Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan

I have always been fascinated by religion, particularly Christianity. Not by it’s dogma or rituals, but by the story it tells. Like our best literature, the Bible is filled with heroism, sacrifice, suffering, life and death, all of which make it an evocative read. Christ particularly, is a captivating figure behind the New Testament at least, because, like all great heros, he marches to the summons without flinching. Even when it takes him into the valley of the shadow of death. The gospels are founded upon his message and sacrifice, but for me personally the beauty of the accounts is their portrayal of the man behind the mask, Jesus the human being not Jesus the Savior.

 Like many people I came to know of Reza Aslan’s book Zealot after the car-crash interview he was subjected to by the good old sly fox, Fox News. Rather than refute the book and its argument it propelled it into the national consciousness. But beside this, it is a fascinating read. 

Aslan argues that Jesus imbibes two meanings, the first is that of the Christ, who rose from the dead and redeemed all sins, the second more elusive is of the rural Palestinian, who out of the back woods of Nazareth, ‘a place that doesn’t exist on the map,’ marches into Jerusalem calling for revolution. This is the central argument of the account. Jesus was a Jewish Zealot, a ‘peasant and revolutionary who challenged the rule of the most powerful empire the world had ever known.’ A remarkable story if ever there was one.

The first part of the book discusses Palestine, at the turn of the millennia. Awash with preachers, prophets and rabble rousers, embroiled in political and social strife. Jerusalem, under the subjugation of Roman law and the temple elders, became the locus of many exalted men. The Jewish people had a particular belief in zeal, which, ‘implied a strict adherence to the Torah and Law, a refusal to serve any foreign master [...] and an uncompromising devotion to the sovereignty of God. To be zealous for the Lord was to walk in the blazing footsteps of the prophets.’ On such a backdrop Jesus of Nazareth appeared.

The story of Jesus the man is in some ways more extraordinary than the gospels Jesus the Christ. Here was an illiterate pauper, a magician and exorcist, who after developing a band of ever-growing followers commits the ultimate act of treason when he gives the command: ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’ This was, ‘a capital offense [...] Considering the temple’s tangled relationship with Rome, [it] is tantamount to attacking Rome itself.’ There is only one pathway left to such a man and after such an act, and that is the path to crucifixion: ‘Like every bandit and revolutionary, every rabble rousing zealot and apocalyptic prophet [...] Jesus of Nazareth is executed for daring to claim the mantle of king and messiah.’ His message is clear, ‘the kingdom of God is about to be established on earth [...] But God’s restoration cannot happen without the destruction of the present order.’ 

Depending on how much we believe of the gospels account, Jesus had the astonishing ability to mythologize himself even while alive, but his death and reported rising was what propelled the carpenter, ensconced in the Jewish faith, into the all-encompassing God of humanity. Aslan gives a wonderful account of how Christianity was formed, from its beginning with James the Just, to its emerging with Paul the Apostle, who more than any figure made the religion what it is today. The New Testament itself is shown to be a cacophony of voices, a blending of fact and fiction, myth and history, but Jesus of Nazareth is the unusual individual who stands behind such an edifice.

The book is a brilliant read, prodigiously sourced and researched, with an engaging style. The most fascinating part of the story of Jesus, however, is that for some reason outside the bounds of history, and research, the early Christians were convinced that Christ had risen from the dead, not as a spirit but as a man of flesh and blood. The kernel of this belief remains elusive even to Aslan’s magisterial scope, but I suppose this last part is the matter of faith. For everything else this account sheds an illuminating light of Jesus the man, who somehow against the odds and propelled by destiny, founded one the great Western religions. Like Aslan thinks, this is man, in his very humanness, is one I could read about all day.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel: My Life

A Review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Autobiography, Infidel

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography Infidel, is as an amazing and provocative read. admittedly. To some extent, my views converge with hers, but this is probably because she is a persuasive and passionate writer. However, first and foremost, beyond the fiery polemic, I found her book an inspiring read. Ayaan’s life has been one of survival against odds. She has overcome childhood trauma, abuse, displacement, apostasy, family abandonment and finally death threats and murder attempts. All of these are linked to the Islamic culture she grew up within, and which has now permeated the West. 

Her tale of suffering is personal of course, but it’s entwined with an ideology that perpetuated it. As such her argument is both experiential and analytical in it’s judgements. The writer has also had the unusual opportunity to live in several countries spanning three continents. Her childhood was spent in the Islamic states of Somalia, and Saudi Arabia. She was then relocated to the Christian countries of Ethiopia and Kenya. Finally she claimed asylum in the secular societies of the Netherlands and the United States. As a result she has developed a nuanced understanding and knowledge of a cultural, political and religious aspects of the world states.

