The Good

Once your Pages documents are in iCloud they are seamlessly synchronised across all your iDevices. The latest version of Pages is now able to retain most types of formatting, footnotes and special fields, like EndNote citations. The on-screen keyboard is pretty usable, but not ideal. I prefer to use my Apple Wireless Keyboard with my iPad. Instead of some sort of dock, I find the Apple Smart Cover does a good enough job in giving me a good viewing angle. Plus, this keeps my accessories to a minimum. I’m now using the STM sleeve I originally bought for transporting my 13″ MacBook Pro to carry my iPad, keyboard and most other things I need for writing (glasses and maybe a book).

GoodReader provides me with a great PDF library manager and viewer. It also allows me to annotate PDFs. If I want to pull a quote, I can simply copy and paste it into Notes and have it automatically sync with all my iDevices, including my desktop. Most importantly, because GoodReader uses iCloud I can get these PDFs to seamlessly sync between all my iDevices and my desktop.

The Bad

The feature that is most sorely missed is seamless syncing of iWork documents between iCloud and your desktop. For the moment I have to remember which documents I edited and to download them at the end of the day from the iCloud website. It’s usually not a problem because people seldom work on a great number of documents while mobile. But this is a very limited solution because it should ideally not require you to keep tabs on the documents you have modified and created on your iDevices in order to perform a synchronisation with your desktop. I anticipate this will soon be fixed by integrating iCloud into the desktop versions of iWork apps.

The GoodRead sync is seamless once you have gone through the initial set up, which is pretty laborious (see The Ugly). Once done though, it’s well worth it. Especially considering iCloud offers 5GB for free, which is more than the other internet based sync services that work with Mac.¹ Hopefully, the makers of GoodReader develop some sort of desktop application that takes away this painful set up.

In the end, using the iPad is not as seamless as laptops if you desire automated file synchronisation. But, it’s not a major compromise and it vastly improves your mobility, which for me means being able to work on my thesis in the library, on the bus and during my lunch break at work.

Now, if you’re interested in the solution I’ve outlined you can find the instructions for iCloud and iWork on Apple’s website. The instructions for using GoodReader are in the next section below. And a warning, it gets pretty ugly and I can understand if it initially puts you off using GoodReader and iCloud. But, I guarantee you once it’s set up everything works like a charm – I have my PDFs seamlessly syncing between my iPad, iPhone, iMac and MBP.

N.B. My reference in the title to Robert Reich’s concept, symbolic analyst, has a twofold purpose. Firstly, I think this guide could be useful for people who do more or other things than writing in a mobile fashion. Secondly, it’s also partly a reminder that this form of mobile computing, especially in using an iPad, is not available to everyone, but to a privileged few who can afford it. I’m sure the proportion of symbolic analysts in the workforce has expanded since Reich originally published The Work of Nations. I’m sure that our privilege has also diminished with various changes in workplace regulations. But, in the end, we are still relatively better off than most. I could easily complete a PhD without the iPad – it’s a luxury and a convenience, not a necessity. Completing a PhD is a privilege I’d undertake with pen and paper if I had to.

OK…now on to the ugly for those who are interested…

The Ugly

The first thing you need to do is to set up GoodReader to use iCloud

1. Before starting, make sure iCloud is active on your desktop and that you are syncing “Documents and Data”.

2. Start the Wi-Fi transfer function in GoodReader on your iPad.

3. Connect to GoodReader from your Mac using Finder. You can do this by using the keyboard shortcut Command+K or by clicking on the Go > Connect to Server… menu in Finder.

4. Navigate to the My Documents folder on your iPad using Finder.

5. Still using Finder, copy a small number of documents you intend syncing from your Mac to this folder My Documents. One document will do. The image to the left shows GoodReader copying this file(s) to the iPad.

6. You will now see this document(s) in GoodReader on your iPad. In this example, I copied a folder called “Honneth” with a few PDFs in it to GoodReader.

7. Move the document(s) to the iCloud folder in GoodReader. In my case, I created a “Phd PDFs” folder on iCloud under which I keep my PDF files. I’m moving the “Honneth” folder to the “PhD PDFs” folder on iCloud.

