My Book Reviews

  We are not islands cut off from one another.  We are relational creatures whose selfhood or identity is mediated through interaction with others and the world in which we all exist.  The Self is not immediately explicit to itself as it needs others to mediate its self-awareness.  We have all read, or at least heard, the lines from Meditation XVII by John Donne (1572–1631) which go: No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. I write this rather long introduction because of our shared humanity, and our individual identity, which ultimately depends on that shared humanity.  Our identity evolves over tim...

Voices have always haunted me, especially voices that call out for help.   As a child, I was enchanted by the recorded dream of our national patron, St. Patrick , a 5th-century Roman-British missionary, who felt called back to Ireland by "the voice of the Irish” pleading with him in a visionary dream.   These were the people whom he had once been enslaved by, and they now appeared to be begging him to return and walk among them again.   Furthermore, the last pleading words of Sal Mineo (1939 – 1976), who was twice nominated for best supporting actor at the Oscars, also somehow rattle around nearly always at the back of my mind: “No… no… oh my God… no! Somebody, please help me!” Furthermore, unsurprisingly, the sense of hearing is often the last to remain functional in the final hours of life, even when a patient is unresponsive. The brain, apparently, continues to process sound, allowing loved ones to offer comfort through speech or music in a patient's final moments....

Review of The Ghosts of  Rome  (Vintage, 2026), by Joseph O'Connor. One of the recurring and enduring phrases in philosophy, both ancient and modern, is “ memento mori ,” “remember you must die,” or “remember death.”  Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca viewed the contemplation of death as one of the best ways to prioritise one’s actions and to learn to live in the present moment.  In the medieval period, the Christian Church used the catchphrase memento mori and its representations to shift focus away from earthly desires and pleasures and towards the afterlife and divine judgment. It was also a central, haunting theme for 17th-century metaphysical poets, who blended intense spiritual anxiety with intellectual wit to confront mortality.  I remember well studying poets of this school back in the late 1970s at college. For example, John Donne and Andrew Marvell used complex metaphors ( conceits ) to meditate on death, decay, and the soul’s j...

Review of My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor (Vintage, 2024) It is great to take a break from the deeper and heavier types of books I have been reviewing in these pages.  My brother, Patrick, keeps reminding me that I should read more novels and collections of short stories, and indeed, I know that this sage advice is just what the doctor orders for good mental well-being.  I have read this novel by Joseph O’Connor over the past weekend.  It is a magnetic book that keeps the reader so engaged that he cannot wait to conclude the chapter and begin the next to find out where the story will lead.  What thoroughfare or street or wonderful palazzo or ancient church or even miasmic sewer or dusty attic will we find ourselves in next?  What is the fate of this or that character?  Will he or she complete the mission? I mention these details because the novel is set in Rome in 1943 and the reader is brought on a journey through such mesmeric and wondrous, and o...

I have underlined the fact many times in these posts that human nature, or what is often called the human condition, is a complex one.  Such a general statement would also imply logically that the particular subset of humanity with psychological, neurotic, psychiatric, or psychotic ailments or difficulties is also, by definition, complex.  Indeed, it is more so, as it deviates so spectacularly from the norm in terms of perception of reality and behaviour.  I have also emphasised often the accepted opinion that the genesis of psychosis is multifactorial with a medically proven biochemical malfunction at base, but have also gone to pains to assert that there are many other compounding and exacerbating factors such as early experiences of dysfunctionality of family and social surroundings that include all forms of abuse, poor attachment to and early separation from the mother, and so on.  All these factors compound and exacerbate the psychosis.  Furthermore, in the...

Human nature is extremely complex.   We run the risk of much misunderstanding, if not considerable trouble, if we simplify that reality too much in every field from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic, from interpersonal to international relationships.   Interpersonal relationships, and indeed the relationship of individuals with their own self, that is, their self-identity, are often critical, if not very tortured ones. This we have seen in my last three posts on mental disturbances, especially psychotic disorders, as represented mostly in schizophrenia .   In general, apart altogether from such disorders, quite often the behaviours of so-called normal individuals within their own families and communities are often hard enough to understand, and when we magnify such interactions to a global one between nations, we cannot be too surprised that disagreements can escalate quite unreasonably and very quickly into war.   It would seem that we have depraved depths within u...