The first part of the book deals with Ayaan’s early years in Somalia, and Saudi Arabia and she is able to tell us much about the limiting beliefs and rituals that prevail in the area. As a writer, she has a remarkable ability to convey such scenes through the eyes of a child. Insight comes later, at present all we have is the core suffering. Thus we hear: 

‘Somalia children must memorize their lineage: This is more important than anything else.’

‘If a girls virginity is despoiled, she not only obliterates her own honour, she also damages the honour of her father, uncles, brothers and male cousins.’

She is told by her grandmother: ‘A woman alone is like a piece of sheep fat in the sun [...] Everything will come to feed on that fat. Before you know it, the ants and the insects are crawling all over it, until its nothing left but a smear of grease.’

A woman is meant to be ‘a devoted, welcoming, well-trained work animal. This is baari’

‘In Somalia [...] little girls are made “pure” by having their genitals cut out [...] The practice is always justified in the name of Islam [...] the entire procedure was torture for us.’

‘Everything about Saudi Arabia was sin.’

‘If you married outside the rules [...]You sank into a hideous destiny of impurity, godlessness, and disease.’

‘Everything that went wrong was the fault of the Jews [...] the Jews controlled the world [...] Islam was under attack and we should step forward and fight the Jews.’

‘Our goal was a global Islamic government for everyone.’

Now at this point it would be quite easy to conceptualize the above quotes, as pithy maxims or soundbites that reveal little truth. However, this is the point entirely, for we must remember this is how the author herself came to such “knowledge.” It is not to the detriment of her writing skills that she recalls it as such, but to the detriment of a state which ingrained such 'maxims'. Luckily, as time goes on, Ayaan is able to grow and develop as a person, and eventually analyze and challenge such religious beliefs. 

After an arranged marriage is ordered, Ayaan flees to Holland. Here her new life begins, and period of personal  development occur. First she registers as a refugee, then she becomes an asylum seeker, finally she is given Dutch citizenship. She goes from being a Somali translator, to a university graduate in political sciences, and finally a member of the Dutch parliament. 

The criticism of Islam now becomes more apparent. For genital excision she claims: ‘What was between my legs was not mine to give. I was branded.’ Of holland she states: ‘This was infidel country, whose ways of life we Muslims were supposed to oppose and reject. Why was it then so much better run, better led, and made for such better lives than the places we came from [...] Of all the countries were war had broken out, so many seemed to be Muslim.’ Later she adds, ‘this man-made system of government was so much more stable, peaceful, prosperous and happy than the supposedly God devised systems I had been taught to respect.’ It is only when America is attacked on September 11th do her real views suddenly emerge fully formed and ferocious.

Of the attacks she states: ‘It is about Islam. This is based in belief. This is Islam [....] It was not a lunatic fringe who felt this way about America and West. I knew that a vast mass of Muslims would see the attacks as justified retaliation against the infidel enemies of Islam. War had been declared in the name of Islam [....] This was the core of Islam,’ for ‘jihad was a historical constant’ of the religion.

She is equally baffled by some appeasing commentators who seek to excuse perpetrators of such acts from moral responsibility. She states: ‘People theorized beautifully about poverty pushing people to terrorism; about colonialism and consumerism, pop culture, and western decadence [...] None of this pseudo intellectualizing had anything to do with reality.’ It is in fact, akin to, ‘analyzing Lenin and Stalin without looking at the works of Marx [...] By declaring our prophet infallible we had set up a static tyranny.’ 

After sharing her views both on a journalistic and political platform, inevitably the death threats came in. We hear how Ayaan is driven around in armored cars, sleeps in aircraft hangars, is shadowed by bodyguards, moved from place to place like a nomad. All while this is occurring her family have broken off all ties with her as she has now declared that she is an atheist. Finally after collaborating with Theo van Gogh for a movie on the plight of Muslim woman entitled Submission, things become ugly. Theo is murdered, stabbed in the chest with a note attached to the blade of the knife; another death threat to the writer in the name of religion. The Dutch political party suddenly becomes very and her citizenship is revoked. Nevertheless, she moves to the USA to continue a career in a think-tank capacity. At this point the story ends, and we can assume that Ayaan continues her role as an advocate for Muslim women, as well as a opponent of the religion itself.