8. You will now see this content being uploaded to iCloud.

9. A short time after this completes, you will notice this content will be downloaded to your computer in the ~/Library/Mobile Documents/JFJWWP64QD~com~goodiware~GoodReader/My Documents folder. The time this takes depends on the total size of files uploaded to iCloud.

10. Create a shortcut to this folder to make it more accessible. Possible places to create the shortcut are your desktop or the dock. In my case, I’ve put the shortcut in the Finder sidebar.

11. Delete the original documents you added to GoodReader from their location on your desktop. Now that these files are stored in both iCloud and under Mobile Documents on your local hard drive, you can delete the original files.

1. SugarSync is the best service I’ve found that allows you to keep your existing directory structure in tact. If you’re not so attached to this like me, then Dropbox will do the trick. However, both of these services only provide 2GB of space on their free accounts and my PDFs are currently just over 2.2GB.

Thanks Jarron…

Binge Drinking (16/365) by chrisie.b, on Flickr

Good to see an anthropologist engaging with the ‘old’ (i.e. public health and medical) evidence on the problems associated with alcohol consumption, but her suggestion for a new message seems to throw the baby out with the bath water:

I would like to see a complete change of focus, with all alcohol-education and awareness campaigns designed specifically to challenge [erroneous beliefs that alcohol is a disinhibitor] – to get across the message that a) alcohol does not cause disinhibition (aggressive, sexual or otherwise) and that b) even when you are drunk, you are in control of and have total responsibility for your actions and behaviour.

This seems to be a case of new evidence being used to replace one narrow view with another narrow view by ignoring old but still relevant evidence.

There are three reasons why Fox’s call for a new message is misplaced and why the existing message, in Australia, of drinking in moderation needs to be continued.

Firstly, alcohol is associated with poor health outcomes for social binge drinkers and long-term drinkers (e.g. increased risk of heart disease, certain cancers and liver disease).

Secondly, many things you do under the influence are not out of your control, as Fox points out, but they are based on impaired judgement. The effects of drinking are such that certain functions of your brain are no longer able to operate as per normal (see here and here, for example). You still have enough brain function to make decisions about things, but you might not be able to execute them properly. Plus, how this manifests itself as behaviour, as Fox rightly indicates, is culturally and socially determined. Rather than engineering cultural shifts that make drunkenness safer, why not make people safer drinkers by encouraging moderation? It reduces overall risk in the end.

Thirdly, it’s easier to craft and communicate a message of moderate and responsible drinking. What Fox suggests is rather convoluted, but I think I know what she means: if you’re going to drink until your wits leave you, fine, but don’t expect to use this as an excuse for the bad decisions you make whilst under the influence. In the end, it’s easier, more efficient and probably more effective to simply say: drink responsibly, drink in moderation. You can attach a variety of other messages in educational and awareness campaigns, but I seriously doubt you can engineer or even spark off the sort of cultural change that Fox hopes will happen by changing the focus of the message.

Given we are unlikely to completely eliminate problem drinking, I think the research that Fox is citing is useful as a complement to existing public health explanations and recommendations. And this is despite her overly naive suggestion that alcohol regulation along with harsh messages about the effects of alcohol is driving people to desire it more. As an anthropologist I would have thought she could have relied on, say, the concept of ritual as a better lens through which to explain cultural patterns of social drinking (e.g. TGIF). In the end though, yes, cultural change needs to be part of the solution, but not as the dominant focus.

In Australian Indigenous communities, alcohol consumption is so problematic that it can have fatal consequences (i.e. massively increases risk of death due to external causes). I’m sorry Dr. Fox, but we’re struggling to keep these people alive for long enough to hear any message to begin with, let alone your complex one. And, as the research cites, reducing the supply of alcohol and tough messages about the ill-effects of alcohol are doing their job to provide some relief from the consequences of problematic alcohol consumption in Indigenous communities. I think Fox’s suggestions have limited applicability (e.g. middle-class binge drinkers). The other problem with Fox’s suggestion is that it lets governments off the hook when it really boils down to dealing with problem drinking: rather than pouring money into treatment and rehabilitation, governments are happier to make legislative changes. I would add to d’Abbs’ critical observations that another cheap and easy way for governments to deal with any type of social problem is through educational campaigns designed to raise awareness. Fox’s suggestions fit into this suite of armchair policies that hopes for change rather than facilitates it.

