Just two things to report on today, at relatively far ends of the spectrum.
For reasons I can only speculate on (but sincerely hope are justified), Heatworld, the web-home of Heat magazine, was open in my browser this morning. Naturally before closing the tab to hide my shame from the world, I simply had to find out why "Kate Moss and Alexandra are new best friends!!". The article was as you might expect - pointless tattle about the forging of a relationship between two people I don't and will never care about, but with a small and apparently endearing fact thrown into the mix. 'Alexandra' (the X-Factor victor for those of you blessedly clear of such obsessions) was <i>hilariously</i> unaware that Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah was a song about sex positions, thinking it was more about love! The naieve fool.
It's not unfair to say that elements of sexuality often find themselves rising up from within religious writings. A quick skim of Donne, Herbert Marvell and the rest will show post-petrarchan Metaphysical poetry to commonly combine the sincere worship of the ineffable with what appears now a comic dedication to genitalia ("My vegetable love shall grow//vaster than empires, and more slow"). More frequently a poem or work on the glory of the Lord is inextricably bound to companionship and gentility - an almost resigned acceptance that to be with God is to love him. Herbert illustrates this well with 'Love':
<i>Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'
'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat</i>
In a slightly more contemporary vein, South Park parodied this with Cartman's bastardising of classic love songs into filthy Christian Rock: "I want to get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus, I want to feel his salvation all over my face". Twisted and overtly sexualised it may be, but it's believable (just) on the weight of precedent.
Hallelujah has the hallmarks of this merging, and the biblical references are often mirrored with sexual ones:
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
To claim that the entire song is nothing more than a catalogue of sexual positions is a bizarre and unfounded assertion. I wonder where on Earth it came from.
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I've also put down - with immense reluctance - the final book of Robin Hobb's <i>Farseer</i> trilogy this morning; a trilogy of the most unfortunately named books I've ever encountered. The richness of the history and scope of the world within the books, as well as the stunning emotional range that underpins it, is sadly left dragging on "Assassin's Apprentice", "Royal Assassin" and "Assassin's Quest" for the first second and third books respectively. I found myself for the first time in my life deliberately hiding the front cover on the train, as the thought of judgement being unfairly weighted on the basis of a name such as that was extremely distressing.
My distaste for the titles aside, the overarching plot concerns the life of FitzChivarly the bastard, illegitimate son of the abdicated heir to the Farseer throne. Capable of both the despised Wit (a sharing of minds and thoughts with beasts) and the royal Skill (a combination of telekenesis and emotionally-rich telepathy), he is more or less persued, hounded, tormented, beaten, abadoned, stabbed, trapped, raped and betrayed throughout his entire existence - and perverse as it sounds to say it, his enduring poor treatment is the cornerstone of the book's genius. The rest of the plot concerns itself with an insurmountable menace to the land, a distant and possibly mythical ally (that triggers a quest), the evil Grand Vizier character back home and so on - and is fairly standard fantasty fare for all that. The joy of the books though came for me from the complete lack of cliche surrounding the hero. The persecution of his character and body is so sustained that chapter after chapter the reader is hoping against hope that some small measure of relief will come, to give break from the tension if not the man. Hobb refuses to indulge us this conceit though, and the result is an embracing, gripping read.
Characters that are expected to survive do not, ones we are sure must die escape unharmed. Conventions (in fantasy especially) flow strongly enough for most readers to discern the fate of someone long before it strikes them down. Those solid character casts are not swept aside in <i>Farseer</i>, but the destinations they so often lead to are so much more unique and imaginative that it quickly becomes apparent nothing can be taken for granted. It is the lives of men and women as they would play out when there is no guarantee of a happy, collective ending. Highly, highly recommended.