Two possible criticisms could be leveled at the book. The first is that some will say Ayaan has an axe to grind against Islam because of her own upbringing. To me, this putting the cart before the horse. Her upbringing, did not occur in a vacuum, religion permeated every part of her life. For this reason, it makes her a better candidate than any to discuss it. Her own suffering is bound to the ideology of the religion and so she has quite reasonable grounds to criticize it. The second, is that some will argue Ayaan has betrayed her roots and succumbed to Western Imperialism or Western Culture, but this only begs the question. There must be something about such culture to make her take such a strong stance on each. Shouldn’t we rather ask, isn’t there such a thing as Arab imperialism and culture, that could equally limit or colour a person. 

The fact that Somalia now has a terrorist cell in Al Shabab, and which has recently merged with Al Qaeda, show that Ayaan was presciently aware of the troubles laying dormant in the war-ravaged country, but it also suggests how intrinsically religion is bound to the state.

All of this she is able to link back to the Koran, and indeed this seems a good a place to start as any, for we sometimes underestimate the power of texts in shaping ideologies and culture. To draw an analogy, we can say Nazism arose due to the political and social circumstances of the time, or the psychological profile of Hitler. However, we can equally explain it via Mein Kampf, and Nietzschean doctrines which preceded it. It is such an ideology that offered as motivation and justification of war. The only difference with Islam and the Koran is its scope.

The Netherlands is not much different from Britain. It struggles with the same issues of migration, integration, extremism, and polarised politics. The real change for the better will come from such women as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is an inspiring and courageous woman. After undergoing such hardship, she has not only forged a new happy life, but continually has the bravery to speak out on one of the most divisive topics of our time.

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

Alone in Berlin

When I was studying for my A Level in Modern History, I got wind of the controversial book, entitled Hitler’s Willing Executioners, by Daniel Goldhagen. It put forth the argument, that ordinary German citizens were as guilty as the Nazi regime, and complicit in the atrocities. This culpability is apparently due to Germany, being a deeply anti-Semitic nation-state, that fostered such an atmosphere of hatred, that Hitler was able to come to power easily.

I must admit, rather ashamedly, and despite not having read the book, I bought into the interpretation. I just couldn’t understand how an entire population could cave to a pack of murdering thugs, without a squib of resistance or ounce of defiance. It seemed the equivalent of a dog laying down to be shot. 

Thankfully, today my views have changed. Fiction had a way of reaching us that historical records can’t and after reading Vassily Grossman’s masterpiece Life and Fate, it dawned on me what tyranny is really about. The devastating affect it has on ordinary citizens. Since reading Hans Fallada’s, Alone in Berlin, my belief has only been confirmed. Living under a such a government is akin to being a caged mouse, with a hungry cat watching just outside the bars!

Written in 1946, by a German who lived through the Nazi regime, Alone in Berlin fictionalizes the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, who waged their own little war of resistance against Hitler, writing inflammatory postcards and planting them across the capital. In the novel these two individuals become the Quangels, a quiet working class couple, who litter the city with pamphlets, after the death of their son on the frontline. The novel depicts a dangerous and oppressive world where the ordinary citizen lives under the perpetual blade of a guillotine, where the ‘Gestapo was the state.’ 

Despite this, life goes on. The reason for the government's continuing existence, is because of the self-perpetuating ideology of Nazism which was backed up by violence. This breeds either ignorance or fear. On one hand we have: ‘Hitler apotheosized. Hitler in excelsis, lord of the universe, all-powerful, all-seeing, all-forgiving. [...] The war rages on slaughtering millions and still they believe in him.’ On the other, ‘Quangel is right to call Hitler a murderer and me his henchman [...] it disgusts me to keep those fellows supplied with fresh prey [...] I also want to fight./But its impossible [...] They would catch me [...] and my flesh screams when they torture it. I’m a coward.’ The cogs of the state are rusting on the axle but somehow still continue to turn, because in one way or the other, society has bought into the myth.

As such, the citizens of Berlin are caught up in their own doublethink. On one hand each individual is well aware of the danger that encompasses them, on the other, they pretend it doesn’t pose a threat. This little bit of false hope, driven by barely contained dread, is what gives rise to justification and conformism. But how people respond, differs according to their type. 

In the novel, Berlin has a wide variety of people. Megalomanic officers of the Reich such as Judge Feisler and Officer Prall. The sadistic thugs of the Gestapo and SS like Balder Persicke and officer Karlemann. The hapless dispossessed fools like Enno Kluge and Borkhausen. The politically smart Jobsworths like Inspector Escherich and Dr Martens. And finally a small segment of good people. These are the heros of Alone in Berlin. Leading the charge are the Quangels, then Judge Fromm, Trudel Baumann, Chaplain Friedrich Lorenz and Dr Reichhardt. The last group are all effectively playing russian roulette with their lives, and for such heroic acts only few are brave enough. The other Germans, who conformed to the party ideology we can only pity. The novel makes clear its a matter of survival, they had loved ones, children and wives to protect.

