THE SILVER SWAN BOOK I PRESENTIMENTS: or THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WILFRED OWEN A BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL - Couverture souple

Christoforides, Mr Robert Alexander

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1723926345 ISBN 13 : 9781723926341

Editeur : Independently published, 2018

Synopsis

This book is a biographical novel. It has no intended ‘agenda’. Nor does it have any ‘political intent’ – in any of the given meanings of that phrase. It does not warn – warnings, in our present age of instant and mass communication, are superfluous; there is none so deaf as will not hear, nor so blind as will not see. Nor can this book bring comfort. It stands only for itself and as it is; the matters it sets forth speak for themselves. Further, and of necessity, it is a novel rather than a factual biography; for, although the letters and documents surviving from this Poet are a veritable treasure trove, much has been lost; most significantly the large body of letters which would have been written to him and, within that body of these letters, perhaps the most important of all would be those from Robbie Ross, Oscar Wilde’s literary executor – (and, doubly worse, none of Owen’s letters to Ross survive either).This book, as a novel, therefore has things in it which could well have happened but which, equally, may well have not happened – in those most particular senses it is a novel. Much of it, however, is fact – of the times and places described - as such related to the man. It touches on the creative process and that which influenced it in the case of Wilfred Owen; it sets forth - truly or in informed imagination – depending on one’s point of view and particular rigour - many correspondences. It is also, in various of its parts, by turns, a poetic vision and a mystic vision – as well as an allegory; and elsewhere, perhaps, it is a philosophical treatise, moving between discursive and aphoristic enquiry. To some it may demonstrate – that none - man or race or religious practice - is worth less than any other; that all are equally valuable … or, in the final analysis, beyond eternity, all are equally ‘valueless’ … for the Absolute, such as that of which Plato spoke of triennially at the Academy of Athens, would recognize none of these divisions … As a whole, this book charts the folly of Mankind through one of the most catastrophic events which are still in modern memory; and whose effects haunt us still. This is not new; for, alas, such catastrophic events have always self-plagued mankind, going back, doubtless, to times even in pre-history. It is this self-inflicted catastrophic repetitiveness which is so appalling. So it is then, that, to some, this book may demonstrate the need for new thinking in the conduct of Mankind’s affairs. Nor is the recognition of that need new either … Almost two thousand years ago, it was said with pithy Pauline-Platonic pointed perspicacity that … ‘The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.’ Some might find the modern ultimate solution’s destination of that statement to be … ‘Law is from the mind of man – Justice of God.’ And that that Justice, and that Justice alone, should be the foundation of the new thinking to which Mankind must to aspire. Finally, a reflection on the historical perspective of the First World War - It must be said that it introduced, into the modern age a, previously unseen, practice of a mechanical type of mass killing, which became an ‘acceptable’ practice. This ‘criminal’ practice thereby became tolerated and tolerable and, in some cases later, within ‘civilized’ nations what is more, intentionally brought about, and actually organized with scientific and logistic ‘perfection’, for evil purposes never before experienced in historical memory. As to memorials and ‘memorializing’; it must be said that if such render such ‘mass-killing practice’ liveable-with, then such is to be deplored; if ‘memorializing’ perpetuates an ineradicable resentment, then it is to be deplored for thus such would mean the forgetting of nothing and the learning of nothing. The sole purpose of ‘memorializing’ should be to make such practice not tolerant and intolerable and severely preventive of it –Lamentably, this has proved not to be the case in the least, alas ......

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Independently published
• Date d'édition: 2018
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1723926345
• ISBN 13: 9781723926341
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 454
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.fr/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg