Books and Bikes
There are two non knitting subjects that have had my attention today. Firstly, I finished
The Gargoyle by Davidson, this was an uplifting but slightly sad novel. It mixed a hard blokey type reality in that the narrator is an ex porn star who is badly burnt in a car accident and spiritual story where another hospital patient tells him she was his lover in 14th century Germany where she was a scribe and originally a nun. An amusing and very cheesy aspect of this book, is that it had been artificially 'aged' with black edges to the pages as if it had been burnt but I did feel like I was reading from a piece of badly burnt toast.
I love the pace of the way the story unfolds and I also enjoyed the references to The Divine Comedy and Dante's Inferno with the interpretation of Hell. Very appropriate for a burns victim. There is also a little bit of Asian, Viking and Medieval culture thrown in.
What is brought home to me, is how our idea of the structure of the Universe according to Christianity is sort of fixed by this very old book. That is, it being in 3 sections Heaven in the skies, Hell in the Earth with purgatory in between. Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) —And the idea that being in Hell means you burn for all eternity with a punishment that fits our crime. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the whole of our Criminal Justice sytem and morality might be shaped by our view that you need to be punished accordingly, but on earth given a time to seek redemption in rehabilitiation.
Of course this vision of hell is a lot more complicated than the 3 sections of the Universe, he has a complicated sytem of circles within Hell itself. What is quite interesting is that the Vikings used the word Hel to describe a bad place that you can go to when you die and in their vision of it it was a freezing icy landscape that was never ending. So each according to their culture.
And talking of naughty things. Look at this bike, it is the Ransom Serpent and has such beautiful lines and curves, it reminds me of something I am working on at the moment in my knitting believe it or not (can't say what it is yet)
The Gargoyle by Davidson, this was an uplifting but slightly sad novel. It mixed a hard blokey type reality in that the narrator is an ex porn star who is badly burnt in a car accident and spiritual story where another hospital patient tells him she was his lover in 14th century Germany where she was a scribe and originally a nun. An amusing and very cheesy aspect of this book, is that it had been artificially 'aged' with black edges to the pages as if it had been burnt but I did feel like I was reading from a piece of badly burnt toast.
I love the pace of the way the story unfolds and I also enjoyed the references to The Divine Comedy and Dante's Inferno with the interpretation of Hell. Very appropriate for a burns victim. There is also a little bit of Asian, Viking and Medieval culture thrown in.
What is brought home to me, is how our idea of the structure of the Universe according to Christianity is sort of fixed by this very old book. That is, it being in 3 sections Heaven in the skies, Hell in the Earth with purgatory in between. Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) —And the idea that being in Hell means you burn for all eternity with a punishment that fits our crime. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the whole of our Criminal Justice sytem and morality might be shaped by our view that you need to be punished accordingly, but on earth given a time to seek redemption in rehabilitiation.
Of course this vision of hell is a lot more complicated than the 3 sections of the Universe, he has a complicated sytem of circles within Hell itself. What is quite interesting is that the Vikings used the word Hel to describe a bad place that you can go to when you die and in their vision of it it was a freezing icy landscape that was never ending. So each according to their culture.
And talking of naughty things. Look at this bike, it is the Ransom Serpent and has such beautiful lines and curves, it reminds me of something I am working on at the moment in my knitting believe it or not (can't say what it is yet)
![Dizzy Lily <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/purchase/erssie-knits/4689"></a>](<a href="http://www.ravelry.com/purchase/erssie-knits/4689"><img border="0" src="http://www.ravelry.com/images/shopping/buy-now.gif"/></a> £2.00)
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