Gothic Urges

I was suddenly seized last week with the desire to have a look at the Gothic language (not the language of Goths, those black-clad pasty-faced miserablists....er, I mean alternative moodsters that blight bus-shelters and bung-up Subway). Having Googled to see what the preferred grammar on it was --- Joseph Wright's 1910 'Grammar of the Gothic Language' since you ask --- I happily remembered that I'd actually seen a second-hand copy in the local St Paul's book shop. Absolutely certain that nobody else in the whole wide world would ever dream of buying such a book, I confidently sauntered there to purchase the aforesaid. And would you believe it.....it had been SOLD!!!! WHAT!!! I thought there was only me who was interested in that sort of stuff. Obviously not....so that's a bit creepy. There's someone else like me about.

Saturday saw a rather satisfying padded envelope plop through the letterbox. Actually, it didn't plop.....it sort of squirmed its way through: undue wear and tear on the draught strip (caused by posties shoving packages through rather than spending a few extra seconds ringing the bell and handing it over face-to-face) means that anything fatter than your standard letter struggles to make its way through the slot. It was a copy of N.T.Wright's 'Paul in Fresh Perspective' the published and slightly tweaked collection of his Hulsean Lectures. Wright is a scholar who seems to sharply divide opinion and I look forward to reading his thoughts. When leafing through, I was amused to note that he accepts Ephesians and Colossians as part of the authentic Pauline corpus, and although he admits occasionally drawing upon them (and Acts) to illustrate a point, he generally confines himself to the 'undisputed' epistles. His reason for tentatively including the 'deutero-Paulines' is that - when push comes to shove - he feels he should 'conform to the episcopal stereotype'!!!

My early morning reading of late has been 'What Happens When We Die' by Dr Sam Parnia, a critical care doctor who has carried out extensive studies into Near Death and Out-of-Body experiences. Contrary to what you might imagine this was a very uplifting book: nearly all those who had undergone NDEs (bright light, tunnel, assembled relatives, angelic guides etc) remembered their experiences as positive, comforting and life changing - regardless of their religion, spirituality or lack of it. Parnia examines the theoretical possibilities of such common ground - the 'dying brain' scenario being the one most favoured at this point: the brain, starved of oxygen releases chemicals that trigger feelings of euphoric contentment. But it is his examination of consciousness that was most interesting, in that there is nothing in the brain that can, in itself, be 'fingered' as the generator of the consciousness. Just because the brain manifests consciousness does not mean that it initiates it, very much as a TV set manifests images that do not actually originate from its working parts. And seeing which parts of the brain light up in a scan when it is subjected to certain stimuli does not mean that they are actually the source of the emotions felt. Parnia seems to think that mankind does not have the wherewithal to explain consciousness as yet, just as the 18th century scientists knew that there was a form of energy that we now understand as electromagnetism, but that they were then unable to assimilate. Fascinating stuff.

Less strenuous bedtime reading has recently consisted of Marina Lewycka's 'Two Caravans', an engaging tale of immigrant agricultural workers who risk every kind of economic exploitation in their pursuit of a 'better life'. The lasting legacy of this book is a desire to avoid processed chicken of any sort (read it and you'll see why....).

I've also really enjoyed Moshin Hamid's 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'. The unusual literary device of addressing the non-responsive reader in the second person, plus his cool, precise prose makes this book one of my favourite reads of this year so far, even if I anticipated the ending motif somewhat in advance.

I also have to admit to buying the Saint Jerome Daily Missal that I caught sight of a few months back. As it is now post-Easter and the volume runs from Low Sunday until July 31st, I felt sort-of justified. What swayed my decision to purchase was its illustrations - beautifully stark wood-cuts (of a type much-favoured in the sixties) by the Dutch artist Jan Sleper. It is a piece of artwork that is a joy to own.

A trip down to uni. meant some time spent in the smaller of its libraries and a heavy backpack full of books to lug around for the rest of the day. I'd only noted a couple of titles to pick up (Kasemann's and Cranfield's commentaries on Romans), but like a child in a sweet shop I kept seeing books that I just knew would 'come in handy' and, as the account limit is twenty books at any one time, I went for it big time. This means that I have an enormous pile of stuff to wade through for material. Hey ho! Time to crank up the reading hours again!