Song of Songs

Another OT curiosity, Song of Songs is an erotic love poem that doesn't mention God at all and is in fact rather lovely. The ever excellent Skeptic's Annotated Bible points out that this is the only KJV book that wasn't included in Joseph Smith's mormon version, the great prude.

Ecclesiastes

Who let this into the Bible? It's a sound and sensible set of moral principles, suggesting that as we have only one life and we should make the most of it;

Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun. (8:15)

There's also chapter 3, the glorious poem that celebrates "A time to be born and a time to die" and so on. Rock on!

Proverbs

This is the first OT book that I would consider as providing something useful in terms of moral instruction, albeit based on the faulty premise we refer to as God. The list of aphorisms remided me of Polonius' "Neither borrower nor lender be" speech at times, and even the inevitable sexism doesn't detract greatly from such sentiments as "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom" (4:7).

The Red Queen - Margaret Drabble

This novel in three parts consists of the tragic story of an Eighteenth century Korean princess, the experiences of a contemporary female academic at a conference in Seoul, and a curious postmodern epilogue that introduces the character of Margaret Drabble.

There is plenty of interest here in the relationships between the two stories. It is clear that the ghost of the princess has somehow chanelled her story through the modern woman and the resonances between the two gradually reveal themselves and are resolved in a surprising conclusion.

Some of the writing is surprisingly cliched, particularly in the present-day strand, and there is occasionally the sense that the story has become rather static.

Psalms

The constant switching between praising God and trembling in fear of him in these occasionally beautiful poems reminded me of the wife in an abusive relationship abasing herself in front of her husband in a futile effort to avoid the next beating. Also, the tiresome moaning about enemies recall those hip-hop diatribes about “haters”. This is typical;

67:7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him

Then there’s this zinger, whoah!;

137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones

The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy

There is a constant playful use of language here that almost, but not quite, becomes overwhelming.

Verbless sentences.

Repetition.

Compoundneologisms.

Significant phrases highlighted by the use of Ominous Capitalisation.

Repetition.

OK, so it’s an easy style to parody, which strikes me as an excellent reason for doing so, but once the effect takes hold the novel becomes intoxicating. I really “lost” myself in the tragic story in a way that usually only happens in longer tales, and as events are gradually and skilfully revealed I was very moved.

King Solomon’s Mines – H.Rider Haggard

English Victorian gentlemen venture into Darkest Africa to shoot elephants, hunt for treasure and get involved in tribal wars. I love this kind of thing with all its old school derring-do and conflicted imperial value systems, and this is an archetypal example.

I was intrigued by a sub-plot that tentatively suggested a love affair between one of the English adventurers and a Zulu woman. Sadly, it ends abruptly when she is heroically killed off and everybody agrees that it’s for the best because, after all, we can’t have mixed race relationships can we? Oh dear.

The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga

I was gripped by the superbly executed first person narration in this Booker winner, which is comical without ever losing sight of its dark heart. The tale is grim and satirical about modern India yet remains an entertaining page-turner throughout.

Unweaving the Rainbow – Richard Dawkins

The author’s purpose here is to sing the praises of the wonders of science, and argue that they are as good a subject for poetry as the more traditional themes of love, beauty and all that. Sadly Dawkins does seem to have a cultural tin ear particularly in matters literary, with the exception of the safe-as-houses references to the Romantic poets.

We are of course on safer ground in the scientific realm, such as the fascinating and inspiring explanation of sound and our amazing sense of hearing. Once again though, the book's central argument is undermined when it gets bogged down in technical discussions of evolutionary theory that are of more interest to the writer than the general reader.

Offshore – Penelope Fitzgerald

At first I thought that this seemed a strangely unambitious novel for a Booker winner, telling as it does the tale of various middle-class characters living on houseboats in Battersea Reach. The setting provides the opportunity for an extended range of water metaphors which gradually reveal some really fine artistry, leading to an unexpectedly dramatic and poetical conclusion.