Hi Paul, so delighted you’re inviting questions as I’ve just finished reading The Wake! Love to know the following: your characterise Christ as the ingenga god who has no luf for the land, which makes it all the more remarkable that your recent work on saints and holy wells explores a Christianity that is rooted in England, even indigenous (if I can describe it that way) to it. How on earth did you go from one perspective to the other? When you think back to your portrayal of and perspective about Christ/the church in The Wake, what has changed, and what has stayed the same? Is there a story on what role writing the novel played in your conversion to Orthodox Christianity? Ok that’s three questions but I am curious! Thank you
Congratulations Paul on the republication of "The Wake" I am sure it will now reach a completely new readership, through this highly commendable, and greatly welcome publlshing relaunch.
Did you notice, that in the small pile of books in the last photograph of other re-published classics, there sits one of my all time favourites Patrick Leigh-Fermor's wonderful book "A Time of Gifts"? Amongst the greatest of the 20th centuries 'travel' books, about, in this case the beautifully written account of the lengthy trek Fermor undertook as an 18 year old in the late 1930s across Europe. The Europe he describes in many respects, sadly disappeared following the war and post-war reconstruction. His encounters with young brownshirts in Germany and various jewish characters, are both chilling and poignant in turn, especially with the hindsight history affords the reader in 2026.
In my view, any reader attracted by the quality literature of "The Wake", will also very likely appreciate "A Time of Gifts" and the other two books in that Fermor classic trilogy.
Paul, brace yourself! It is worth the risk! I suggest you go the whole hog, and devour the full Fermor trilogy and accompany him across mittel Europa on to the Balkans, and in the last book reach Constantinople , taking in his trip after that to Mt Athos on the way back in 1938. I quite frequently pick them up and revisit them, and various vivid sections have now become akin to personal memories.
Perhaps this summer, with all this heat, is the appropriate time.
By the way, my friend Nick Hunt wrote a book a few years back in which he re-walked Fermor's journey to see how Europe had changed It's quite interesting in that regard.
Yes Paul, I would recommend Nick Hunt's book also, he reveals what has survived, but also what has been lost for ever The landscapes and towns have often emerged from the post war era the worse for all the post war 'improvements'. More positively, the wide range of human characters encountered on Hunt's journey, mirror the rich variety brought to life by Patrick Leigh-Fermor.
Fermor’s A Time to Keep Silence about his visits to various monasteries and abbeys was highly recommended to me and is next on my list. It’s a very short volume that can be read in a day or so.
I read “A Time of Gifts” in grad school and it sits on my shelf as well. Hadn’t thought about in years but I recall enjoying it. Might be time for a re-read!
I've got two questions please, your honour. First, were you much influenced by Riddley Walker in your approach to The Wake? That book means a lot to me because as well as being fascinating in itself it was one of my father's favourite books, and he died quite young; his last present to me was a copy of it.
Second, do you think that the figure of Hereward the Wake could become a potent symbol of English resistance to the Machine, and if so was that idea in your mind when you wrote The Wake?
How much of Buccmaster and his resistance is represented in the very language you wrote the story in? And in that tension between modern english and old Anglo Saxon and the English emerging on a global scale, what do you think it tells us about the relationship of language to a land, or even individual person as they attempt to deal with crisis, change, and faith?
I a long time listener of your podcast and have even read a book or two of yours. In order to facilitate me reading more of your books, I have a Very Interesting Question for you.
What do you think of the language of Science and how it forms the way we use it and think about it? For some background I’ve attached my favorite essay/reading of the month: an Atomic Theory primer written in English but with the substitution of all non-Germanic words and recording them with those rooted in German. My sense of it is absolute bloody wizardry!
This is a new UK publication, right? The Graywolf Press edition in the US seems to be still readily available, but for U.S. readers who want the new one, Blackwell's is probably the place to go.
I bought mine used, but as far as I know it can be found new in the Graywolf edition.
What has stayed with me is how B's madness drove his grief, and vice-versa, and how he ended up completely disconnected - not what he was seeking, at all. Sad, and a warning - yes, one can't turn away from him.
Congratulations on the new publication of 'The Wake'. When I read it, after the initial weirdness of the language, I found myself transported back in time by its use. It really steeps you in the sense of time and place.
