Alain de Botton has written a book called "Religion for Atheists" in which he posits the idea that the new breed of fundamentalist atheists, so to speak, miss out on some of the things that an established religion possesses. I can see his point: Richard Dawkins and Co. seem to me to be so anti every form of religion that they aspire to a wholly (not holy) form of knowledge that seems to be bereft of feeling; there is an anger manifest in their attacks on religions; they can not or will not see that there is anything in those religions but a stubborn belief in things which are, simply, unbelievable. In short, they think that knowledge is superior to belief and that knowledge requires proof.
I tend to think this way too but I still have that feeling within me, brought about no doubt by an upbringing in the Welsh valleys where to be anything but a believer in one or other of the Protestant churches' beliefs would be similar to holding hands with the devil. So, I suppose I have been brain-washed to a certain extent by my experience of religion and chapels and the pleasant people, usually, within them.
So, though I now, like de Botton, can't accept most if not all of the beliefs that religious people take for granted, I still have that inkling to enjoy those aspects of church ways that appeal to my ascetic side if not quite spiritual side.
I like the ceremonies associated with some religious denominations, especially those of the C of E; whenever I stay at a hotel I go staright to the chest of drawers to see if Gideon has left a bible there and if he hasn't I'm disappointed; one of my favourite books (which I have started about twenty times but failed to finish) is Thomas Mann's "Joseph and his Brethren" for its high-mindedness and for the wonderful story itself, told in the bible in a page or two but in over 500 pages in this book.
My father said to me; "You must read this before you die." I don't think he meant that it would help me when I get to "the other side" but that it would help me appreciate the one on this side.
Must start it again. Incidentally, every time I take up the book to read on from where I left off, I don't; I start from the beginning again.
Monday 30 January 2012
Tuesday 24 January 2012
David Hockney
Peter Oborne in The Daily Telegraph says that Hockney is a conservative painter. He quotes Michael Oakeshott: "To be conservative is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss." He follows it with: "Hockney's landscapes on public display from this Saturday are on one level a meditation on this Oakeshottian theme."
But are they any good?
Oborne draws attention to the work of Damien Hirst and that Tony Blair purchased two of his paintings (I didn 't know he did any paintings) which seems to indicate his non-Oakeshottian qualities.
In short, Hockney paints the familar landscapes of his native Yorkshire while Hirst and his ilk produce works that are new, untried previously, full of New Labour spice and life.
But is Hockney any good?
Most people, except the few art critics who like to argue a case rather than enjoy, do not have much time for Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin; they think of them as artistic frauds. Most people like David Hockney's work - the present exhibition at The Royal Academy is already fully booked.
But is he any good?
His paintings are quite pleasant. I'm afraid "chocolate box pictures" come to mind. While they are nice to look at I wonder if there is any depth in them. Quite frankly, I don't think, like Oborne, that conservative values are what one thinks of when viewing them; more "traditional landscapes" come to mind.
But are they any good?
Oborne draws attention to the work of Damien Hirst and that Tony Blair purchased two of his paintings (I didn 't know he did any paintings) which seems to indicate his non-Oakeshottian qualities.
In short, Hockney paints the familar landscapes of his native Yorkshire while Hirst and his ilk produce works that are new, untried previously, full of New Labour spice and life.
But is Hockney any good?
Most people, except the few art critics who like to argue a case rather than enjoy, do not have much time for Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin; they think of them as artistic frauds. Most people like David Hockney's work - the present exhibition at The Royal Academy is already fully booked.
But is he any good?
His paintings are quite pleasant. I'm afraid "chocolate box pictures" come to mind. While they are nice to look at I wonder if there is any depth in them. Quite frankly, I don't think, like Oborne, that conservative values are what one thinks of when viewing them; more "traditional landscapes" come to mind.
Saturday 14 January 2012
The Silence
"The Silence" is a German film, a thriller of sorts. If this is the standard sort of film made in Germany why don't we get more over here? Probably because most people don't like subtitles. So, when one comes along, it's not shown in the large cinema complexes but in Art Houses like Cardiff's Chapter Arts Centre.
It's a good, tense film about two murders: a young girl gets killed at the beghinning of the film and, 20 or so years later, another girl is killed in the same spot and in the same way. The invesitigation is led by the local force but a just-retired copper wants a hand in finding the killer because, not having found the man 20 years ago, he feels now that he must do to since his lack of success previously led to his life going to pieces. It's quite a complicated plot and the film seems more interested in showing the effects of the killings on the girls' relatives and the lives of the police investigators themselves. The last half hour of the film is really very tense as the pincers of the law close in on the two suspects.
However, it lacks something that say, "The Killing", the Danish TV serial had: (a) there is no central character from whose viewpoint one tends to witness the action; (b) there is no final resolution of the case since one of the assailants gets away with it; (c) there is an air of squalor somehow about it: the two suspects are paedophiles yet they are treated with an almost caring sympathy.
When films purposely end with something unresolved like the killer getting away with the crime, having been brought up on American films of the forties and fifties, I get to feel that the man shouldn't go stock free, I want to see him nailed as in The Big Sleep, I desire revenge.
So "The Silence" is one of those Continental films that leaves you guessing and a bit troubled. I think they have, over there in France and Germany anyway, the feeling that leaving it like this, not "American-finalised" so to speak gives the film profundity. Which is just not the case.
It's a good, tense film about two murders: a young girl gets killed at the beghinning of the film and, 20 or so years later, another girl is killed in the same spot and in the same way. The invesitigation is led by the local force but a just-retired copper wants a hand in finding the killer because, not having found the man 20 years ago, he feels now that he must do to since his lack of success previously led to his life going to pieces. It's quite a complicated plot and the film seems more interested in showing the effects of the killings on the girls' relatives and the lives of the police investigators themselves. The last half hour of the film is really very tense as the pincers of the law close in on the two suspects.