Mail, web browsing and games are functions that the iPad and iOS are well-known to excel in.

But, I’m most impressed by:

1. Pages and The Thesis. The only thing it’s missing is EndNote references. But this is not really important for me when I’m out and about (i.e. in the library).

2. Evernote for organised note-taking. And it synchronises with my desktop.

3. Readdle Docs for synchronised access to all my documents. My whole PhD is currently 2GB. Easy. Plus I can access my Google Docs. Mind you, this will probably be replaced with iCloud when it launches.

4. Citrix Receiver for access to work. Not that I want to encourage myself or need to work at all hours, but it helps. And given how well the Citrix app works, I’m think of replacing my work desktop with the iPad – BYO style.

5. Textastic for editing code locally or on remote servers. Am looking after a few websites at the moment and it helps to have a nice editor for any emergency coding. Textastic is it.

6. Flipboard‘s magazine layout for any type of feed is just plain sexy.

But, all of this is not really possible without Apple’s Smart Cover. Whether I want to attach one of my Apple wireless keyboards or simply have a more comfortably inclined iPad for using the on-screen keyboard, the Smart Cover can handle it.

It took me a while to get there, but am thoroughly convinced I won’t ever need a laptop.

In the opening chapter, ‘Once Upon a Time’, Gombrich intuitively and beautifully answers this question in three parts.

The past

It’s like a bottomless well. Does all this looking down make you dizzy? It does me. So let’s light a scrap of paper, and drop it down into that well. It will fall slowly, deeper and deeper. And as it burns it will light up the sides of the well. Can you see it? It’s going down and down. Now it’s so far down it’s like a tiny star in the dark depths. It’s getting smaller and smaller…and now it’s gone.

Memory

Our memory is like that burning scrap of paper. We use it to light up the past. First of all our own, and then we ask old people to tell us what they remember. After that we look for letters written by people who are already dead. And in this way we light our way back…

But we only catch glimpses, because our light is now falling faster and faster: a thousand years…five thousand year…ten thousand years. Even in those days there were children who liked good things to eat. But they couldn’t yet write letters. Twenty thousand…fifty thousand…and even then people said, as we do, ‘Once upon a time’…

History

…And just so that ‘Once upon a time’ doesn’t keep dragging us back down into that bottomless well, from now on we’ll always shout: ‘Stop! When did that happen?’

And if we also ask, ‘And how exactly did that happen?’ we will be asking about history. Not just a story, but our story, the story that we call the history of the world. Shall we begin?

Stefan Merrill Block (2011) The Storm at the Door, London: Faber and Faber

Block is clearly a talented writer. This book impressively weaves together two narratives – that of a husband, Frederick, and his wife, Katherine – into a story about loss. The most impressive element is how Block tells a story of loss without allowing the characters to descend into maudlin sentimentality. Frederick is a bright man with a mental illness. Katherine, his wife, comes from a privileged background and struggles to cope with Frederick’s problems. There is certainly a dramatic unravelling of this couple’s story in the end, but Block’s tone in the conclusion does not betray his project of rendering this couple’s life as an everyday struggle to exist, to simply be. Frederick’s story is particularly interesting because most of his story takes place in a mental home where he was staying throughout the 1960s. There is a particular talent Block displays in rendering madness as something coherent, yet elusive – you can understand it, but you’re never sure if you fully grasp it. The way his writing subtly changes tone helps to keep the transitions between Frederick and Katherine’s stories smooth. However, there are times when Block’s writing feels overwrought. The first half of the book seems far less fluid than the second half. One noticeable aspect of Block’s writing are his sometimes jilting, exorbitant and confusing use of metaphors. For example, in one scene from the mental home just after Frederick has taken his tranquilliser, Block gets carried away in this passage:

The Miltown is a warm, calm front pushing aside the bracing bluster of his mind. Frederick rises from his bed, paces around the room, in a small fit, trying to will the medicine out of his awareness. But his words are trapped. Even his body feels trapped. An invisible molecular net has descended.

The first metaphor about the calming of the storm in Frederick’s mind is beautiful and poignant. But, the last metaphor just feels excessive, out of place and a little contrived. It is a beautifully constructed passage – as the tranquilliser kicks in the clauses/sentences get shorter and simpler and you feel the story slowing along with Frederick’s mind. But, a ‘molecular net’ descending is a terrible metaphor to conclude with in this context. It is far too cold and scientific to provide the sort of closure Block seems to be aiming for: the static in the air along with the calmness after a storm.