In this world, those who resist Hitler and his regime often come to harm, but this only reasserts the dangers of a totalitarian government. ‘These days everyone has something to hide.’ Inspectors, Party-Stalwarts, Attorneys, Doctors, the foolish, the weak, and the strong, all fall foul of the Nazi regime. Tyranny is so encompassing, so prevalent, that no-one can possibly be outside of it. Each character will try to navigate the treacherous waters, but most will drown because a chain of association will eventually forge a link to their own life.

On face value, the Quangels do more harm than good and their campaign endangers others. Despite this we all know they are heroes and acted out of the goodness of their hearts. As such, their act should be judged by intention rather than result. Ultimately, it is an outstanding display of human courage, and emblem of the human spirit and its eternal belief in freedom. As Quangel himself learns:

‘It would have been a hundred times better if we’d had someone who could have told us, such and such is what you have to do; our plan is this and this. But if there had been such a man in Germany Hitler would never have come to power in 1933. As it was, we all acted alone, we were caught alone, and everyone of us will have to die alone. But that doesn’t mean that we are alone, Quangel, or that our deaths will be in vain. Nothing in this world is done in vain and since we are fighting for justice against brutality, we are bound to prevail in the end.’

Child of God

Child of God, by Cormac Mccarthey

A bizarre and disturbing novel, nevertheless rendered with Mccarthey's signature stark beauty and poetic detail. The story follows Lester Ballard, a backwoods degenerate of the deep south, who exiled from his community roams the countryside of Tennessee. On his pilgrimage he indulges his warped appetite for murder and necrophilia, and the periodic scenes are truly horrifying:

She lay there naked on the mattress with her sallow breasts pooled in the light like wax flowers. Ballard began to dress her in her new clothes. He sat and brushed her hair [...] [and [ began to paint her lips [...] He undressed her very slowly, talking to her. Then he pulled off his trousers [...] and spread her loose thighs. You’ve been wanting this, he told her. 

It is possible to spot precipitant signs of future works; the phantasmagoric landscapes of Blood Meridian and the Road replete with its grotesque characters, only here, it is localized. The language is vivid, eidetic and natural. It contains a sensual quality, which lures us in, and make us accomplices to the protagonist, creating a disturbing read.

However, the problem with the novel is that, despite the beauty of the style, it lacks content and substance. Nothing really happens within the narrative, and so little meaning can be salvaged from it. Some readers will vaunt the work as an unflinching study of human degradation and claim that it asks penetrating questions as to how we treat exiles, and what stories we use to justify our acts. I for one don’t buy this, because the characters seem lifeless. Lester Ballard, ‘with eyes, dark, huge and vacant’ is a cipher, and possesses no internal reality to account for his behaviour, other than the novelty appearance of a walking freak-show. His actions, while macabre seem purposelessly, lacking motivation or meaning, and this makes them insignificant and unreal. The wider intellectual themes are also nonexistent, and wholly out of keeping with Mccarthey’s method anyway. Instead we have a tapestry of images rather than a story.

Despite this there is a certain pleasure in reading Mccarthey. His novels are dreamscapes in which the ordinary world is transfigured. This narrative is no different, and thus it is not the character of Lester Ballard who truly scares us but the alien and hostile land he inhabits. Unlike Kafka’s world, there is no mystery or reality of which the protagonist is excluded from. Instead, the world is merely violent and dangerous, and this reflected in the souls of men. The story ends in the subterranean caves beneath Tennessee:

Down narrow dripping corridors, across stone rooms, where fragile spires stood [...] and a stream in its stone bed ran on in the sightless dark.

 Ballard’s and Mccarthey’s down-going journey, has finally led the reader to the depths in more ways than one. 

Building St Paul’s, by James W. P. Campbell

Building St Paul’s, by James W. P. Campbell

Who would have thought that the construction of a building would be so interesting.

Campbell deftly weaves the story of St Paul’s Cathedral, from conception to its completion, and does so with prosaic and pristine style. He is able to take us on a journey filled with scandal, intrigue and ambition. The result is not so much a book about the church but a book about the whole of London in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. We learn about Renaissance building technique, architectural styles, politics and patronage, and the general day to day life of common worker on the streets of the Capital. This may sound exceedingly dull but its actually fascinating. Who would have thought, that the original church had to be demolished with a giant battering ram shaped as an arrow. That rather than British Gothic, the cathedral borrows from Greek and Roman Classicism. That Wren was royally approved for such a project but then got shoved out when he was in his eighties. Or laborers worked twelve hour shifts, without cranes or bulldozers, and rather climbed timber scaffolding, that reached over three hundred feet into the air?

