Bibliography, January 2023

BOTM: P.H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire (2016)

P. Ackroyd, Milton in America (1996)
N. Blake (C. Day-Lewis), The beast must die (1938)
J. Bull, The Brexit tapes ( 2023)
J. Clements, The Emperor's Feast (2021)
E. Crispin, The moving toyshop (1946)
H.J. Dyos, Victorian Suburb: Study of the Growth of Camberwell (1961)
M. Green, Historic Clapham (2008)
W.G. Hoskins, Local History in England (1959)

K. Lane, Potosi (2019)
J. Linford, The Missing Ingredient: The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavour (2018)
A. Piper, A history of Brixton (1996)

I bought Hoskins on a whim in a charity shop in December, but it's sparked a flurry of reading around local history that I've thoroughly enjoyed. I'm definitely going to write the history of the Manor of Stockwell and the Parish of St Andrew's now (i.e., when I retire). I thoroughly enjoyed The Brexit Tapes, even after a delay of a couple of years in turning it into a book. I loved The Emperor's Feast, which is great on the evolution of food in China. I have bought millet in response, sparking less joy in my house. 

My favourite of all was probably the least accessible of all. Every review of Peter Wilson's great tome stresses that this is largely incomprehensible if you don't have a working knowledge of a thousand years of German history. I do have a working knowledge of German history, though with a few gaps, and even I found it required hard work early on. But, having orientated myself through the annexes with my Salians and Luxembourgs, it opened up into a brilliant analysis of a complex, diverse institution that sat at the heard of Europe for a millennium. It was excellent on imperial reform around 1500, and really brought to life the nature of neglected areas like the 'interregnum' of the thirteenth century. It's done thematically and I think that really helps to see the evolution of imperial institutions - and their limits. I will be coming back to it again and again. 

I now feel a real pang of regret that I didn't pursue my first proposed research interest in sixteenth century Austrian Protestantism. Too late now, but it's one of only a handful of books that have ever done that. 

A college sermon (against justification by works)

Preached third Sunday of Epiphany (22nd January) 2023, Balliol chapel, Oxford, Evensong

Ecclesiastes 3.1-11

1 Peter 1.3-12
Psalm 33.1-12

It is a great pleasure to be asked to preach here. I did not go to Balliol while I was at Oxford, but I hold it in great affection. I have lots of good friends at Balliol, through them I met my wife. I’ve visited plenty of times. I have never set foot in this chapel.

I am delighted to rectify this this today, though less delighted with the circumstances. It’s always cold in Oxford, and it’s freezing today. It is also potentially difficult to be doing the sermon in a week where the bishops of the church have failed, once again, to reach the right answer on same sex relationships. And lastly, it is daunting to be asked to preach on one the most famous passages of the Old Testament, though it is now two generation since the Byrds took it to top of the US chart, so the resonance may have faded. As we are in Oxford, one never knows.

Still, no matter what place it occupies in the popular imagination, the Book of Ecclesiastes occupies a strange place in the Bible. Plenty of people have thought it shouldn’t be in the bible, and this is because throughout, instead of the golden thread of God who chooses, judges and redeems, this one doesn’t. The author of Ecclesiastes is resigned; God is remote.

And there appears to be little ambiguity about this. There are sections of the bible where the metaphor clouds the meaning, and the message is obscure. Not here, not least because the superscript literally tell us: ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.’ The message is not subtle one: everything happens, no-one understands God, and then you die. A few verses later we have that the ‘fate of the songs of man and the fate of the beast is a single fate’.

In fact, all our texts lack ambiguity as well, though the others are more upbeat, at least. But, if we can escape the blinding obviousness of the metaphor, the text is less clear. What is the time for? What does the author of Ecclesiastes think we are doing with our lives?

Because despite the opener, every activity under the sun is not listed: there are twenty-eight of them, in fourteen opposed pairs. One of which doesn’t count because you can’t allocate much time to being born or dying. Fairly essential tasks are not included - no eating, no drinking, no sex at all, no studying, no writing, no entertainment, no travel. Some of these do pop up in other parts of the book.

So actually, Ecclesiastes thinks thirteen types of activity are what fill a life:

• Two about violence (fighting, healing war)
• Two are about the getting of things, either the finding or the putting off. This may include another about the gathering of stones.
• Three are about building or making: planting/uprooting, building, mending.
• Five are about feelings: Embracing, speaking, mourning, weeping, love

I’d like to talk about the last two.

What binds all the building and the making is that it’s for the future. Even the negatives. You obviously build a house or plant a seed for the future, but you also don’t tear down a house if there’s no tomorrow, you tear down a house because you don’t want someone in it or you want to put something there.

