Beyond Consolation
How We Became Too "Clever" for God and Our Own Good
Published on 25. February 2010
240 pages
978-1-4411-3540-7 (ISBN)
Description
In the late spring of 2008 the acclaimed Irish writer Nuala O' Faolain went on a national Irish radio programme to tell the Irish people that she was dying of cancer. She was frightened of death and of the short time left to her.
Here was a spokesperson for a generation which now conjured up an abyss for itself, reviewing a culture she had inhabited and helped to create one last time. She believed neither in an afterlife nor in God.
With Nuala O' Faolain's broadcast as his point of departure, Waters examines this trajectory of Irish Culture to this point of despair. How reasonable is it to believe in nothing? He explores a new language to excavate the journey of Irish society from what appeared to be profound in its traditional faith to this moment of what might easily have been taken as a moment of nihilistic clarity. What modern men and women suffer from in modern culture is the lack of an idea of the infinite and the eternal.
Here was a spokesperson for a generation which now conjured up an abyss for itself, reviewing a culture she had inhabited and helped to create one last time. She believed neither in an afterlife nor in God.
With Nuala O' Faolain's broadcast as his point of departure, Waters examines this trajectory of Irish Culture to this point of despair. How reasonable is it to believe in nothing? He explores a new language to excavate the journey of Irish society from what appeared to be profound in its traditional faith to this moment of what might easily have been taken as a moment of nihilistic clarity. What modern men and women suffer from in modern culture is the lack of an idea of the infinite and the eternal.
Reviews / Votes
Title mention in Irish Post March 2010 Review in Sunday Tribune The Arts, April 2010. Title mentioned in The Catholic Herald, April 2010. "Threaded through the text is a moving account by Waters on his own spiritual journey." The Irish Times, 22nd June 2010 "Lapsed Agnostic and Beyond Consolation are a pair of pointed meditations on the experience of a generation that...finds itself entering the last decades of life without certainties and without rites. ...It is [Waters'] rigor-of judgement and of conscience-that makes his books worth reading."-Commonweal "The author is brutal in his critique of the oversimplifications and gullabilities of modern culture." Church of Ireland Gazette, 2nd July 2010 '[There are] colourful glimpses into Waters's personal life and the life of Ireland; the customs of neighbours, his love of the courntyside, his relationship with his daughter ... Strikingly poetic.' Church Times, 23rd july 2010 'Spellbinding' Cathloic Herald, July 23rd 2010 'Beyond Consolation is a wonderful book and a very important publication for oue times' Midland Tribune August 12th 2010 and Tullamore Tribune August 12th 2010 Review in The Sunday Times, 25th April 2010. A mention on the Ilusussidiario.net website. "[A] beautiful book." Review in thePost.ie, 3rd May 2010. Review in Irish Examiner, 24th May 2010 "John Waters readily embraces and endorses Pope Benedict XVI's conviction that you cannot know true happiness or real meaning unless you have God in your life." Interview with the author in RTE Guide, 22nd May 2010. "The best passages by far are those which incorporate Waters' reflections on his own life."RTE Guide, 12th June 2010More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
File size
0,71 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-4411-3540-7 (9781441135407)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2010
Continuum Publishing Corporation
€39.80
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Person
John Waters is an author, playwright and newspaper columnist. He contributes to a number of publications in Britain and Ireland including a weekly column for The Irish Times and the Catholic weekly The Voice Daily. He lives in Dun Laoghaire.
Content
1. Give Me Back yesterday
2. Every Tear Will be Wiped Away
3. Winking at The Milky Way
4. The Silent Melody
5.Human Beings or Human Beans
6. The Sabotage of Hope
7. The Dominion of What Is
8. The Keyhole of Reason
9. The Poetics of Nothing
10. The Anatomy of De-Absolutisation
11. The Gulag of Unhope
12. Only Wonder Knows
13. The Tapestry of Hope
14. We Shall Have Stars at Elbow and Foot
15. Courtesy Towards Christ
16. A Language to Hope In
2. Every Tear Will be Wiped Away
3. Winking at The Milky Way
4. The Silent Melody
5.Human Beings or Human Beans
6. The Sabotage of Hope
7. The Dominion of What Is
8. The Keyhole of Reason
9. The Poetics of Nothing
10. The Anatomy of De-Absolutisation
11. The Gulag of Unhope
12. Only Wonder Knows
13. The Tapestry of Hope
14. We Shall Have Stars at Elbow and Foot
15. Courtesy Towards Christ
16. A Language to Hope In