 I have often looked at buildings and am amazed and the craftsmanship employed in their construction. I think the old adage is true; they just don’t make them like they used too. Architecture has become a business like any other, with university graduates and corporations. In Christopher Wren’s day the work relied on individual genius, in conjunction with mass labour. Here we get an account that progresses just like the cathedral from the foundational bricks to the pinnacle. The result is a book that tells a story of London and everyday life, and St Paul’s is the locus in which the world city revolves around in all its colour and sound. Replete with illustrations, and fascinating details, this book is an interesting and enjoyable read. 

Interpreting True Grit

Interpreting True Grit: Thoughts on the Coen Brothers Film Adaptation

A biblical subtext permeates this film and it begins with the opening Proverb: ‘The wicked flee when none pursueth.’ Much like our own time, the idea of real justice is alien to the Wild West and so in truth, the maxim should be amended. The wicked flee regardless.

The story, depicts the precocious young girl Mattie Ross, who, with the help of two bounty hunters seeks to avenge her fathers death at the hands of petty criminal Tom Cheney. On the surface she does exactly this, but the vision is fractured. After being bitten by a rattlesnake, she hallucinates her fathers killer. Despite the fact she has killed him with her own hands, he remains yet, an insubstantial shadow riding off into the night. ‘He’s getting away,’ she murmurs. In truth, she herself is being pursued this time by new knowledge, and she cannot escape the fact that her dream of vengeance is an illusion. She has chased only darkness. Whatever beliefs she had are shattered, because she craves a justice that is not of this world. 

Earthly justice fails because it revolves around trade. Ross makes this clear in the first scene. She states: ‘A coward by the name of Tom Cheney shot my father down, and robbed him of his life and his horse, and two Californian gold pieces,’ and quickly follows with, ‘you must pay for everything in this world one way or another.’ The implication is clear. Life itself, is a commodity that can be bartered or frittered away on the market. Even murder becomes just another transaction. Furthermore those who exact such earthly justice, the bounty hunters, bear an uncanny relationship to the outlaws they hunt. Like Cheney, Rooster Cogburn is a thuggish ‘hired man’ and a drunk, who squanders his money. Laboeuf may escape such charges, but the core denominator between bounty hunters and outlaws remains. They both work, and kill, for money. For that matter, so do the other section of societies, including the corrupt merchants and law agencies. There is careful gentleman’s agreement that characterizes such a society, and it is based on exploitation of others. This is why the end scenes are symmetrical. Rooster flogs a horse unto death, while attempting to get Mattie Ross help, effectively exploiting the animal, albeit for a good cause. However, no good deed goes unpunished and the price he must pay for such an act, is to suffer his own exploitation while under a touring rodeo show. Like the horse he is effectively flogged until he dies and this is why old Mattie Ross calls the proprietors of such a company ‘trash.' Money and Power rule such a world, and all men as such are rendered equal because of it.

Rooster Cogburn’s name suggests a masculine world. On the surface rooster suggests prowess and male virility, cogburn blacksmiths and forges. However on a deeper level, cogburn implies a world that has exhausted itself to the point the cogs are burning off the axle, and rooster is a parody of traditional associations. If this is the best of men, what does it say for the worse. Women, on the other hand, are confined to the parlour, and the ignorance of Grandma Turner, and the domestic landlady, who can provide Mattie Ross with ‘an empty flour sack’ to store her gun, but is useless in all other respects. 

Ignorance is bliss and there is even a price to pay for knowledge particularly for women. Rooster Cogburn is missing an eye for his troubles, and how appropriate Mattie Ross looses her arm, the offending agent that held the gun that killed the enemy. Likewise while saddling up, she, feeds her horse little blacky, red apples. The lingering shot of the fruit bowl and stark colours are intriguing and seemingly intentional. Couple this, with the fact that Ross looses her arm to a snakebite, it seems arguable we have an allegorical retelling of Genesis. Mattie Ross is Eve, who plucks the apple of knowledge and falls victim to the tempting serpent. It is also interesting that Tom Cheney declares Ross, broke a rib when she shot him. If we recall Genesis, Eve is made and fashioned out of Adam’s rib. The poetic justice here is that Mattie Ross herself, is also ‘made,' by the man, she bears a kinship too.