My question is: Before you wrote it, did you already have that nagging idea that our roots have (and are) being stripped from under us?
I remember feeling a poignant sense of loss after reading it. Loss of the freedoms we had over land and self.
Thanks for this point. You raise my own sense of the stripping away of personal, human and (THIS just struck me:) Christian agency: qualities - burdens that the 'efficiencies' of modernist financialisms seek to render irrelevant.
I agree with the eroding of Christian agency. I would add, the sense that Christian values are now considered non-inclusive, bigoted and right wing. Sad times. Eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
I'll be giving that some thought today, Samwise. I've been appointed to a leadership role in a Midwestern Episcopal diocese, one that's shrinking in size and numbers for twenty years. Leadership strives toward inclusivity, un-bigotry and holistic in its furtherance of the gospel; all of it; I love the liturgy and music of the anglican order of service, which puts me in the quieted waters of communion; however,
There's a sub-surface effort amongst a particular group of the membership toward a return of exclusivity and privilege of 'the way we never were', of 'saving' the organization and it's very, very expensive-to-maintain buildings. It's off-putting for me. It's off-putting, by my personal observation, for most of the clergy, those that still see their work as a calling..
So, there's something in what you (and Paul) observe about the Orthodox liturgy that can transport one into a different, dare I say, 'Jesus' mindset?
I was fortunate to have an exchange with a very observant and insightful former tech executive*, now pilgrim, who distilled Andy Crouch's dualism between what the Almighty hopes for us, as opposed to what The Machine (aka "Mammon") strives for without ceasing, and I"ll leave for now with this summation:
"The Crouch quote rhymes with Doctorow and Brust, maybe more than either managed. "Context-free, responsibility-free, dependence-free power" is what property-as-absolute-right becomes fully unmoored — not property in service of people, but people rendered fungible in service of property. That names the mechanism, not just the two poles."
Thanks for furthering the conversation. BTW, I'll pick up "The Wake" again. It does take me into a different place in the reading, and I think it's utterly relevant as the perpetrators of The Machine now come ever nearer to a complete violation of what that troublemaker from Nazareth was bringing us.
Happy to oblige, and good luck/prayers in your new role. Yes, we are 'groomed' to be slaves to the world.
I left (not sure I was ever really in) the Anglican church three and a half years ago to follow my path in Orthodoxy. There was a definite 'push' in my heart from many converging sources. The Church I attend is growing weekly! I can honestly say I have never loved Christ, my Faith and the Church more than I do now. It has been life changing. Glory to the humble 'troublemaker'!
How hard was it to keep the narrative immersed in the "immediacy" of Bucc's POV? By which I mean keeping the narrative focused directly in front of his face (as life would have been back then) and not slipping and letting any "all-knowing narrator" perspectives slip in? We moderns live in that "all-knowing narrator" POV, we know "it's about the Norman Conquest," but for Bucc it's "some foreigners have shown up, better go fight 'em." The temptation to pop up a level to the modern all-seeing narrative style had to be excruciating!
How would this story be different if you had written it today (i.e., after your conversion to Orthodox Christianity)? Would writing it even have been possible?
I'm interested to know what the emotional landscape for people living in Buccmaster's time was. Many things seem to have done whatever the opposite of evolving is (devolved? Unevolved?)...and of course the sheer heaviness of surviving not thriving must have carried with it huge impacts on mood, cognition, everything that gets lumped under the heading of 'mental health'. Do you think the capacity for empathy, connection, self-regulation would have been impaired (or just became an unimaginable luxury)?
Was the decision to have Wayland be a connecting thread throughout the Buccmaster Trilogy a conscious decision while writing The Wake? Or did that grow in the telling of the story?
There are some excellent questions here, folks. Keep 'em coming!
Was it hard to remember words you'd 'translated' when it was time to use the word again?
Hi Paul, so delighted you’re inviting questions as I’ve just finished reading The Wake! Love to know the following: your characterise Christ as the ingenga god who has no luf for the land, which makes it all the more remarkable that your recent work on saints and holy wells explores a Christianity that is rooted in England, even indigenous (if I can describe it that way) to it. How on earth did you go from one perspective to the other? When you think back to your portrayal of and perspective about Christ/the church in The Wake, what has changed, and what has stayed the same? Is there a story on what role writing the novel played in your conversion to Orthodox Christianity? Ok that’s three questions but I am curious! Thank you
Do you have a vision of how "The Wake" might further the evolution of the collective consciousness?
