It has been a bit of a mad January, I have to say. Like so much has been stirred up and it's just working out the sense in it all! Firstly some changes on the job front might be on their way... watch this space. It'd be great if it all works out:-) It feels like a time where some serious work is needed, like this is a time to grapple with things. I know I would like things to be easier a lot of the time, but I know it's also the case that what we put in we get out and now is a time for wrestling, but yet being at ease with not having all the answers. A whirlwind is a mad thing, it's catches you up, and can be destructive... it can also uncover and reveal... and God spoke to Job from one...
So from the start of this year, David Ervine has died (with a remarkable cross-community funeral for an ex-paramilitary!) and Sinn Fein are supporting the police, we're going to an election and conceivably Ian Paisley could be the First Minister of a devolved assembly by the end of the first quarter, with Martin McGuinness riding shotgun (figuratively, of course). So what am I saying? In the context of pushes for Scottish independence (the 300 year anniversary of the treaty of union was Jan 16th past) and with this being the 400 year anniversdary of the flight of the earls, it seems something is shifting in the islands around identity, government and control, and not least how we deal with our shared history. The question for NI is, will this 400 years mark a return of some kind of local responsibility? A vacuum was triggered those centuries ago, can it now be filled? We'll have to ride the whirlwind and see, and perhaps out of this one God may speak...
Sorry Pierre, I just don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this one. The passages you refer to as "pithy and could have been cut" I think are the parts of the book that reveal its strength. The mark of a true story teller, is one who brings you into their constructed world, and shows you all aspects of it, even those that are mundane, uneventful or at worst, seemingly boring. In the context of '84, this serves to show the quality of life, and how it has been reduced by government. Thus revealing the danger posed to all of us in allowing such an event to occur in reality. At least that's what I think...
Posted by: Michael Johnston | 02/06/2007 at 10:07 PM
So...a hectic january. Has it been so hectic you haven't realised that February has passed and we're now almost half way through March?
Posted by: Michael JOhnston | 03/13/2007 at 05:20 PM