Books that matter to me

The preamble:

Don't take too long to think about it.

List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you. They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what books you choose:

1. S. Rushdie, Midnight's children
The first really adult book I read and loved. I reread it a few years ago and while it was diminished over time, it's still a great novel.

2. L.N. Tolstoy, War and Peace
I reread this recently too, but found it enhanced. F.R. Leavis called Tolstoy 'transcendentally great.' This is why.

3. G. Elliot, Middlemarch
Another monster, but a magisterial anatomisation of life

4. J.M. Coetzee, The Life and Times of Michael K
Spare and simple, but enourmously powerful. Probably the best modern book I have read in ages

5. J. Gillingham, Richard I
A great retrieval of Richard I from the assaults of the revisionists, pugnaciously and logically argued. For me, it was the defining book of my historical approach, helped by the fact I probably read it at the turning point of my degree

6. H. Chadwick, The Early church
A slight volume, but perfectly formed, which as well as being lucid and comprehensive, gave me an enduring interest in the early church

7. The Bible
Which leads me here. I resent having to put this down, as I don't exactly read it for pleasure, but it is lodged both in the fabric of society as well as my own personal worldview

8. J.J. Rousseau, The Social contract
As is this. I don't agree with it (or not all of it), but it's hugely influential, well argued and - I was delighted to discover when I got round to reading Rawls - still a powerful engine in modern political theory

9. J.J. Norwich, Byzantium (the trilogy)
Modernity - or at least the Byzantine establishment - has been less kind to this, but it's a great book / trilogy. It's wrong on a lot of the detail and lacks sophistication, but it rattles along, and it made me be a Byzantinist.

10. P.L. Fermor, Mani
This on the other hand made me want to read travel literature. PLF's books are generally brilliant, but this is exceptional, being also both travelogue and the capture of a vanishing society at a point before transition. I think it's his defining work

11. G. Grass, The Tin Drum
As is this. It's magical (in both senses) and fizzes with energy and invention in confronting the Nazi era. It's also a fantastic read.

12. A. Trollope, Barchester Towers
Really this should be the whole sequence, but this is the best, and, well, it's Trollope.

13. L.Durrell, The Alexadnria Quartet
I edited this from Lolita, which, though brilliant (and the first half is simply the best passage of writing I have read in fiction) but this is more significant for me - evocative and cleverly done, even if it does get a little silly towards the end

14. G. Greene, Monsignor Quixote
Simply charming, and funny, and the best exposition of the Trinity that I have ever read (with jokes).

15. H.U. Von Balthasar, Dare we hope that all may be saved? (with a short discourse on hell)
Fewer jokes, but I believe this. And the coda to the title is ace.

I looked up previous preferences once I did this, and there are obvious omissions, and I cracked and changed one. (I also may need to do some marrying up of this list with my stated preferences on FB), but I'll stand by it.

Bibliography, July 2009

Books acquired (TBC)
A number of these, but technical issues (the house is a mess) prevents them being logged.


Books read (9)

BOTM: J. Barnes, Cross Channel

J.M. Coetzee, Youth
G.M. Fraser, Flashman & the mountain of light
R.H. Haggard, She

J. Heller, God Knows
A.Miller, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation society
R.P. Jhabvala, Get ready for Battle
F. Stark, Ionia
A. Wilson, Hemlock and After

One of the problems with reading only the books I already own is that the quality dips. This is inevitable assuming I don't simply read books at random, as I will have read the best options before now. This year's selection has simply not been as good as last years. Nothing disastrous, but simply average. For example, this month, while Cross-channel was a delightful set of short stories, it doesn't really compare For a start I read 20 books last July - though I did go on holiday. Actually, now I look at that list they weren't brilliant, but two, possibly three, were better than Barnes, while some of the other books on this list were a real slog (Does Heller know his books overstay their welcome, I wonder?). I have a feeling that this is going to get worse as I churn through the unread pile*. Time for some throwing out I feel.

By the way, this shouldn't put anyone off reading Barnes, which was a good, if not entirely substantial, book of short stories about France, some of which were delightful. And is an excellent example of the short story writer's craft (now increasingly rare).

*It's not literally a pile. There are over a hundred books in it and they are all on shelves

In communion

I don't really believe in swine flu. I mean, I believe there is a flu variant that is a bit nasty, but I don't believe it's a threat to western civilisation - which is pretty much the start point for a large number of other people. At work I am surrounded by gels and wipes - it reeks of disinfectant. More depressingly, I went to church on Sunday to find that we have panicked too. There is a long tedious list of detail , including some embarrassing prayers and especially here on the administration of holy communion, which essentially says 'no don't bother with the wine; the bread alone will do.' Which is nice, if you're worried about this stuff.

It's crap though. I'll preface what I'm about to say with a caveat that people in particular circumstances - pregnancy, existing conditions that make them likely to be the 30th death victim (in a week that number may change, by, I don't know, about one) - should take whatever action they need to. However, for the rest of us, and I include the bishops, this won't do.

I'm not a serious Eucharist man. I may accept that the Eucharist is the queen of sacraments, but if so, she's a constitutional monarch. I reject all kinds of silly positions that try to make everything rest on the communion. But it remains key for all the obvious reasons to the understanding and enacting of the Christian faith. And it does so in both kinds. The wine is not a nice-to-have extra. Without it the new covenant falls, the blood of Christ is not shed and indeed one could argue, the whole point is missed. It's not like this is hidden either. Even in the mind-alteringly bad prayer E in Common Worship (supper with his friends...), the text runs:

When supper was ended he took the cup of wine. Again he praised you, gave it to them and said: Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Which presumably we don't get now. I could go on about the importance of the wine throughout the scriptures, but there's no real point. But I will say that there is long running debate about the inculturation in African churches, namely does it need to be bread and wine to commemorate the eucharist when these are unfamiliar foods. I am sympathetic to both views, but by resiling from contact at the mildest threat, we essentially destroy any case we might have that they are special, instead they simply look like arbitrary consumption on a Sunday morning.