Will my mother find it entertaining?
I'm old too ,will I like it?
Congratulations Paul on the republication of "The Wake" I am sure it will now reach a completely new readership, through this highly commendable, and greatly welcome publlshing relaunch.
Did you notice, that in the small pile of books in the last photograph of other re-published classics, there sits one of my all time favourites Patrick Leigh-Fermor's wonderful book "A Time of Gifts"? Amongst the greatest of the 20th centuries 'travel' books, about, in this case the beautifully written account of the lengthy trek Fermor undertook as an 18 year old in the late 1930s across Europe. The Europe he describes in many respects, sadly disappeared following the war and post-war reconstruction. His encounters with young brownshirts in Germany and various jewish characters, are both chilling and poignant in turn, especially with the hindsight history affords the reader in 2026.
In my view, any reader attracted by the quality literature of "The Wake", will also very likely appreciate "A Time of Gifts" and the other two books in that Fermor classic trilogy.
I've not read that but I'd like to; though it might just make me feel nostalgic. But perhaps now's the time.
Paul, brace yourself! It is worth the risk! I suggest you go the whole hog, and devour the full Fermor trilogy and accompany him across mittel Europa on to the Balkans, and in the last book reach Constantinople , taking in his trip after that to Mt Athos on the way back in 1938. I quite frequently pick them up and revisit them, and various vivid sections have now become akin to personal memories.
Perhaps this summer, with all this heat, is the appropriate time.
By the way, my friend Nick Hunt wrote a book a few years back in which he re-walked Fermor's journey to see how Europe had changed It's quite interesting in that regard.
https://nickhuntscrutiny.com/walking-the-woods-and-the-water/
Yes Paul, I would recommend Nick Hunt's book also, he reveals what has survived, but also what has been lost for ever The landscapes and towns have often emerged from the post war era the worse for all the post war 'improvements'. More positively, the wide range of human characters encountered on Hunt's journey, mirror the rich variety brought to life by Patrick Leigh-Fermor.
Fermor’s A Time to Keep Silence about his visits to various monasteries and abbeys was highly recommended to me and is next on my list. It’s a very short volume that can be read in a day or so.
I read “A Time of Gifts” in grad school and it sits on my shelf as well. Hadn’t thought about in years but I recall enjoying it. Might be time for a re-read!
I've got two questions please, your honour. First, were you much influenced by Riddley Walker in your approach to The Wake? That book means a lot to me because as well as being fascinating in itself it was one of my father's favourite books, and he died quite young; his last present to me was a copy of it.
Second, do you think that the figure of Hereward the Wake could become a potent symbol of English resistance to the Machine, and if so was that idea in your mind when you wrote The Wake?
Hi Paul,
How much of Buccmaster and his resistance is represented in the very language you wrote the story in? And in that tension between modern english and old Anglo Saxon and the English emerging on a global scale, what do you think it tells us about the relationship of language to a land, or even individual person as they attempt to deal with crisis, change, and faith?
Question:
Do you find it hard to explain Christianity to people in the modern world?
Dear Paul,
I a long time listener of your podcast and have even read a book or two of yours. In order to facilitate me reading more of your books, I have a Very Interesting Question for you.
What do you think of the language of Science and how it forms the way we use it and think about it? For some background I’ve attached my favorite essay/reading of the month: an Atomic Theory primer written in English but with the substitution of all non-Germanic words and recording them with those rooted in German. My sense of it is absolute bloody wizardry!
URL: https://drive.proton.me/urls/A962AKSWHW#CGyVYwbXEVoZ
All the best,
Robin Carter
Congrats on the new edition, Paul!
This is a new UK publication, right? The Graywolf Press edition in the US seems to be still readily available, but for U.S. readers who want the new one, Blackwell's is probably the place to go.
Yes indeed. Graywolf should still be selling it in the US.
Thanks. And I readily concede that that was far from the most interesting question!
I bought mine used, but as far as I know it can be found new in the Graywolf edition.
What has stayed with me is how B's madness drove his grief, and vice-versa, and how he ended up completely disconnected - not what he was seeking, at all. Sad, and a warning - yes, one can't turn away from him.
