10/10: BOOK CORNER by Trent Owings, Pastor, Lansdowne Christian Church
I have just finished Ian Pears An Instance of the Fingerpost. The Fingerpost, according to Webster’s is “..a post with one or more directional signs, terminating in a pointed finger or hand.”
The title is a clue to the content. There are four distinct narratives of the same singular event. The time is the early 17th century and place is Oxford, England. The event is the execution of a young woman for murdering a professor. Each of the narratives is by a man connected with Oxford, the town and or the university. And each person tells a different story about how what happened, happened. The intrigue of the novel is how each person giving their side of the story has their own interests, prejudices, passions and secrets, and each one has their own part to play in the unjust death of the young woman.
Among the great themes of the novel is the way in which religion can and is used to support these interests, prejudices, passions and secrets. For one man, who lusts after the girl and abuses her, he defends his deeds by claiming that he is possessed of the Devil and the Devil uses his power over the man. There are those who have their own political passion and interests and if someone gets hurt in their machinations it is of no matter to them.
The young woman herself is poor but proud, she cares for her aged mother, she has been educated by her father, who lost his life in the civil conflicts of the time, and she is able to keep her dignity in the midst of the cultural prejudices and abuses she must endure.
In the final pages of the book, in the report of the last narrator, out of jealousy, lust and curiosity, the narrator follows the young woman who leaves Oxford on foot in the early evening, and walks to a nearby village. The narrator watches her as she enters a simple house with several other peasants. The narrator sneaks in to the back of the room. To his astonishment the young girl stands before the silent crowd for several moments, and then she begins to speak. The audience is rapt, even the narrator, and he along with the crowd, by means of the words of the girl, feels calm, peace, comfort and tranquilty fill them in the moment. It seems this young girl, who is the object of such scorn, lust and hatred, is some kind of strange messenger of peace. The narrator, who actually occasioned the death of the professor, does not speak up on behalf of the girl and so he ends with a great weight of guilt in his life.
The book is grand in the old and deepest sense of that word.
Trent
The title is a clue to the content. There are four distinct narratives of the same singular event. The time is the early 17th century and place is Oxford, England. The event is the execution of a young woman for murdering a professor. Each of the narratives is by a man connected with Oxford, the town and or the university. And each person tells a different story about how what happened, happened. The intrigue of the novel is how each person giving their side of the story has their own interests, prejudices, passions and secrets, and each one has their own part to play in the unjust death of the young woman.
Among the great themes of the novel is the way in which religion can and is used to support these interests, prejudices, passions and secrets. For one man, who lusts after the girl and abuses her, he defends his deeds by claiming that he is possessed of the Devil and the Devil uses his power over the man. There are those who have their own political passion and interests and if someone gets hurt in their machinations it is of no matter to them.
The young woman herself is poor but proud, she cares for her aged mother, she has been educated by her father, who lost his life in the civil conflicts of the time, and she is able to keep her dignity in the midst of the cultural prejudices and abuses she must endure.
In the final pages of the book, in the report of the last narrator, out of jealousy, lust and curiosity, the narrator follows the young woman who leaves Oxford on foot in the early evening, and walks to a nearby village. The narrator watches her as she enters a simple house with several other peasants. The narrator sneaks in to the back of the room. To his astonishment the young girl stands before the silent crowd for several moments, and then she begins to speak. The audience is rapt, even the narrator, and he along with the crowd, by means of the words of the girl, feels calm, peace, comfort and tranquilty fill them in the moment. It seems this young girl, who is the object of such scorn, lust and hatred, is some kind of strange messenger of peace. The narrator, who actually occasioned the death of the professor, does not speak up on behalf of the girl and so he ends with a great weight of guilt in his life.
The book is grand in the old and deepest sense of that word.
Trent
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