Here’s another disappointing metaphor:

Like an MTA train making its scheduled stops, every six minutes, Canon’s thoughts arrive, again, to memories of last night’s sex.

Canon is the head psychiatrist at the mental home. He is a cold, calculating and authoritarian rationalist whose affair with a staff member exposes his inner yearning for love and tenderness. But, to compare one’s thoughts to the rhythm of the public transport system is underwhelming and too literal. I think Block was trying to convey the cerebral character of Canon and he fails in this because he lets the impression slide towards callousness. It is a slide that undermines Block’s attempts to show how equivocal and ambivalent Canon really is.

But these faults are not the sort of terrible jolts that bump you entirely off the story. They made reading the first half a little more effortful than it needed to be, but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.

In any case, there are more hits than misses. Some of my favourite moments in the book are seemingly unimportant, but profound: the way he describes a schizophrenic as being ‘engaged in hysterical congress with the Absurd’ or the way he conveys Katherine’s discomfort and ambivalence of wanting to unburden herself of the secret of Frederick; or even the way Block captures the mood of the mental home in his depiction of a cow’s ‘sceptical gaze’. But, Block is equally at home with the momentous: the way Frederick finds out that Rita, the psychiatrist who he thought was his friend, is having an affair with Canon; the chaos that reigns as a suicide contagion explodes and authority breaks down in the mental home; and other events that unfold towards the books conclusion.

The story and tone lacks a certain intimacy that some readers might find heartless and detached. I tend to find some intimate and sentimental portrayals of tragedy to be suffocating (e.g. Sebold’s The Lovely Bones). Not here, however. Block places us at a distance to the loss of one’s mind, one’s loves and one’s livelihood in such a way that offers a fresh perspective on the human condition. Yet it is also familiar perspective. Frequent, gentle tugs from the intimacy that lies just below the surface of the characters and narrative keeps you emotionally engaged despite the distance.

Furthermore, it helps to remember that The Storm at the Door is based on the true story of Block’s maternal grandparents. In the preface Block indicates his grandfather had indeed spent time in a mental institution. Other than this it is not clear where else in the story he relied on the factual evidence of his grandparents’ lives. Nevertheless, there is a certain sincerity throughout the book that makes me feel as though this is more than just a work of imagination.

The complex social and cultural determinants of the health of Aboriginal men are given coherence by McCoy through the desert society concept of kanyirninpa. Whilst the term ‘holding’ provides a succinct rendering of kanyirninpa into English, it fails to capture the full range of meanings associated with this idea in desert society culture. Put simply, kanyirninpa is a concept that describes the normative system that balances the opposing forces of nurturance and authority, relatedness and autonomy in a bid to ensure the social, cultural and material reproduction of desert society as a series of relationships to family (walytja), land (ngurra) and ancestral dreaming (tjukurrpa).

After explaining its post-settlement history, McCoy uses the concept of kanyirninpa as a lens through which to understand the paradoxical nature of the social and cultural determinants of the health of Aboriginal men. He uses the particular sites of male sociality within petrol sniffing, prison and football as a way to show how kanyirninpa and its absence can impact healthy outcomes. Petrol sniffing, for example, provides a bridge between childhood and adulthood where young boys can explore the extremes of the value of autonomy, albeit at the expense of their own physical health. Initiation into manhood offers the countervailing force of relatedness that tends to untether boys’ dependence on petrol sniffing as a mode of exploring their autonomy. However, similar problems can be reproduced in adulthood where alcohol presents itself as a substitute for exploring adult male autonomy. As this example demonstrates, the male praxis that both gives expression to and is expressed by the normative system of kanyirninpa can produce adverse health outcomes, in both black and white terms, as much as it produces improvements.

McCoy's model of kanyirninpa (p. 21).

It is a frank account of both the positive and negative dimensions of these sites of male sociality that avoids narrowly normative claims associated with diagnoses of pathologies. Nor is it an endorsement of any sort of relativism. Rather, it is a work founded on a deep sympathy with the lives of Aboriginal people in the desert and their perspectives of what health means to them.