Justine asked the questions I would have asked.
Dana
Congratulations on the new publication of 'The Wake'. When I read it, after the initial weirdness of the language, I found myself transported back in time by its use. It really steeps you in the sense of time and place.
My question is: Before you wrote it, did you already have that nagging idea that our roots have (and are) being stripped from under us?
I remember feeling a poignant sense of loss after reading it. Loss of the freedoms we had over land and self.
Thanks for this point. You raise my own sense of the stripping away of personal, human and (THIS just struck me:) Christian agency: qualities - burdens that the 'efficiencies' of modernist financialisms seek to render irrelevant.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15
Indeed! Hamsters in a wheel come to mind...
I agree with the eroding of Christian agency. I would add, the sense that Christian values are now considered non-inclusive, bigoted and right wing. Sad times. Eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
Happily, on the other hand, we know the Truth!
I'll be giving that some thought today, Samwise. I've been appointed to a leadership role in a Midwestern Episcopal diocese, one that's shrinking in size and numbers for twenty years. Leadership strives toward inclusivity, un-bigotry and holistic in its furtherance of the gospel; all of it; I love the liturgy and music of the anglican order of service, which puts me in the quieted waters of communion; however,
There's a sub-surface effort amongst a particular group of the membership toward a return of exclusivity and privilege of 'the way we never were', of 'saving' the organization and it's very, very expensive-to-maintain buildings. It's off-putting for me. It's off-putting, by my personal observation, for most of the clergy, those that still see their work as a calling..
So, there's something in what you (and Paul) observe about the Orthodox liturgy that can transport one into a different, dare I say, 'Jesus' mindset?
I was fortunate to have an exchange with a very observant and insightful former tech executive*, now pilgrim, who distilled Andy Crouch's dualism between what the Almighty hopes for us, as opposed to what The Machine (aka "Mammon") strives for without ceasing, and I"ll leave for now with this summation:
"The Crouch quote rhymes with Doctorow and Brust, maybe more than either managed. "Context-free, responsibility-free, dependence-free power" is what property-as-absolute-right becomes fully unmoored — not property in service of people, but people rendered fungible in service of property. That names the mechanism, not just the two poles."
* ( Lin Su's substack: https://freeparadox.substack.com/p/gray-sheep )
Thanks for furthering the conversation. BTW, I'll pick up "The Wake" again. It does take me into a different place in the reading, and I think it's utterly relevant as the perpetrators of The Machine now come ever nearer to a complete violation of what that troublemaker from Nazareth was bringing us.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15
Happy to oblige, and good luck/prayers in your new role. Yes, we are 'groomed' to be slaves to the world.
I left (not sure I was ever really in) the Anglican church three and a half years ago to follow my path in Orthodoxy. There was a definite 'push' in my heart from many converging sources. The Church I attend is growing weekly! I can honestly say I have never loved Christ, my Faith and the Church more than I do now. It has been life changing. Glory to the humble 'troublemaker'!
I wish you every success!
How hard was it to keep the narrative immersed in the "immediacy" of Bucc's POV? By which I mean keeping the narrative focused directly in front of his face (as life would have been back then) and not slipping and letting any "all-knowing narrator" perspectives slip in? We moderns live in that "all-knowing narrator" POV, we know "it's about the Norman Conquest," but for Bucc it's "some foreigners have shown up, better go fight 'em." The temptation to pop up a level to the modern all-seeing narrative style had to be excruciating!
How would this story be different if you had written it today (i.e., after your conversion to Orthodox Christianity)? Would writing it even have been possible?
That's a question I'd like answered, too.
I'm interested to know what the emotional landscape for people living in Buccmaster's time was. Many things seem to have done whatever the opposite of evolving is (devolved? Unevolved?)...and of course the sheer heaviness of surviving not thriving must have carried with it huge impacts on mood, cognition, everything that gets lumped under the heading of 'mental health'. Do you think the capacity for empathy, connection, self-regulation would have been impaired (or just became an unimaginable luxury)?
Good morning, Paul!
Was the decision to have Wayland be a connecting thread throughout the Buccmaster Trilogy a conscious decision while writing The Wake? Or did that grow in the telling of the story?