The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse – the beginning of a septet, this darkly ecstatic Norwegian story of art and God is relentlessly consuming.
'It is late autumn, close to Advent. Two older men, painters, live near each other on the south-west coast of Norway, one in the city of Bjørgvin (a thinly disguised Bergen), the other in remote Dylgja overlooking the sea. Both men are called Asle ...
The version of Asle who has found God (which he gently insists is “knowledge” not “belief”) provides some of the book’s most ecstatic, probing scenes. In one passage Christ’s nativity is alluded to almost in passing; a well-worn story, yet one which Fosse somehow makes refreshingly original. Similarly, his descriptions of young Asle’s growing awareness of colour and its endless variations prefigure Asle the mature artist. The overall theme of a “shining darkness”, referring to Asle’s painting, his losses and his faith, is used to illuminate the fugue state of being.'
'Karen Solie’s TS Eliot prize-shortlisted The Caiplie Caves is one of the more unusual poetry collections of recent years. It is many things at once: a vision of insular Celtic Christianity in its early medieval heyday; a juxtaposition of this with a more elliptic modern narrative; and a meditation on literary form, and how the modernist long poem might look through a contemporary lens ...
Another writer with a keen insight into insular Celtic Christianity is Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin. In The Mother House, Ní Chuilleanáin’s established preoccupations – allegorical journeys, the ghosts of the past, religious life – are copiously on show, but with a newly sharpened elegiac edge.'
'Mutual Admiration Society is a group biography of a circle of ... women who became pals at Oxford, including [Dorothy L.] Sayers; the cheekily named society of the title was a real club, whose members composed poetry and prose for each other’s delight.'
What faith Celia Paul has herself, she expresses on canvas:'“From the earliest memory every day started with prayer and ended with prayer,” she says. “And it is still in my bloodstream, even though I am not conventionally religious. I am not good at belonging to groups. But doesn’t everyone think about God?”
That tendency, her memoir [Self Portrait] suggests, was one reason Lucian Freud was drawn to her, and one of her own means of keeping herself apart.'
The Observer’s comic-strip artist Simone Lia on her new children’s book, her obsession with invertebrates, and how a prayer for a superior hotel room transformed her life: 'I am so diverted by her, I forget to ask where God fits in nowadays and pursue the subject by email. She replies in full. She explains she needs to “come out” as a Catholic because “our culture is not set up for a relationship that takes place in silence and solitude”. '
'“We believe because she believes,” says [Cynthia] Erivo. The actor describes herself as a person of faith. She prayed before going on to set every day – for guidance, to lose her own vanity, for energy on days she was tired and “to make the space safe and open for her because I feel as if Harriet [Tubman] is complicit in this storytelling [Harriet]. I feel that she’s around. It’s comforting to be able to reach into your faith to tell the story of somebody who has faith.”'
'Everyday Life is wildly uneven, held together only by its thematic obsession with religion: disc one (Sunrise) literally ends with a hymn, disc two (Sunset) with Chris Martin singing “Alleluia, alleluia”. You lose count of the references to God, church and prayer in between. What this signifies remains a mystery: has Chris Martin, a lapsed Christian, rediscovered his faith? Is it intended more in the vein of Nick Cave’s recent line about how “it doesn’t matter whether God exists or not – we must reach as if he does”? The answer remains elusive.'
'Ghosteen drips melody like the permanent rain. It oozes emotion from a heavy heart. It embraces the frailty of the human soul. It’s full of poetry and images that switch sometimes from the time honoured embrace of Elvis and Jesus and the icons and articles of faith whether they are god or rock n roll to a yearning deeply soulful of a very personal heartbreak with a powerful honesty and lyrical nakedness reflecting a genuine darkness and intimate honesty that is a step deeper into the personal and the intimate that is compelling and hypnotic and with an almost ambient atmospheric music to match.'
Thanks for the Dance 'Opener Happens to the Heart reflects on [Leonard Cohen's] career with trademark humility: “I was always working steady, I never called it art. I got my shit together, meeting Christ and reading Marx” ... Like those of Marvin Gaye and Prince, Cohen’s oeuvre sought to reconcile the spiritual and the sensual, which both feature heavily again ... As the pace slows to a transcendent crawl and backing vocals form a heavenly choir, The Hills mocks his ageing body (“The system is shot / I’m living on pills”) and the stunning The Goal finds him “almost alive” and “settling accounts of the soul”. The last poem he recorded, Listen to the Hummingbird, implores us to find beauty in God and butterflies: “Don’t listen to me.” And, finally, there is a vast, empty silence, and he is gone.'
'Kiwanuka is a contemplative song cycle intended to be listened to in one extended sitting ... At the core is Kiwanuka’s inner battle between anxiety, self-doubt, spirituality and wisdom, which is then set against racism and rueful glances at the state of the world ... for all its melancholy, Kiwanuka is never downbeat. There are moments – such as the “Time is the healer” gospel choir in I’ve Been Dazed, or hopeful closer Light – when positivity bursts through with such dazzling effect you want to cheer. Kiwanuka is a bold, expansive, heartfelt, sublime album. He’s snuck in at the final whistle, but surely this is among the decade’s best.'
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Coldplay - Everyday Life.