For the conclusion we should return to the introduction. ‘The wicked flee and none pursueth.’ Twenty-five years later, Mattie Ross gives a new coming of age maxim: ‘Time just flits away from us.’ There is a symmetry in the end lines, which recalls the opening scenes, and it suggests that wickedness is actually bound up to the human condition. That time itself is the enemy, and life the punishment. The biblical subtext is strong, but the irony is that this is a wicked flawed world without God much like are own. We have come full circle. The Wild West is not that different from ours, and the proverb lingers yet, though shorn in half ‘the wicked flee.’

A Review of ‘The Selected Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’

A Review of ‘The Selected Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’

There is always something immensely satisfying when reading the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As one of the chief architects of the Romantic movement he deserves his place in the Canon, but beyond this his poems are terrific reads and journeys into the mind of a visionary. Like the ancient mariner Coleridge is able to hold the reader in a hypnotic act of hearing and seeing even nearly two hundred years after his death.

One of the brilliant aspects of Coleridge’s poetry is the degree of intensity and emotion lurking within it. This intensity is unrivalled in his contemporary Romantics; Shelley’s Ode to the Westwind and Keats’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci are beautiful highly wrought masterpieces but poems such as the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel seem to ooze emotion and menace. Poets, particularly the Romantics, have always written from their own inner reservoir of feeling, yet there is often a degree of detachment whereby the poet hides in the shadows of his poetic voice. With Coleridge we get the sense the poetic voice is his own voice, raw, anguished and honest. Coleridge is ‘the bright-eyed mariner’ just as he is Kubla Khan with his ‘flashing eyes and floating hair.’ Knowing this makes reading his work a thought-provoking experience. In contrast to the all empowering dread and fear encountered in his most famous masterpieces there are poems that display Coleridge’s sentimental side. There is a truthfulness and vulnerability in poems such as ‘Frost at Midnight’, and ‘Dejection: an Ode’ that make Coleridge endearing to the reader, we get a sense of not only the poem but the experience itself despite the distance of time and space. It is this emotional reality that is behind the words, unguarded and authentic, that makes Coleridge’s poetry truly great.

Coleridge’s poems are also treasure troves of meaning. Here we have poetry that contains hidden gems of ideas and influences, and language that moves and morphs, as it is being read. Coleridge’s famous collaborator and friend William Wordsworth wrote poetry depicting the natural world, and the meaning and significance was in the experience itself. For Coleridge scenes and experiences contain a hidden reality, characters and words, go beyond their literal meaning and point in other directions. Behind the shapeshifting language and narrative of his poems is a rich world of ideas which a reader can choose from as he sees fit. For example Rime of the Ancient Mariner can be read as a Christian tale of redemption or a gothic nightmare, Christabel can be a story of repressed female desires, or Demonic possession. The beauty of the work is that it often cannot settle on one frame, holes and gaps appear which disrupt the order. If the ancient mariner claims to have been redeemed by God then why is he still bound to his fate of confession, if Geraldine really is a demonic spirit, why does Christabel’s father Sir Leoline seem to be uncannily in collusion with her. Even in poems that seem more clear-cut we have hints of a personal world and experience beneath the most literal interpretation. In The Eolian Harp the harp is a symbol for the ‘one life’ and the unity of all things Coleridge believed in, but it is also a symbol for love and a yielding female body, ‘The Pangs of Sleep’ is a lament over the Coleridge’s own insomnia and night terrors but also hints at his underlying fear of persecution and pathological guilt. This elusiveness of meaning and use of symbols is one of the sublime aspects of Coleridge’s work and what makes it always relevant and rewarding to read.

This collection of poetry presents Coleridge at his best. We have his masterpieces including the The Rime of Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan and the ‘Conversation Poems,’ alongside these we have some of Coleridge’s more obscure and personal poems which shed light on his ideas and life. Acclaimed Coleridge biographer Richard Holmes editorial arrangement of poems according to theme, helps bring Coleridge’s work in sharp focus and we get a sense of who the man was. Reading Coleridge’s poetry is an enthralling journey into the deep recesses of the mind of one thegreatest poets of world literature. The emotion, still present and lingering, and the chameleon like language and ideas mean that Coleridge will be around for a long time to come.

My Top Five Books

The Greatest Books I've Ever Read


Ok so I thought I would get the ball rolling with a top five selection of my favourite books and why I think they are the best, and while the premise might be unoriginal hopefully the literature I've chosen will be more interesting.