However, it lacks something that say, "The Killing", the Danish TV serial had: (a) there is no central character from whose viewpoint one tends to witness the action; (b) there is no final resolution of the case since one of the assailants gets away with it; (c) there is an air of squalor somehow about it: the two suspects are paedophiles yet they are treated with an almost caring sympathy.
When films purposely end with something unresolved like the killer getting away with the crime, having been brought up on American films of the forties and fifties, I get to feel that the man shouldn't go stock free, I want to see him nailed as in The Big Sleep, I desire revenge.
So "The Silence" is one of those Continental films that leaves you guessing and a bit troubled. I think they have, over there in France and Germany anyway, the feeling that leaving it like this, not "American-finalised" so to speak gives the film profundity. Which is just not the case.
Wednesday 11 January 2012
Noises Off
I seem to be at odds with many film/theatre/TV reviewers of late. There's "Sherlock" which every TV critic is raving about: wonderful stuff, clever, fast moving etc. I found the previous series wearing and this one silly. Then there's "Noises Off", Michael Frayn's popular play which, I am told, leaves people laughing until they collapse in the aisles. While I have not seen the latest version of this play in London now, I did see a produ0ction in Cardiff about twenty years ago; I did not find it in any way amusing. It must be me because everyone else seems to have enjoyed it a lot. I can see that it is a brilliant piece of playwriting: fast moving, full of slapstick humour etc. Its contruction is remarkable; it's like watching a conjurer keeping about ten balls in the air at the same time. But funny? No.
Two films recenty seen have been more to my taste: Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris", a gently amusing, nostalgic look at Paris in the twenties when Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald were there. And Terrence Davies's working of Terrence Rattigan's play "The Deep Blue Sea". Both these film makers work outside the commercial film world and, needless to say, neither film was shown in the big multi-cinemas; I saw them both in Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff.
But there is one TV serial on which I am on the same wavelength as most reviewers and that is "Borgen", from Danish TV. This is better than anything done by British TV I think; it's politically interesting, dramatically thrilling and acted with spelendid fervour.
Can't wait to see the next two episodes.
Two films recenty seen have been more to my taste: Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris", a gently amusing, nostalgic look at Paris in the twenties when Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald were there. And Terrence Davies's working of Terrence Rattigan's play "The Deep Blue Sea". Both these film makers work outside the commercial film world and, needless to say, neither film was shown in the big multi-cinemas; I saw them both in Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff.
But there is one TV serial on which I am on the same wavelength as most reviewers and that is "Borgen", from Danish TV. This is better than anything done by British TV I think; it's politically interesting, dramatically thrilling and acted with spelendid fervour.
Can't wait to see the next two episodes.
Monday 2 January 2012
Writing
There's a new book published about 40 years of Creative Writing at UAE. The course was begun by Angus Wilson, continued by Malcolm Bradbury - I don't know who runs it now. Philip Hensher reviews the book in this week's Spectator. He is surprised to find, he writes, that there are so few famous names out of the 300 or so who'd been successful - about 20, he believes, in the last 40 years. And of those who have been published Hensher has "heard of precisely 50 and have read 20, not all of whom I would regard as significant or even particularly interesting authors."
Well, I was a tutor in a Creative Writing class for about ten years: there were two of us and often 20 or so "students". These were not full time courses but weekend ones, about three or four per year. I can't recall one "student" achieving success after leaving the courses. I had the idea that many of them came (a) for somewhere to go to pass the time (b) because they had once achieved some modest success but were getting nowhere now (c) because there was something psychologically wrong with them. The first lot did very little writing and weren't particularly creative - one German woman who had been a biologist in industry told me "I 'ave no imagination". She was right, she didn't. Of the second set there were a few who had been published but something had happened, usually of a psychological or psychiatric nature, that made it impossible to take up the pen, or lap-top, to try again. We had some success with the (b)'s and (c)'s in that they went away happy, believing that now he/she had got down to work again so success would surely follow (if they returned for another dose of tuition they said that success had not, so far, come their way).
There was one successful "student" whom the Principal of the Adult College would always boast about: she had gone on, he said, to publish a stack of children's books. The truth was that she had done this before arriving at the course; the course didn't help her because she had already helped herself. Why she came there, I don't know. Probably to boast to us about her success.
I could have murdered her.
Well, I was a tutor in a Creative Writing class for about ten years: there were two of us and often 20 or so "students". These were not full time courses but weekend ones, about three or four per year. I can't recall one "student" achieving success after leaving the courses. I had the idea that many of them came (a) for somewhere to go to pass the time (b) because they had once achieved some modest success but were getting nowhere now (c) because there was something psychologically wrong with them. The first lot did very little writing and weren't particularly creative - one German woman who had been a biologist in industry told me "I 'ave no imagination". She was right, she didn't. Of the second set there were a few who had been published but something had happened, usually of a psychological or psychiatric nature, that made it impossible to take up the pen, or lap-top, to try again. We had some success with the (b)'s and (c)'s in that they went away happy, believing that now he/she had got down to work again so success would surely follow (if they returned for another dose of tuition they said that success had not, so far, come their way).
There was one successful "student" whom the Principal of the Adult College would always boast about: she had gone on, he said, to publish a stack of children's books. The truth was that she had done this before arriving at the course; the course didn't help her because she had already helped herself. Why she came there, I don't know. Probably to boast to us about her success.
I could have murdered her.
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