Anathema.

Democracy denied (update)

To be fair to Lambeth, they replied quicker than I have done on this blog, but their reply was unhelpful. I reproduce the letter here.

I desperately wanted to reply in a spectacularly offensive manner. This was my first draft:

Thank you for your prompt reply to my letter. However, I cannot thank you for the implausible case you make within it. I'm delighted to know that your phones were operational during the run up to the election. Perhaps an automatic response to emails could have indicated this. Although busy, I suspect you could have spared the 20 seconds it takes me to set up an out of office autoreply. Not, I presume that you could have done much about it if I had rung, as your database would have told you that our flat was unoccupied.

This is the substance of your preposterous letter. I have examined my house from the street and - as we temporarily have no curtains in the living room - it is pretty clear that someone lives there, as you can clearly see the books lining the walls, and the painting in the room. So, either you send people round who are incapable of making the link between habitation and literacy, or who are innumerate and cannot identify the house number, or - most likely - you did nothing of the sort. Maybe they were struggling with the out of office on the computer. Who knows.

Finally, you tell me that you cannot use the council tax database to verify occupancy. You give no reason, is that programme too difficult to use on the computer too? I would have thought that the record of who is paying you for services may be a strong indicator of who is living there.

So, clearly in your records our flat was vacant for a portion of time. I would suggest you send us the refund for the tax we paid in that period. And, most importantly, I expect a full written unconditional apology for the fact that you incompetence denied us the right to vote. This is a serious matter and I will escalate it until I have a resolution - I take voting to heart. I would suggest you do too.

Anna pointed out this would not have the desired effect, so instead I wrote them a briefer (and less violent) letter, though with the same object in mind. I await a response.

Bibliography, June 2009

Acquired (0)

Read (6)

BOTM: P.M. Kendall, The Universal Spider

M. Bulgakov, A Country doctor's notebook
Nowell-Smith, The legend of the master
A. Trollope, The Prime Minister
M. Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian
D. Zindell, Neverness

Louis XI has always been my favourite Louis, so it was a delight to read Paul Murray Kendall's excellent, lively and enjoyable biography this month, especially when a lot else was unmemorable. It's often hard to write a really good biography of a major political figure. Kings are better than prime ministers as they stay in power for longer. But the fascinating thing about this biography was the detail on the long period of waiting for Louis - his establishment in the Dauphine and his exile amongst the Burgundians - and the importance of that experience in shaping both him and his policy. Lest this give the wrong impression, this is a book free from psychobabble and instead focused on history at it's best. The only criticism is teleological. Had Louis died a decade earlier, then his reign would have been considerably less triumphant. Like other monarchs, at least part of his gift was to outlast some of his major enemies. But this was not inevitable. Reading this book, sometimes you feel the author thinks it was.

WWOLD

I went to my church away day on Saturday. It will come as no surprise to anyone that it was not the most fun I have had on a Saturday morning. Not least as I wasn't really sure what the point was - and there wasn't enough drinking.


But the real problem was the theology. We were asked by the bishop of Ramsbury to answer - in respect of what we should do with our church - 'What would Our Lady do?' Now, the original WWJD were naff enough (and somewhat tarnished by Hansie Cronje's sporting of them), but this really was a step too far. The bishop seems a decent enough sort, but the theology was outrageous. Mary, we were enjoined to consider, was of greater interest because, unlike Jesus, she was human. Heresy, heresy. And an old heresy at that. Interestingly, I remember Jane Baun, one of my tutors for my MSt, giving a paper which argud that this same conception existed in the Byzantine popular church about a thousand years ago.

It was of course heresy then, just as it is now. Marys humanity is not different from that of Jesus. Though her role in the divine economy may be different, it is hard to see how this would affect the work of a church in an inner city. Christ's humanity is full and complete, not some imperfect 'skin' which he assumes for the convenience while the Godhead remains what he 'really'. For, in the immortal words, that which is not assumed is not saved - if Christ's only succeeds as a God, there is no route out for man.

The rest was just a bit dull.

Unrelatedly, my priest is doing a slightly barking fundraiser, which deserves supporting. I will restrain the Marian idolatry.

Democracy denied

Thoughts on results to follow, but I am more angry that I was denied the vote. This the text of the letter I sent to Lambeth today:

I am writing to complain in the strongest possible terms about the election on Thursday in which I was unable to vote due to your failure to register my wife and me.

I had diligently filled in my tedious registration form, having meditated on postal voting, and then sent it on to you. To answer your inevitable question, I always do this: I have voted in every election since I became eligible after 1997, and before I could vote, I spent time campaigning and leafleting. I never forget to send them.

I became a little concerned when no polling cards arrived, so emailed your electoral services department on Tuesday. Clearly manning such a service is not a priority so close to an election for you; raising the question what it is for during this time. Perhaps they were busy going through the unopened letters containing registration forms.

What they clearly were not doing (and should have been doing) was checking the register against either last year’s or the council tax roll. For we did vote last year and I note that the council tax system does not need updating on an annual basis. A cursory check – and given that there are only just over 100,000 households in Lambeth this would take mere minutes – would reveal that we are still resident, still paying, and still expecting to vote.

Given this, I would now ask you to write to me explain why you lost my form, failed to take any action to check my continued residence, and in doing so deprived me of my vote. I expect a prompt response within the next fortnight. Should you treat this request with the contempt that you appear to have treated my attempts, I will be forced to withhold my council tax as a matter of course.