Water Garden

In just a few days I will be home in France. Oh please my dear sweet Aeolus – please let me see the sun just once more. I hope I have lit (lighted) my incense stick to the right deity. According to my book on Greek Myths (otherwise known as a creative accountant’s guide to Euro membership), dear old Aeolus controlled the winds. It’s not that I’m educated, I looked him up in a book. Yes! a book. I did not even give Google a chance.


And so it rains and rains. Serena Williams dodged the deluge to win at Wimbledon, the F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone is a quagmire of mud. I took a photo of a bead of water on the leaf of a plant. Look how it has form and shape. I know two things of this world. It is beautiful and it is not what we think it is at first second or third sight.


All this semi religious pondering has an origin of course. Today I have finished reading Stephen Woodfin’s novel, “The Next Best Hope“. I have posted a thoroughly merited 5 star review. It’s a good pacey read looking at the course of a fundamentalist rebellion in the USA. You kinda feel it could happen anywhere, with any kind of belief or religion. If you like action laced with insight into politics, greed and the human quest for what is right you will love this book. Here is the review:
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As an Anglo-Franco the first thing that engaged me in this book was just how American it is. The characters’ names, the distances they drive, the names of places and the cultural references all work together to hold the reader authentically in the action. It’s one of those books where you know the make of the gun and the type of car that a character is using. Perhaps these are technical points but to me it makes it real. More important really is the broad philosophical theme that directs the course of the story. The enemy is not religion per se, but fundamentalism. When tracts or texts allow for violence to enforce any concept, civilisation has to take note and stand up. The scenario is disturbingly plausible. Fundamentalists seek to seize power by armed rebellion against the state. I will not say any more than that because you will want to read it for yourself. The writer adopts an all seeing viewpoint, allowing many characters and threads to intersect, tangle, unravel and conflict. The result is a powerful story which you always feel could be happening outside your window. Characters are drawn from the well of life, politics and ambition. Everyone knows characters like these or has seen them in history. This is the second book in the author’s “Revelation Trilogy”. I’m waiting for the third – and keeping my eye on CNN – just in case.
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Emma Thinx: Cometh the hour – Cometh the book.