The Daily Novel

Not very well, if you are anything like me. But you will never know that you don’t know them, unless they write a ‘truthful’ book.
I got up this morning rather late. After last night’s totally enjoyable dinner party. I found amongst the Christmas mail a package in a plain brown envelope lying on the mat. It contained a book written by one of my neighbours, E. T. Laing (no relation at all to Ronnie Laing, the neighbourhood guru of the 1970s who dared to suggest that the present fashion for treating mental illness by pills was, shall we say, an inadequate solution).

So I read it. No great feat. It is only 184 pages. And though I have never been tempted to take lessons in speed reading, but because of my own journey through life, I have learnt to read quite difficult material, quickly.

Ted’s book (that is what I call him when we meet at local parties, and particularly at Christmas) is not a difficult read. It is written in the form of a novel. And although this is Ted’s first effort it is a good read. Well constructed and it takes you through the twists and turns of a journey whose end you do not know until you reach the last page.  Agatha Christie would have been impressed by his grasp of the essentials of novel writing. Although this is is not a ‘who dunnit’.

It is, in fact, a mixture of two contrasting themes. The personal side, is a tale of one man’s struggle with his own immoral yearnings.  A happy marriage, which is threatened with disruption when he meets an old flame. The passions that are aroused are connected with romantic love, the urge to find a sexual partner who is also a soul mate.

But Ted is not just a romantic. He was educated like so many of my friends, at Oxford University, where he sat at the feet of Wittengstein, Freddy Ayres, and all that lot. He was studying philosphy. But unlike most he did not stop studying philosophy. He continued to read, while he was earning his bread, working for the multi-national companies in the oil business.  And he also read the works of the neuro-scientists, who have been investigating the ultimate herasy. Does the mind exist, apart from the brain, which is proven to be a mix of chemicals and inherited DNA?

I will write about Ted’s book in due course. But meanwhile I urge all readers to put it in their Christmas shopping basket. Along with the book of another of my neighbours, Partrick Casement.

Patrick’s book was a work of non-fiction. Learning from Life, was his attempt to write down what had influenced him to lead the life he has led.

My recommendation is that you put both books into your wish list for Father Christmas. Because between them these two books exemplify the problems of being alive in 2006, seeing daily the increasingly simplistic solutions on offer. Realilising the complexity of the problems we face. They are written from quite different viewpoints.
You cannot begin to understand these problem unless you study. But once you start studying the problems increase. The volume of wisdom that you can read increases by leaps and bounds each year. And it is all relevant.

That’s the problem.

an amoral phisosopher is published by Athena Press, Queen’s House, 2 Holly Road, Twickenham, TW1 4EG. Price. £6.99.
Learning from Life is published by Routledge, which you can find on Google.

And one day, if I am feeling brave, I will invite both authors to dinner in my house.