1/ Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse
One of the seminal classics of Modernism, Steppenwolf holds a lofty status with both academics and general readers alike. I myself discovered the novel, after having my own peculiar existential angst while studying my A levels when I was nineteen. Reading it was like looking into a reflection of my own soul. Harry Haller is a man but he is also a wolf. When he is a man he loves art, poetry and all that is beautiful. When he is a wolf he is a savage caught in despair, who derides culture, scoffs at the sublime, and shuns other people. Rather than a strange isolated individual, in truth, Haller's fractured soul is actually a sign of the times and emblematic of the chaotic zeitgeist of the twentieth century. Consumerism, Materialism, War, and Politics, Harry Haller is a vessel which carries the collective disease of Western society. Only by reconciling himself to the world around him can he unite the wolf and man in his own spirit, but the process is one fraught with terrible pain. However, with the help of his prostitute friend Hermine, and the Jazz swinging musician Pablo, he attempts just this. Is the Magic Theatre, a Drug induced vision, a storytelling device, or an actual spirit world? We can never truly tell, but  Haller must watch the kaleidoscopic show and even be the main actor, if he is to discover his destiny. Machine guns, the Kama sutra, Chess, and the Marvellous Taming of the Steppenwolf all await him. Only through this pathway of magic can he unite his divided personality and redeem the collective world around him. Before Paulo Coelho there was Hesse.

2/ The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
This is one the greatest works of literature ever, and although a hefty read at nine hundred pages its worth it. Dostoevsky was clearly a genius but also as insane as the characters he delineates. Everything is here in this novel: Joy, suffering, life, death, God and the Devil and all come together to present a magisterial vision of reality and all it encompasses. Fyodor Pavlovich is the the hapless father of three brothers, Dmitry the emotionally unstable soldier, Ivan the aloof intellectual, and Alyosha, the pious monk. He is also the father of shadowy illegitimate fourth child Smerdyakov. After their father is murdered by the last, each brother will change radically, and learn the deepest darkest secrets of their own souls as they come to grips with their own guilt and culpability. Dostoevsky is parallel to Dickens in his character construction but there is nothing bourgeois or middle class about them. They are mad, bad and dangerous. However, one character of this novel stands out above the rest and this is Ivan. His pivotal chapters of 'Rebellion' and the 'Grand Inquisitor' are remarkable and truly worthy of canonical status. The former is utterly devastating, and one of the most upsetting thing I've ever read. The latter is is a prescient allegory of tyranny and the abuse of power. Blasphemous, and utterly horrifying Ivan's treatise lies at the heart of the book. Why are we cruel to each other, why does evil exist, why do children suffer? These are the eternal questions that must be answered before anything else. Dostoevsky was a deeply religious man, but no matter how much justification he puts into the Christian faith, the brothers outrageously defy its theology and standing above all is the greatest, the insane Ivan Karamazov.


3/ Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
I don't think there is any book, at least of the English canon, that equals Emily Bronte's in passion. While the nineteenth century was cluttered with the likes of Jane Austen, Dickens, and Wordsworth, a nineteen year old girl blew the lid of the status quo. It is astonishing such a dark violent and painful work could be written at all, not least by a teenager. What to say of Cathy and Heathcliff? Both seem deeply unlikable. Catherine is spoilt, emotionally unstable, and a narcissist, Heathcliff is a violent, vengeful sadist. These are not human beings in the usual sense, but like Dostoevsky's character they embody an ideal, or a primordial emotion that they push to the absolute limit. This emotion is not love, but suffering for despite the fact that both characters are 'in love', in truth, their relationship is forged out of mutual pain. Despite all, we cannot help but forgive both Cathy and Heathcliff, because buried deep beneath their warped behaviours are children, who have been so traumatised by their environment, that they have have never learnt to become adults. The ultimate novel of broken homes and dysfunctional families, Bronte's novel is unprecedented. We get the sense that Nelly's remark is true. The ghosts of Cathy and Heathcliff will never die but continue to rage and burn with the fire of their inner hurt for eternity.

4/ The Road, Cormac Mccarthey
Some may prefer Blood Meridian because its violence is shocking, its evil harrowing. There is no one quite like 'The Judge' in literature. He is the ultimate expression of nihilism and misanthropy, and the whole story is a phantasmagoria of his own warped ideology. Nevertheless the Road does it for me and does so because stylistically I think its better. The language is pristine, and contains a Dantesque and Miltonic grandeur unique to postmodern literature. The themes are not so obvious, but the imagery is powerfully eidetic, meaning Mccarthey makes us envision what we read in all its sensual qualities. What we see is sad, beautiful and scary. Here we have a world that has deconstructed itself into an abyss. We do not need to know what happened, all we need to know is that life has been stripped of all illusions and all thats left is the ossified relics. The ashy windrows, the skeletal trees, the godless men who have taken Nietzsche's doctrine of power to heart. Despite this, their is a strand of hope left somewhere, a tiny glimmer of beauty and a sparkle of love, that ultimately affirms life even in the darkest hour. This is literature at its best. Art should not just reflect the world's ugliness but ultimately find a way to redeem it. The man and boy are emblems of this redemption, they contain within them all that is lost and all that remains. The man tells the boy All things of beauty are born in pain, and I would say much the same when looking at this work.