Although, ethnographic in approach, McCoy’s reliance on theory is at times wanting. In particular, McCoy fails to adequately explain the conceptual basis of the embodied geography of kanyirninpa through the idea of ‘folding’. The explanation of this concept and its application to life crises and rites of passage is an important element of how McCoy tries to connect the embodied self with the social self in relation to space/ngurra without reducing one notion of selfhood into the other. As much as this aim is clear and valid, McCoy’s explanation does not sufficiently provide the reader with enough of the conceptual logic of ‘folding’ to support his interpretation of the relationship and interaction between the physical and social body of the Aboriginal male that bridges the biomedical and the social/cultural constructions of health. In the end, the discussion of this concept suggests very little in addition to what is already communicated in his presentation of the ethnographic evidence. Had this concept been better explained it would have added clarity to the way McCoy connected Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal notions of health throughout the book.

Notwithstanding, what this ethnographic work offers speaks volumes above its minor conceptual shortcomings. It is a work that expands our understanding of desert life as it pertains to men’s health. Given this approach and objective, McCoy offers no solutions to the health issues faced by Aboriginal men. He does, however, point to the importance of collaboration between Western biomedical and traditional Aboriginal ideas and practices of health.

Implied by this is the need for change, both within and without desert society. As McCoy himself says, traditional and Western ideas are unable to respond on their own to the health issues facing Aboriginal people in remote areas. In many domains the interaction between the traditional and the modern engenders productive changes when properly supported and based on mutual understanding. If the true purpose of Australian society’s interventions in desert life is to care for the most vulnerable and needy in our midst, then the most fruitful point of departure is to consider the problems as we understand them from their point of view. Ensuring appropriate intersections within the normative systems of Aboriginal people ensures the efficacy of necessary but disruptive interventions into desert life. Doing so better guarantees that Aboriginal people retain and foster the means by which their society may reproduce itself in more healthy ways.

Importantly, this has to include a creative and fruitful engagement by Aboriginal people with Western cultural constructions of health. Undoubtedly, the historical balance sheet of such engagements with the other would probably show Aboriginal people in credit. Not simply because of the historical imposition of Western culture on Aboriginal people, but because the rights-based and reconciliation movements have narrowed the opportunities for such engagement.¹ Maybe it’s not so much the grand ideals of cultural respect and cultural recognition that will get us there but something far more basic and ordinary: inter-cultural understanding. McCoy’s work is exemplary of such an effort and what it can produce.

1. Marcia Langton’s 2009 Berndt Foundation Biennial Lecture provides a concise overview the problems I allude to here and more. Put simply, she discusses how progressive and conservative discourses have colluded to substitute ideology for the facts in Indigenous policy-making over the last three decades.

2. Got the confirmation email below.

3. I had a question (see link above).

4. Got this screen.

If you don’t get it, check the URL parameters carefully and then re-read the title of this post…

The airport bookmark (aka boarding pass)

The random piece of paper bookmark

The even more random bookmark (aka someone's business card I vaguely remember meeting)

• The receipt I used to buy the book
• The library receipt for the book
• Train tickets (big favourite)
• Movie tickets (also quite popular)
• Paper clips (not recommended)
• Cleaning cloth for my glasses
• Sticky notes (sounds like a good idea, but really isn’t)
• Driver’s license
• Postcards (usually ones that I was supposed to send)
• Shopping lists (before I got an iPhone)
• A coin (only once)

I’m sure there have been plenty others – generally speaking, if it’s flat (or close enough) I’ve probably used it as a bookmark. But rarely are they actual bookmarks… ]]> http://bernardleckning.com/2011/08/02/things-i-use-and-have-used-as-bookmarks/feed/ 0 http://bernardleckning.com/2011/08/01/jesus-christ-in-rude-health/ http://bernardleckning.com/2011/08/01/jesus-christ-in-rude-health/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:48:54 +0000 Bernard http://bernardleckning.com/?p=32904 I’m beginning to think that Watermark Books at T2 Sydney Airport is a place of literary miracles for me. Three times now I’ve bought books there without much thought and have come away with treasures. First was Rana Dasgupta’s epic Solo. Then there was the rollicking ride of Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey. Just recently I finished the third wonder offered up magically by Watermark Books: The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. This book is a challenging and controversial rendering of the story of Jesus Christ.

