Isabel Sutton

Only once before have I encountered a fantasy novel.  I was offered the job of abridging the latest work of a prestigious science fiction writer and I readily accepted the opportunity of employment.  It cannot have taken me more than an hour to realise my grave error in accepting this task. I couldn’t understand where the story was happening or indeed what was happening. Perhaps, above all, I was very confused about why it was happening: “Why was there a giant, intelligent ship flying through space to combat other ships, populated by creatures that spoke like humans but had wings or tails or special powers?” Call me literal-minded, but I was entirely flawed as to the point.

The renowned Indian economist Amartya Sen probably isn’t used to hearing his writing described as ‘the logic of the clever school boy’ but, in India:A Portrait, this is Patrick French’s response to academic notions that don’t ring true. In his new book about the evolution of India since Independence, French amalgamates history, biography and reportage to create a dynamic and immediate commentary. He has no interest in applying scholarly statements to the state of modern India; his method is all about deducing information from the experiences he himself has had. ‘I don’t find theoretical writing very appealing’, said Patrick French during a conversation I had with him about his new book.

In a recent review of Edgelands: Journeys into England’s True Wilderness, Robert Macfarlane remarks that the English scrubland between town and countryside is a theme that seems currently to be occupying the national consciousness.  The border country that this book describes is the territory which people pass through on their way to other places; the no man’s land traversed by motorways and criss-crossed by telephone wires.  Macfarlane is completely right: not only have two poets, Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts, written a book about the edgelands, but the BFI is organising a short film festival on the subject of ‘liminal Britain’ later in the year.

For a long time, one of my favourite radio programmes has been Something Understood, presented by Mark Tully on BBC Radio 4.  For those who have never tuned in for its Sunday evening slot, the format is as follows: each week Tully presents a selection of literary and musical extracts all connected by a one-word linking theme. Tully’s choices are invariably lively and unpredictable and the listener is left with a richer sense of what the theme word might mean.   Reading a new book of essays, entitled Thinking on Thresholds, I had a similar experience.  The book is orientated around the central theme of liminality but it stretches its arms wide, accommodating essays on a great variety of cultural subjects.

Secondary school pupils aren’t taking modern languages.  I can’t claim to be surprised at this news: in 2004 the Labour government made it non-compulsory to learn a foreign language after the age of 14 and the invitation to dump vocabulary tests and listening exercises has been gratefully received.  What an error.  Having carelessly dropped Spanish, German and finally French when I was at school, I am now enrolled on not one, not two, but three evening courses.  The most exciting is Thursday night: Hindi Stage 1. The Statesman is Kolkata’s most venerable English language newspaper, read throughout West Bengal and beyond.

The annual BibleTech Conference - where bible study enters the cyber cafe - is to be held in Seattle this March.  In between consultations about the latest Bible apps, one wonders how much attention will be paid to the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible. Steadily, Anglicans have put aside the King James Bible in favour of modern translations: many prefer to use the New Revised Standard Version which, according to its supporters, combines the poeticism of the AV with the familiarity of contemporary language.  More recently, in 2002, former Presbyterian pastor Eugene Peterson brought out The Message; and Rob Lacey’s Word on the Street came out the year after.