Recent Reading

I failed to make real headway in the last novel I borrowed from the library, P.D. James's The Murder Room. This was entirely down to the sheer busyness of my life in the 2 weeks before going to Vietnam. Normally, like my Mum, I relish a good murder, and unlike her I don't mind the measured pace of a typical Dalgliesh.

Having failed to do that particular tome justice I suppose I felt somewhat obliged to attempt something like real reading whilst in Vietnam and was gratified to discover there was enough time to make real headway in both Paul Davies's The Mind of God and C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength. I've since completed both whilst in Melaka. I'd read the Davies before in attempt to give myself some sort of rough education regarding the latest developments in scientific thought and only vaguely grasped the ideas involved. The same thing happened the second time round - a humbling but useful experience. Socrates would be proud of me, I hope. The stimulus to reread came directly from our TOK Focus Day which took place on the Monday just before we set off for Vietnam. In the evening the students (and their teachers) attended a lecture by a guy called David Wilkinson who's both a highly accomplished physicist and a Methodist minister. The lecture was worth listening to and he name-checked Paul Davies a couple of times. I was slightly surprised in that Davies can hardly be said to argue for a conventionally religious viewpoint. If anything he undercuts the usual broadly theistic cliches in a way I think most 'believers' would find pretty threatening. So I felt all the warmer towards Dr Wilkinson - a warmth which peaked when he referred to Richard Dawkins's "characteristic humility" simply because the phrase nailed its victim so perfectly.

I'm not too sure what possessed me to pick up the Lewis. I've had the paperback a few years and never quite got around to reading it, so I suppose some kind of guilt was involved. Oddly the religious themes of the book were not in my mind when I put it in my bag - I think I just wanted a good story. I didn't really get that, though I suppose I enjoyed it well enough - especially for its period charm and the personality of its author. If ever a writer found it difficult to keep himself and his opinions out of his work then that writer has to be Lewis. This is what is meant by didacticism, and it's a strangely knowing didacticism at that. When Lewis is being wise he is powerfully convincing. The analysis of the faults of Mark Studdock, pretty much the main character of the first half of the novel, is so good I found myself ready to overlook the fact that Lewis was in my face with it on every page in which the character featured. But when Lewis is silly you need a massive grain of salt, and the Ransom as Fisher King stuff is close to unbearable.