In response to a young reader’s question about why he was motivated to write the book, Pullman says:

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between the man Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, who I think almost certainly existed, and the idea of Christ, the son of God. The vast bulk of what people say about Christ seems to me nonsense, impossible, absurd. About Jesus, on the other hand, we can say many interesting things.

The master stroke of Pullman’s book is the way he realises this fascination by casting Jesus and Christ as twin brothers. Pullman humanises the New Testament by making Jesus and Christ imperfect and partial reflections of Jesus Christ. The biographies of Jesus and Christ are woven together by Pullman such that they illuminate the other’s flaws and strengths in a complementary way – the flaws of one highlight the strengths of the other and vice versa. This complementarity tends to work itself out productively, in the end, towards an overcoming of their flaws and a combination of their strengths. It’s a sort of cleverly carried out translation of Aristotle’s aphorism into a literary device: “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In the beginning, Christ is cast as the bookish, but intelligent and benevolent child bound for greatness. Jesus is the energetic but mischievous and careless brother. But their lives take a twist as they enter adulthood. The erudite but somewhat impotent Christ watches on with some jealousy as the practical-minded Jesus discovers God and becomes a renowned teacher and prophet. However, not long after Jesus starts his ministry, Christ is visited by a mysterious stranger who, after some time, he believes to be an angel sent from heaven. The stranger charges Christ with the task of chronicling the life and teachings of Jesus. This task is deemed vital, Christ is told, because it will provide the foundation for the church of God which, by maintaining the legacy of Jesus, will see to the coming of the Kingdom. And so the rest of the book is then a re-telling of the biblical story of the adult years of Jesus Christ through the life of Jesus as chronicled by Christ right up to and just after the crucifixion.

The beauty of the story has to do with the way Christ is given the task of chronicling the words and deeds of his brother. When first visited by the stranger, Christ is told that his name will be remembered, perhaps more than Jesus’, because he carries the ‘word of God’. Put simply, Jesus was the deed and Christ was the word. As the stranger said to Christ later, Jesus was the history and Christ was the truth. Christ’s task was to find the true meaning in these imperfect words and deeds of Jesus – his job was to properly convey the word of God. It is here that knowing what the Bible says adds some depth to Pullman’s story-telling. Enter my Catholic up-bringing…

For example, we know in the Bible (Matthew 16) that Peter declares Jesus to be the Messiah. Jesus responds by telling Peter that he is the rock upon which his church will be built. However, in Pullman’s re-telling, Jesus was so concerned with the distorting influence of his increasing fame that he scolds Peter for this declaration. Compared to the Biblical rendering, we see Christ as an emotional and political being. So, how does Pullman reconcile the words of Jesus with those we know in the Bible? Well, he delicately conveys the internal struggle that grips Christ as he tries to discern the true meaning of Jesus’ reprimand. Pullman has Christ question the moral and ethical implications of having to navigate the terrain between what Jesus says and what he thinks Jesus truly means, which is what we know in the Bible.

Pullman shows even more deft in a short chapter called Feeding the Crowd. This is a re-telling of the well-known miracle of the five loaves and two fishes. In the Bible, Jesus seeks solitude on an island after hearing of the death of John the Baptist. Instead, however, he is greeted by a crowd of some 5000 of his loyal followers who, in following him to this island, now have nothing to eat. Jesus is given five loaves of bread and two fishes for which he gives thanks to God before breaking it up and distributing it amongst everyone gathered. The miracle is that everyone is able eat to their satisfaction. In Pullman’s rendering, though, Jesus collects all the food from his disciples and shares it between those around him. He then tells everyone in the crowd to do the same. In this chapter, I believe Pullman captures the same essential message: Jesus is the bread of life (I think that’s in John), have faith and you shall not go wanting. But, by implying that the reality of the event we know from the Bible is something far more prosaic and less dramatic, Pullman adds something extra and more profound: that (earthly) human needs and wants are satisfied by the benevolence of those willing to share.