When we have later that God has put eternity in the human heart, this is what he means. And in the epistle. ‘the prophets … trying to find out the time and circumstances [of the] the sufferings of the Messiah …. they were not serving themselves but you’.

The prophets may have been laying the foundations of heavenly salvation, but throughout the Old and Testament, and again here, the earthly future matters.

And how is that earthly future going?

It may not feel like it, but it’s going pretty well. Several centuries of material progress, dramatic increases in global wealth and global health has meant a vast improvement in lifestyles. The gap between the time to be born and to die has expanded in length and in quality.

In my own field, nearly two billion people have gained access to clean water in the last two decades. Ukraine’s day of national unity, which is today, is just over 100 years old. You can’t tell them it’s not important.

But, just as with Ukraine, that earthly future is being denied to too many people because of the lack of sound foundations. Think of the basics. Think of Ecclesiastes.

• To plant: over 700m people are suffering from hunger, half of the countries in the world have food insecurity
• To build and create: over 600m live in extreme poverty
• I would add my own field, the foundational gift of water, essential for physical and our spiritual life. 800m people still do not have access to clean water nearby

And, right now, those foundations look shaky. Because of COVID those numbers have gotten worse; undermining the huge gains made. And the drumbeat of climate change gets ever louder threatening it all.

Where is God?

Our first instinct is to look for a God who judges. Is this a test we are failing? What works should we do to get this right, to secure salvation?

The Psalm is clear about the greatness of the Lord, but Ecclesiastes reminds us of the fundamental chasm between man and God, the gap only bridged by Christ. And the tolls of that bridge are not a tariff of good works.

The world matters not because we’re commanded to care, but because of those last set of activities in Ecclesiastes. Those feelings. They aren’t inner feelings, but social ones. For example, keeping silent is normal alone, it’s only an act when you’re with someone.

Faced with the vastness of divine power, an unknowable, unreachable, uninfluenceable God, where all is ‘mere breath’, Ecclesiastes points to people, to the crown of God’s creation. Now, this is no blandly pious ‘God is Love’ message, he’s not saying you can’t hate them, just that a full life engages with them in all their complexity, their diversity , and their messiness. It requires us to engage with the world as it is. And it allows for change. Some might say – I would say – that this week’s position from the college of bishops isn’t changing enough. That it’s not engaging with the world as it is.

But the point is that we must do this, not because these works to be done for a test, but because this is life to be lived to its fullness, this is what we have the time for. Ecclesiastes isn’t telling you how; it’s certainly not telling you when, it’s just telling us that creation, not heaven alone is our mission. Nothing can be left to God alone, when we can act ourselves.

Keep your eyes fixed on the heavens, sure, but lay those foundations, plant those seeds. There is a time for everything. Let us act in the world. Eternity is coming, God has placed it in our hearts, but not yet.

Bibliography, 2022

Within touching distance of my target of ten books a month, I finished on 118, with three in progress. Next year, next year... 

Curiously, it was exactly 50% fiction, though with non-fiction more weighted to cultural than historical reading, with a lot of memoir this year. BOTMs were almost the same, with five non-fiction (all from the first five months of the year) and seven fiction (from the remainder of the year). This did not in any way reflect the actual reading volumes.

The fiction is straightforward this year. I read Old Filth on Anna's recommendation and I am so glad I did. The sequels are nowhere near as good, but this is an exceptional, and exceptionally precisely written, book. It deserves to be much more well known than it is. 

Usually, non-fiction is harder to call, and there are several non-fiction works that deserve talking about, including ones that weren't books of the month. However, they are all easily overtopped by The Power Broker. It's reputation preceeds it, and it can't really be better known amongst its target audience, but the consensus is correct. 

Jan: P. Short, Mitterand: a study in ambiguity (2013)
Feb: F. Dunlop, Sharks fin soup and sichuan pepper (2009)
Mar: B. Lenon, Much promise: successful schools in England (2017)
Apr: R. Caro, The power broker (1974)
May: S. Ritchie, Science Fictions: the epidemic of fraud, bias, negligence and hype (2020)
Jun: J. Lahiri, The namesake (2003)
Jul: C. Isherwood, A single man (1964)
Aug: J. Gardam, Old Filth (2004)
Sep: D. Simmons, Hyperion (1989)
Oct: M. Renault, Fire from Heaven (1969)
Nov: K. Miller, Augustown (2016)
Dec: C. Brenchley, Dust up at the crater school (2021)

