Varsgedruk: Richard Holloway memoires
Hello,
Vir al die verskille wat daar mag bestaan tussen my en Comestor is dit so dat daar ooreenstemming is in die boeke waarin belang gestel word. Hoe graag sou ek nie die Coetzee-siklus ook wou doen nie en is dit ’n toonbeeld van die erns wat op die forum gevind kan word en vir al die kritiek teen die forum tog bevestig wat die forum anders maak. Waar kan Coetzee, Konstantyn en ander onderwerpe op hierdie manier bespreek word.
Een van die boeke waarin beide ek en Comestor belang het is Richard Holloway se Godless Morality. ’n Baie goeie boek wat die skakel tussen moraliteit en God skei en ’n bespreking is van hoe kompleks moraliteit is en dat daar baie hard gewerk moet word om werkende en praktiese oplossings vir die samelewing se morele uitdagings te vind en dat God uit daardie gesprek gelaat moet word. (Maak gereed vir ’n 4 volume brief uit De Klerk se hand waar ek op die foute van my weg gewys gaan word).
In die lig daarvan het die volgende bespreking my daarop attent gemaak dat hierdie dalk ’n boek is waarin Comestor en ander lesers ook sal belangstel. Dit is Richard Holloway se nuwe boek, die memoires, Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt.
Die onderhoud wat Philip Dodd van BBC se Nightwaves met hom voer kan hier gevind word.
Die onderhoud begin by 18:11 en is ongeveer 27 minute in lengte.
Die nuwe boek van Richard Holloway word beskou om ’n gebeurtenis van belang te wees en word dit bevestig deur dat dat Richard Holloway die rondtes gedoen het en in ’n tweede gesprek deelneem in Andrew Marr se Start the Week. Die gaste in die program sluit in Karen Armstrong, Jonathan Safran Foer en Helen Edmundson. Gewigtige deelnemers dus.
Die program is 45 minute in lengte.
John Lloyd van die Financial Times beskryf die boek soos volg:
"His memoir, Leaving Alexandria, is a long wrestle with a lifetime in which knowing oneself is a matter of peeling away layer after layer of limitation, conservatism, unexamined belief, inherited instinct and incomprehension. It is a life’s work. For those of us who would be astounded if he (or we) did, this memoir – like much of his later, agnostic period work – is a particular kind of pleasure. It is the pleasure of following a good, restless mind through questions that afflict all but the most thoughtless, and which for those who have grown up within the long withdrawing roar of organised Christianity remain questions, even if inchoately formed and too quickly dismissed. He is not free from affectation, but he has freed himself from giving himself, and us, easy answers and transparent palliatives."
Mary Warnock van die Observer, lig die volgende uit:
"Richard Holloway's developing thoughts about the nature and purpose of religion, and especially about the status of the Christian narrative, slot seamlessly into the story of his own life; in fact, they form its principal drama. There were two things wrong with the work of the Christian fathers who shaped the Bible and established the church. The first was their ignorance of the origins of the universe. We cannot blame them for this, but we should not pretend to share it when we know better.
The second was culpable, even then. They did not understand the nature of myth. This failure has had a profound effect on religion, producing the finally intolerable tension between pretending to believe a narrative to be factually true and understanding the meaning of that narrative, the truth that it contains, without denying that it is the product of imagination. It is Holloway's insistence that Christianity is a great work of the human imagination that makes his memoir so compelling and so intense. What he loves about the narrative is its central figure, who possesses endless pity for human beings and is endlessly subversive, in preferring compassion to rules."
In teenstelling met my gaan Comestor nog na boekwinkels en hopelik sal hy die nuwe boek daar vind en dalk koop en tevrede wees. (Amazon en Kindle vir my, dit is hoekom).
Heeltemal na regte het hy in sy bespreking van Joan Didion se Blue Nights die boek “gefaal”.
Baie dankie
Wouter