My favourite is perhaps the way Pullman portrays Jesus’ prayers in Gethsemane (Matthew 26). In the bible, I was taught that in Jesus Christ’s prayer to God that evening he sought comfort and solace, that he was doing the right thing in submitting to his looming death by crucifixion. Pullman, however, turns this into a dramatic moment of radical doubt and loss of faith by Jesus. At this point the story takes another gripping twist as we learn how Jesus is betrayed, but I won’t give that one away. In a way, I find Pullman’s version adding an extra layer of meaning to the message of the story from the Bible. It is not despite his doubts and loss of faith that Jesus accepts his fate, but rather because of it. Jesus was not passively accepting what lay ahead as a faithful and submissive servant of God. Pullman’s Jesus showed those uniquely human qualities to doubt and all the feelings that come with it. And in doing so, his resolution to accept his fate at the cross was borne of a conscious desire and a will to carry out what he had trouble believing – that God needed Jesus to sacrifice himself for humankind. If anything, Pullman’s version of Jesus Christ’s prayers to God in Gethsemane touches beautifully on the very essence of a Christian idea of faith: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Pullman’s sensitivity to the distinction between the empirical-historical and Biblical Jesus Christ animates his book on so many levels. Central to this is the dialectical relationship between Jesus and Christ being played out by Pullman’s economical storytelling. We see Jesus as a pragmatic and active servant of God who’s dogmatic narrow-mindedness leaves him rather insensitive to the full range of influences and consequences his words and deeds may have. It is in this way that Pullman creates an ingenious dramatic opening: the gap between the fictional life of Jesus and the Biblical account of Jesus Christ that needs to be reconciled. And this reconciliation is played out by Pullman’s Christ. In this way, Pullman not only succeeds in humanising the Biblical story of Jesus Christ, but he alerts us to the timeless and powerful pull of stories on human affairs, especially that of the Bible.

It’s not surprising to know that Pullman’s book has received a lot of criticism. His reputation as ‘one of England’s most outspoken atheists’ according to a New Yorker feature from 2005, may have preceded sober judgement of this book. For example, The Telegraph previewed the book’s publication with an article titled ‘Philip Pullman book denies Jesus was son of God’. The fuel for this fire comes from his most renowned works, the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials described here in the New Yorker feature:

In the trilogy, a young girl, Lyra Belacqua, becomes enmeshed in an epic struggle against a nefarious Church known as the Magisterium; another character, an ex-nun turned particle physicist named Mary Malone, describes Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake.”

Not to mention, a ringing endorsement of the book by Christopher Hitchens goes a long way to fanning the flames. But, this reputation is sustained by his non-fictional work and social commentary. Again, from the New Yorker feature:

Pullman once told an interviewer that “every single religion that has a monotheistic god ends up by persecuting other people and killing them because they don’t accept him.” Peter Hitchens, a conservative British columnist, published an article about Pullman entitled “This Is the Most Dangerous Author in Britain,” in which he called him the writer “the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed.”

Add to this his signature of an open letter in 2010 critical of the British government for granting Pope Benedict the honour of a state visit to the UK and it makes Pullman’s own resistance to such labelling seem a little futile.

This makes the fact that I was touched by the humanity of Jesus Christ in this story all the more surprising. As much as I think Pullman intended to humanise the Biblical story of Jesus Christ, I don’t think he was interested in generating sympathy for him. I’m not sure the imperfections were meant to initiate affinity for Jesus Christ, but to disturb any pre-existing ones. Fortunately or unfortunately for Pullman, I think that this bald interpretation of Jesus Christ and the story of the Bible has too many elements that I idealise and, when present, admire in contemporary Christianity: an aversion for perfectionism that engenders humility and, along with it, tolerance and forgiveness; recasting the use of independent will and human agency as a virtue; Not that I am of the opinion that these qualities are either prominent or prevalent in contemporary Christianity. But, they are certainly the sorts of qualities that an atheist, a humanist like myself would have no choice but to respect and admire.

And this is a point that many reviews seem to miss and obscure. This LA Times review was quite scathing of the book. For Rutten, it was an average work of literature, especially compared to Pullman’s Dark Matters Trilogy, which he considers to be ‘a genuine work of literature written from a provocative point of view, not a mere provocation seeking literary expression’. Put simply, what Rutten finds disappointing is that Pullman thinly disguises his contempt for religion and ambivalence regarding Jesus Christ in a literary work:

He’s apparently fond — even admiring — of Jesus the defender of the poor and scourge of hypocrites. On the other hand, he loathes what Jesus’ followers and the generations that came after them made of his teachings in the form of an institutional church.