Bibliography, December 2022

BOTM: C. Brenchley, Dust up at the crater school (2021)

S. Barry, The Secret Scripture (2008)
A. Beam, The rise, fall and curious afterlife of the great books (2008)

A. Coglan, Carols from Kings (2016)

A. Kavan, Ice (1967)
V. Moller, The map of knowledge (2019)
W. Morris, The glittering plain (1890)

A. Proctor, The whole picture: the colonial story of the art in our museums (2020)

M. Reisner, Cadillac Desert (2003)

B. Unsworth, Losing Nelson (1999)

It's been a pretty disappointing reading month. Most of these were mediocre, and a number were plain bad. The only two that I would wholeheartedly recommend were the Reisner on water and the second of the marvellous chalet-school-on-Mars series that I loved so much last Christmas that I saved this one for this Christmas. It was, like it's predecessor, my favourite of the month. It was not as good. Some of the plotting needed more work, but still hugely enjoyable. Cadillac Desert could, perhaps should have, beaten it, but it was a little too long, and too unwieldly in the middle. It was, however, fascinating, and very well told in most of the parts. I would be uneasy as an inhabitant of the American West right now.

Bibliography, November 2022

BOTM: K. Miller, Augustown (2016)

J. Barker, Agincourt (2005)
M. Benn, People like us (2007)
Bendis & Gaydos, Jessica Jones, Vol 2: the secrets of Maria Hill (2016)
A.C. Doyle, The adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)*
L. Henry, Who I am, Again? (2019)
C. Higgins, Under another sky (2013)
P. Lively, The road to Lichfield (1977)
I. Livingstone, Dice Men (2022)
W.S. Maugham, The Summing up (1938)
M. Renault, The Persian boy (1972)

Good month. Three pieces of marvellous fiction (Miller, Lively, Doyle). Huge affection too for Maugham's book, which was let down by the final section on philosophy. I loved the first three quarters, and it would have been my favourite of all. I think it really distills, in clear, readable, prose Maugham's own views on literature and the production of it. Obviously some of that as dated, and some of his views are plain wrong, but hugely enjoyable to read. I obviously also loved Livingstone's account of the first years of Games Workshop, but I won't claim profundity for it. 

So, all my favourites were fiction. I always like to reread Sherlock Holmes. I forget what triggered this one, but they were as excellent as I remembered. The road to Lichfield was also excellent. I do think Penelope Lively is one of finest novelists. I think she's slightly overlooked (not much - she is a Dame) because she writes about domesticity, not big issues. It's striking that her, richly deserved, Booker win came from a novel set in Egypt. This one is resolutely narrow, but well done. The writing is lovely, effortless and seemingly throwaway prose. But it's sharper than that underneath and a exemplar of 'show, don't tell' writing. It's also well crafted: the sub-plots dovetail, both as counterpoints and as tributaries, and it covers a lot of ground in a short period. Augustown is also a well crafted book. I do like their plots to work. It does what you might expect around local colour and myth, but it's in the bringing of that into the here and now that works really well. I also think it manages variance of tone exceptionally well. This makes it sound highly technical; it's not. It's enormously fun to read, and full of high drama. Nor is it very long either. 

Against the puritans

Preached Remembrance Sunday (13th November) 2022, St Michael's Church, Stockwell

Malachi 4:1-2
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

Now the Vicar isn’t here, I can admit that I really don’t want to give this sermon. I like giving sermons in general, just not this one, the Remembrance day sermon.

And I have three main problems with it:

• Firstly, the cricket is on, so I’m missing England’s batting in the final – this may be a blessing in disguise.
• Secondly, the timing is highly stressful. Up and down the country preachers are having their sermons timed carefully to ensure that we hit 11am. There is no time for improvisations.
• Most importantly, the tone is very difficult to get right. This is a national, secular, day of solemn remembrance, which sometimes makes preachers give half-baked political opinions and neglect the theology.

You can judge me later on how I do.

That tone issue is particularly relevant when we look at the readings that we have. The Old Testament does not appear to have been chosen for solemn remembrance. Malachi is all about retribution, the Psalm is a celebration: we are invited to make a joyful noise to the Lord. And we are promised the whole earth will resound with joy and celebration – the seas roar, the hills sing.

We are a long way from the Cenotaph.

It made me think of the places where the war still sits heavily. 104 years after the end of the First World War, there remain places in France where the earth has never recovered. In the ‘zone rouge’ in north east France, contamination from the battlefield means that the water remains poisoned, almost all plants die, and locals are still at risk from unexploded shells. There may be noises in the hills, but not singing. They are uninhabitable.

