Specializing in being ungenerous

The poet, Edwin Muir, had to make money in diverse ways (as poets tend to) - writing a biography, say, of John Knox, ironically the man that came closest to inspiring loathing in Muir's gentle soul or writing reviews. But even if hard up (as he and his wife, Willa, often were), he had one cast iron rule which was never to review anything about which one could not be generous. This is a rule I wish sundry reviewers in 'The Tablet' (the intellectual Catholic weekly) could aspire to.

Today it is the turn of Michael McGregor's excellent biography of Robert Lax to be lauded by one hand and damned with another. I cannot imagine how we get from 'detailed, respectful and responsible telling' that is 'at times a sympathetic and extraordinarily sensitive reading of a life' to one that is a 'somewhat tedious reading experience' that better be left behind in favour of Lax's words themselves but Carlene Bauer manages this feat. Which is it to be a sensitive entrance or a tedious departure?

I definitely prefered the former see here: http://ncolloff.blogspot.nl/2015/10/pure-act.html

I can appreciate a reviewer sagging under the weight of 'monumental' modern biography where every move of the subject is thoroughly explored and their internal life is left strangely in abeyance (especially with regard to idea, belief or faith). But McGregor's book does not sag under its own weight and finds illumination throughout Lax's long and, in truth, rather eventful life (in a quiet way as befits its subject).

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The Buddha meets Christ in embrace

Reading Lama Anagarika Govinda is proving nostalgic on a number of fronts. I recall my first reading of it in my first year at university, bought at Watkins, the famous 'esoteric' bookshop in Cecil Court in London. I sat in my hall of residence room transfixed by a world made familiar; and, it was deepening of a commitment to contemplation (which has been observed fitfully)! I remember returning, at the time, to my school to give a talk to the combined fifth form on Buddhism and using Govinda as the backbone of my delivery (both this book, and his equally wonderful, the Foundations of Tibetan Buddhism). I was voted (I immodestly remember) their best invited speaker of the year. I had even bought a recording of Tibetan music as opener and closer! He reminded me of how important Buddhism was (and is) to my own thinking and comprehension of my experience. The Buddha's First Sermon in the Deer Park was the first religious text I read (of my own volition) at the tender age...

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Richard Hauser and the evils of Marx

Richard was a distinguished Austrian sociologist who had contributed to the Wolfenden report that led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England, Wales and Scotland in the late 1960's. I was remembering him on the plane today because I saw a reference to his wife, Hephzibah Menuhin, pianist sister of the violinist Yehudi and human rights activist. I met him after responding to an advertisement in the New Society. He lived in a house in Pimlico, a widower, with a clutch of young people, running an ill-defined (for me) social research/action institute, that I visited several times and to which Richard wanted to recruit me. I was never clear as to what my responsibilities might be and resisted co-option. He was, however, extraordinarily charismatic and as a Jew had fled Austria in 1938 not without receiving permanent damage to his hearing, courtesy of Gestapo interrogation. I vividly remember one story he told me that gives you an idea of his character. He was invit...

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