of a Mechanicus magos and a pair of Sisters of Battle to help him defend himself while he makes for the control room to try to save his precious displays - only then Orikan turns out to be there already, causing mischief.

   This is a fun little story, but you'll get a lot more out of it if you've already read the novel I linked in parentheses above. Undead soulless metal killing machines they may be, but Trazyn and Orikan consistently prove they're far from boring.