I could not ask for a less subtle metaphor: the scars from wars are deep and long. And that is why today we remember the Great War, and subsequent ones of course. But the First World War was a global war, with soldiers from every continent, and battles across the globe. For the remembrance of what was meant to be the war to end all wars, it is poignant that we do so in a Europe that is once again at war. In Ukraine, nation has once again risen against nation.

We in Europe rightly are gripped by this new, rare, war, but war itself is not new, it is certainly not news. Many of you will have first hand knowledge of it.

In first century Palestine, it was very present. In the century before the crucifixion, Jerusalem itself had been the scene of several wars and rebellions and control of Judea had changed hands several times. When Luke records Christ talking about war and hardship: ‘kingdom against kingdom … great earthquakes, … famines and plagues’ he could be talking about their recent history. By the time the gospel was written, later in the first century, the Romans had crushed the Jewish revolt and destroyed the temple.

The first audience of the gospels didn’t need warning about the future where nation fought nation, their nation had fought, and it had lost. What they needed to be told was what happens next. And the gospel gives them – and us – the answer. And it gets worse before it gets better:

• This isn’t just a normal war: ‘there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven’
• Nor will you face it with your compatriots and allies: ‘they will persecute you… you will be hated by all.’

This, rhetorically at least, is not like the wars we remember today. It requires much greater bravery than that. You will be alone.

But, in the end: you will gain your souls.

And this is why our readings on Remembrance Sunday start with jubilation. Not because there is no danger. There is. Not because the it will not hurt. It will. Not because sacrifice is not needed. Not because some sacrifices were misguided. They were. But because in the end, you will gain your souls. And we will rejoice.

This has always been the promise, but there are two dangers embedded in this:

• Firstly, that knowing one is saved, it is easy to stop trying. The writer of our epistle (possible Paul) has little time for this: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat … do not be weary in doing what is right. This danger lurks in the Calvinist theology of predestination, but for another time.
• But there is also a second risk. Not addressed directly, and that is that by fixing upon the future rejoicing, the church becomes miserable, dour, and joyless - a puritan Christianity that drives out all enjoyment. Calvin’s Geneva banned art, music with instruments, dancing, and theatre. We must not be so fixed on the narrowness of the path that we forget to laugh along the way.

For Remembrance must be tempered with laughter, just as the sacrifices of the war years were also tempered with joy. The pubs did not shut in either World War. And I wrote the last parts of this sermon last night, after Martin Kenyon’s memorial service in this church yesterday. Like all good funerals, while of course it was sad as we said goodbye to Martin, it also had jokes. Sorrow must be mingled with laughter. Afterwards, we debated about what to do with the flowers and I promised Wendy that it would be fitting to keep them. Remembrance should be solemn, but it need not be joyless.

Today is, in some churches, the feast of St John Chrysostom. He was THE superstar preacher of the late fourth century, later poached by the Emperor to become bishop of Constantinople, the biggest job in the church. It went terribly badly: John preaches against the excesses of the court, falls out with everybody and dies on the way to exile.

John did die alone, persecuted, I assume, the promise of his soul sustained him.

But I raise John not because of what he did, but because of what he wrote. This is his paschal homily, given every Easter in the Orthodox church:

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord! First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day! You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry; partake, all, of the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of His goodness! Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Remembrance is solemn. The sacrifices made are real, and we should, must and will honour them, but let us do so with our eyes fixed on the light that is coming and they joy. They all – and we all – will gain our souls.

Amen.

Bibliography, October 2022

M. Renault, Fire from Heaven (1969)

H. Atlee, The land where lemons grow (2014)

J. Didion, Slouching towards Bethlehem (1968)

R. Hoggart, Uses of Literacy (1957)

D. Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant (2007)

M. Le Conte, Haven't You Heard?: Gossip, Politics and Power (2019)

D. Orr, Motherwell (2017)

D. Simmons, the fall of Hyperion (1990)

  

Amongst my ever growing list of regrets, most of which were pointed out at the time to make them additionally galling, I include a regret that I didn't do Classics. I'm not sure I could have done Classics. I, as the memorable phrase has it, never had the Latin. Part of the problem is that I never really wanted the Latin, but I did and do want the Greek. As you'd expect, I still believe the most perfect expression of that is the Eastern Roman Empire, but reading Renault reminded me that there's a lot more Greek history I would have done. It's famous, it's very well done on the past, both the familiarity and the alien nature of it, it's bold on homosexuality, and it's compelling in the specific portraits of the protagonists. It's slightly too long, but still excellent.