tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post8081405191764409080..comments2024-03-01T14:27:35.794-08:00Comments on Albion Awakening: Colin Wilson - England's John the BaptistBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-27370352287555593702017-12-05T12:08:58.164-08:002017-12-05T12:08:58.164-08:00That's a lovely vignette about Rowan Williams,...That's a lovely vignette about Rowan Williams, Sam. I know Bruce disagrees but I've always rated RW highly as a theologian and poet, so that story doesn't surprise me. I think R + R would be a smashing book to read on retreat. Bruce makes some perceptive comments about the structure of the book above, so that's worth bearing in mind, but other than that I can't honestly think of a better book to read. <br />I admit it's been a long time since I read any Augustine. Maybe I should go back to the library and take out his Confessions!John Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13951246561259007162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-32114206799987555172017-12-05T10:17:50.912-08:002017-12-05T10:17:50.912-08:00An anecdote that was worth recording and preservin...An anecdote that was worth recording and preserving, Sam, thanks. Augustine! Well said that man.<br /><br />I enjoyed also John's account of the library ticket adventure.Wurmbrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17345523517796356674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-68477039923995628972017-12-05T09:39:19.869-08:002017-12-05T09:39:19.869-08:00As a student with Rowan Williams c1991 I vividly r...As a student with Rowan Williams c1991 I vividly remember asking him about Colin Wilson; the answer was along the lines of 'I'd be very happy with students coming up having read Wilson - I don't like his answers but he is at least asking all the right questions'. I then pushed on what author had the answers, to which the response was simply 'Augustine!' It's a long time since I read any Wilson, but you have prompted me to put R+R on my Kindle, to read on my retreat next week.Sam Charles Nortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04088870675715850624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-68494819561693638792017-12-05T05:31:25.441-08:002017-12-05T05:31:25.441-08:00@John - I endorse your evaluation of Colin WIlson ...@John - I endorse your evaluation of Colin WIlson - and also your reservations. <br /><br />I agree that Religion and the Rebel includes CW's very best work - and I find your account of how its reception redirected Wilson's writing; esepcially bearing in mind that he had decided to make-a-living from writing - and would therefore need to have an eye to book sales. <br /><br />His next Outsider book was The Age of Defeat which, although containing much good stuff, comes across as a deliberately topical 'potboiler' (focusing on analysing three then-fashionable and much-discussed popular sociologists) and a step down from level and intensity of The Outsider and Religion and the Rebel. <br /><br />Although Religion and the Rebel did not have any chance of getting well-reviewed in context of the backlash against Wilson; it does have problems as a book, because it takes a good while to get to the point; and many readers would give-up before reaching the best part. <br /><br />Thus, the book opens with a c. forty page biographical essay; then in part one (another 80 plus pages) it approaches its subject rather tentatively and indirectly, via writers usually regarded as secular. <br /><br />Only when Part Two begins - with The Making of Christianity, and then jumping into a consideration of Jacob Boehme - do we get to the crux of the matter. <br /><br />It looks to me as if Part Two was The Real Book, but running at only c. 150 pages, was judged to be too short to be publishable; and it was therefore perhaps 'padded-out' (urgently, in order - as the author and published no doubt supposed while the volume was being-assembled - to capitalise on Wilson's meteoric success and name-recognition). <br /><br />Due to the back-lash, this haste back-fired! - and we were left with a sub-optimally-structured volume which has been difficult (and usually extremely expensive) to obtain until its re-publication this year. <br /><br />As I have written, another 'it's a pity' about CW's life was that he did not take more seriously his friend WIlliam Arkle's work - which can be seen as a completion of CW's early and religious phase. Arkle became a very good friend. Arkle's son Nick remembers many visits from CW, when he would come to stay, and the two men would converse at length. <br /><br />However, meeting Arkle was itself too late - being (according to CW's account) apparently more than a year after the Outsider's success, therefore after the critical panning of R and the R, and therefore *after* the putative change-of-direction and Christian-spiritual-aversion of Wilson had already begun to set-in... <br /><br />Consequently, I don't think Wilson took Arkle's religousness - his cosmic theological focus on God's intentions for creation - sufficiently seriously; and I think the two engaged mainly on matters such as the shared ground of levels of consciousness and 'the robot'; and later the fact that Bill Arkle's wife Liz had various spiritual gifts (e.g healing, and a kind of life-reading hand-palmistry) some of which Wilson mentions in some of his post-Occult/ Mysteries line of work. A version of Arkle himself is also written into couple of novels and has a few other scattered mentions and acknowledgements. <br /><br />In sum; CW was fascinated by Arkle 'The man' as an example of a happy, living, modern Blakean mystic with a creative and autonomous lifestyle; but there is an element of condescension about Arkle's mystical Christianity - which was in fact *precisely* what Wilson himself most needed! Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.com