5/ The Shining, Stephen King
It won't be ranked as a seminal work of great literature but it's a novel I love very much. I was looking through old boxes in my loft one day when I found a tatty copy of the shining. The cover depicted a demonic looking face complete with blue skin and blood red eyes. I was only about twelve at the time but was quietly thrilled. Once I started reading it I was hooked, and it ushered me into a devilish world governed only by malevolent spirits. For me, the most fascinating idea presented in the novel, is of degeneration, and that we are all capable of evil given the right circumstances. The first few chapters where Danny is having visions of his rampaging father staggering down the hallways of the overlook hotel, with a mallet is truly terrifying and makes the blood run cold. This is a evil without restraint, but the depth of each character is remarkable. Unlike Jack Nicholson, who portrays Jack Torrance as a evil psychopath just waiting to cause havoc from the beginning, in this novel, king creates the father as complex character. We are there with him and his family, privy to the same claustrophobia, the same terror, and the same cabin fever. Ultimately like the characters we can see the situation spiralling out of control, but are unable to stop it. The genius of king is he has taken the the most frightening elements of Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and H.P Lovecraft, and transported them into a modern setting of contemporary America. Evil is not in the long forgotten past, or the distant reaches of the world, but here on are own back door. The ghosts and goblins, that haunt the houses and cemeteries, have now become little demons already nesting in the human heart.

A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

I suppose it is a bitter irony that the name Ishmael alludes to one who is exiled from humanity and destined to roam the wilderness for a lifetime. This is the same fate of the child-soldiers of Sierra Leone who were engulfed in the conflict between the Revolutionary United Front, and the All People's Congress governmental army. This biography is a vivid and poignant account of a former recruit, and the struggles and sufferings he endured. The author is unflinching, and makes  clear, he witnessed atrocities and and took part in them. But the level of depravity that the war induced is still shocking.

Rebels cut off the heads of some peoples family members and made them watch, burned entire villages along with the inhabitants, forced sons to have intercourse with their mothers, hacked newly born babies in half because they cried to much, cut open pregnant women's stomachs, took the babies out and killed them

The carnage of such scenes paints a picture of humanity and its worst. However it seems that, only by recalling such experiences can the narrator do justice to the pain which they evoked. There is a implicit belief that by delineating such misery and bloodshot, a sense of clarity can be gleaned. This becomes a catalyst which makes readers aware, informed and ready to help. A visual emblem, which stirs our empathy.

Beyond this, the biography is also about trauma. Ishmael is plagued by nightmares and flashbacks which show a mind that has been completely ripped apart by his experiences. He tells us:

I lit a lamp and as soon as the room was bright, I saw men standing all around. They had circled me in the dark. I could see their bodies-except for their faces, which were darker as if they were headless walking beings [...] They begun to shoot, stab, and slice each others throats. But they would rise and then get killed again. Their blood began to fill the room its tide quickly rising [...] Each time a person was stabbed, I felt it worse; I saw blood dripping from the same part of my body as that of the victim. I began to cry as blood filled the room.

It is astonishing a human being can even survive such emotional carnage let alone overcome it, but its true, this story is essentially one of triumph, even in the face of adversity, which makes it an inspiring read. Ishmael's life has been harrowing, not just because he became a child-soldier but because of the continual violence that the civil war created for the country long-term. Despite this, he is rehabilitated but even more so, becomes an international spokesmen for the UN around the issue of using children in warfare. He recalls at the UN Economic and Social Council he 'proudly sat behind the Sierra Leone name plaque,' and told the packed audience:

 We are all brothers and sisters. What I have learned from my experiences is that revenge is not good. I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I've come to learn that if I am going to take revenge in that process I will kill another person, whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge will never come to an end.'

The message is simple but this doesn't hinder its timely precision.

 I do not normally read biographies but was enthralled by this one. There is quiet lyricism to the work which takes us to the frontline of the battles, on a journey too close for comfort. More than anything else, the author turns his own personal story of suffering into a universal one. While lying in the forest he recalls 'the leaves of the trees began to rub against each other, resisting the wind. More branches snapped in the forest and the wailing intensified. The trees looked as if they were in pain. They swayed in all directions and slapped each other with their branches.' Perhaps this analogy really conjures up the magnitude of such a war, and its devastating consequences on a country pushed to the brink, that even the very earth trembles in horror.