In the Desert, Up the Nile, In the Graveyard

The Testament of Gideon Mack has been duly passed onto the husband, who whipped through Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book in double-quick time while we were away. I have eventually managed to hold of a copy of The Sisters of Sinai (blogged about some time in early spring) and, to be quite honest, am finding it pretty dull at the moment. The first part of the book is taken up with a lengthy description of the sisters first venture up the Nile and details their tribulations with their hired 'dragoman'. I have found myself caring less and less, and if it doesn't get interesting and onto the nitty-gritty of manuscript discovery p r e t t y soon, I shall stamp my tiny foot in annoyance. The 'stipend' has seen me buy a copy of Charles Puskas Jr's The Letters of Paul: An Introduction, a pretty useful vade mecum for the basic facts on the epistles - always useful - as well as a somewhat less useful (but nontheless appealing) Penguin Classics copy of The Desert Fathers : Sayings of the Early Christian Monks compiled and translated by Benedicta Ward, who is a reader at Oxford, as well as a religious. I must admit that I was attracted as much by the cover as by the subject matter itself - a medieval illustration from the Bedford Book of Hours, depicting a 'hippocentaur' (half man, half horse, but with huge ibex-style horns on its head), a monster that does not seem to make an appearance in the book of medieval grotesques and monsters that I purchased the other week.

The desert fathers were renowned for their simple, solitary and austere lifestyles, their simple faith, lack of scholastic learning and joyful acceptance of life. One of the entries tells the story of the hermit-monk Macarius, who, on discovering a thief loading his few possessions onto a donkey, assisted the burglar to load up the rest saying to himself all the while that he brought nothing into the world, the Lord provided, and now its time to relinquish it all. Hmmm. Not sure I'd be so helpful. Still, the book is going to provide some short but interesting bedtime insights. A few lines is all I can seem to manage at the moment before my eyes shut!