My father, another Michael, died at 57 after following a rather unsteady downward trajectory from his mid-forties, so being 41 myself I keep looking out for the hidden tripwire which will cause my own doom engine to fire up somewhere off-stage.
When he died the strongest feeling I had (other than the obvious ones) was that I now had to take his place in the shield wall, to use an image he often employed himself. He had been a High Tory and a great repository of historical knowledge and high culture and with him gone I felt I had to leave behind the pop music, Iain Banks novels and Guardian-reading of my early 20s and try to hold on to at least some of the things he had embodied.
My username happens to be the name of the hero of the last book my father gave me, but this is actually Ed-from-school - I chanced upon you. Very pleased to find you have a Substack, and it hardly seemed right to lurk anonymously!
I'm almost sad that you let the mask slip as I knew at once it was you and feeling smug about this. Hallo again! Intrigued to know what the book was... xx
Morning! It was Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. Do read it if you haven't yet. Young Riddley is living goodness-knows how long in the future, somewhere in Kent, after civilisation has been destroyed in some kind of epic technological disaster. People live in stockades to protect themselves from wolves and their rulers travel around giving ritual retellings of the events leading to their destruction, which are a strange amalgam of half-remembered technological terms, distorted religious imagery, and propaganda. Oh, and are performed as Punch and Judy shows.
And then read A Canticle for Leibovitz straight after.
My father, another Michael, died at 57 after following a rather unsteady downward trajectory from his mid-forties, so being 41 myself I keep looking out for the hidden tripwire which will cause my own doom engine to fire up somewhere off-stage.
When he died the strongest feeling I had (other than the obvious ones) was that I now had to take his place in the shield wall, to use an image he often employed himself. He had been a High Tory and a great repository of historical knowledge and high culture and with him gone I felt I had to leave behind the pop music, Iain Banks novels and Guardian-reading of my early 20s and try to hold on to at least some of the things he had embodied.
My username happens to be the name of the hero of the last book my father gave me, but this is actually Ed-from-school - I chanced upon you. Very pleased to find you have a Substack, and it hardly seemed right to lurk anonymously!
I'm almost sad that you let the mask slip as I knew at once it was you and feeling smug about this. Hallo again! Intrigued to know what the book was... xx
Morning! It was Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. Do read it if you haven't yet. Young Riddley is living goodness-knows how long in the future, somewhere in Kent, after civilisation has been destroyed in some kind of epic technological disaster. People live in stockades to protect themselves from wolves and their rulers travel around giving ritual retellings of the events leading to their destruction, which are a strange amalgam of half-remembered technological terms, distorted religious imagery, and propaganda. Oh, and are performed as Punch and Judy shows.
And then read A Canticle for Leibovitz straight after.
You may then have a biscuit.
So good…