Moreover, Rutten does not think there’s much substance in the Jesus and Christ characters beyond a cliched ‘evil twin’ storyline. I don’t see the basis for this myself and Rutten does not really offer anything himself. In the end, Rutten seems to be implying that Pullman’s typically intelligent and engaging storytelling has been corrputed by his rabid atheism – a case of creative talents being held hostage by political beliefs.

Ironically, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is somewhat more perspicacious. For the Archbishop, Pullman’s ‘very bold and deliberately outrageously fable’ contains familiar arguments against corrupted organised religion. But, it does so from the believable and valid perspective of the humanised form of the spiritual authority of Jesus Christ. The Archibishop is sympathetic to Pullman’s complaints, but unlike Rutten sees the book as a piece of literature first and polemic second. This does not mean the Archbishop is uncritical of Pullman’s arguments: he finds fault with Pullman because…

…one or two passages feel like easy point-scoring – the Annunciation story told as a seduction, or the mechanics of a fraudulent resurrection. At only one point does he break the flow of this narrative, in a long soliloquy by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest.

I would definitely agree with the Archbishop concerning the monologue at Gethsemane – it feels a little too didactic. Pullman’s limpid and economical prose gives way here to a raw and visceral passion that seems a little out of place for Jesus and whose source seems a little obscure. But, I also feel that this is a glaring example of another weakness in the story – the heavy load that the character of Christ has to carry. Not only is Christ a partial reflection of the Biblical Jesus Christ, he also seems to take on the historical mantle of Jesus Christ’s chroniclers, especially the apostle Paul who is given most of the credit for establishing the Christian Church. There’s another Biblical personage taken on by Christ that I won’t talk about lest I give away too much of the plot, but suffice to say that it sometimes feel like the character of Christ is spread thin across other Biblical figures and, therefore, occasionally strays from an empirical-historical centre that holds. But, if we treat the book as a piece of fiction first and polemic second, then everything else makes perfect narrative sense and is not easily interpreted as point-scoring unless judged on religious hermeneutic criteria.

Put simply, I feel Pullman has been a little hard done by. Maybe he is a rabid atheist, but I also think that he is capable of containing that voice within a literary vision of Jesus Christ and the New Testament. Here is what Pullman actually told The Telegraph in that story with the sensational headline:

The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like a history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.

As a work of fiction, it masterfully weaves together these different forms of storytelling. I don’t think Pullman was able to contain his atheism when it came to writing about the night of Jesus Christ’s arrest. Not that I would agree that this signals Pullman’s unchristian perspective. I honestly believe that he was first and foremost guided by the twin ideas of the dual nature of Jesus Christ and how stories become stories. So, maybe this book is for people like me: atheists who are still curious about and respectful of religion and spirituality. And being this way, I was easily impressed by the way Pullman erected, mounted and resolved the tension between Jesus Christ the man and Jesus Christ the son of God and saviour of humankind.

But, I’m not sure I would have been much impressed by this element of Pullman’s storytelling were it not for a dear friend, Marios Elles, whose own work on Jimi Hendrix/James Marshall Hendrix has subtly but profoundly altered my own questions and views on what a single life might mean. I wish the smart yet entertaining piece he published in the AFR last year was not locked away behind the Fairfax paywall, otherwise I’d link to it here. But, if you ask him nicely on his site he might reproduce it there for you. The title of my own post, borrowed from Marios’ piece, is a small homage to this influence. Put simply, what Marios’ own work is doing for Hendrix, Pullman has done for Jesus Christ (albeit unintentionally in the case of the latter): to give new life to the myth by exploring its basis in reality without reducing the one to the other.

This cerebral pleasure aside, it has to be said that I’m quite sympathetic to Pullman’s humanist rendering of religion, including the anti-church elements – not for myself but for those who today try to use religion as a weapon. In the end, I don’t think this book can possibly be enjoyed by anyone who does not treat it first and foremost as a ‘story about how stories become stories’ that, secondly, explores the ‘tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ’. The irony, of course, is that in doing this I have allowed myself to feel – probably to Pullman’s disappointment – a renewed reverence and respect for the faith I long ago left behind.