Patricia Beer

I doubt it any reviewer has ever converted anybody to anything. But there have been cases where the reviewer has been won over by the book under consideration. Mrs Besant, reviewing Mme Blavatsky on Theosophy, was converted on the spot. So I approached Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti (an oddly-worded title) with some caution. It proved unnecessary. Radha Rajagopal Sloss is no proselytiser in general; she seeks to convince us of one proposition: that Krishnamurti was less Chaste than his followers assumed him to be. Specifically, he is said to have had a long affair with Mrs Sloss’s mother, Rosalind Rajagopal, née Williams – an American devotee both when he was operating under the aegis of the Theosophical Society and later when he went freelance.’

I have not met Max Wright, but a few years ago I read two chapters of a book he was writing about the Plymouth Brethren. I thought highly of the script and looked forward to hearing how it was getting on. Now I have the finished work. Told in Gath is published in the streets of Askelon and the daughters of the Philistines rejoice (2 Samuel 1.20). I align myself on this occasion with the daughters of the Philistines. This seems to me a necessary book.

Up at five o’clock on an August morning We carry light luggage out of the house. With heavy cases our children stoop. Their children are winged With small bright backpacks.

The sky is a shop window before opening-time, Goods shadowy as trees. But in a back room And spreading, the light will soon come on.

We breathe cautiously in the untried air, Talk warily at the centre of six fields.

...

My mother went with no more warning Than a bright voice and a bad pain. Home from school on a June morning And where the brook goes under the lane I saw the back of a shocking white Ambulance drawing away from the gate.

She never returned and I never saw Her buried. So a romance began. The ivy-woman turned into a tree That still hops away like a rainbow down The avenue as I approach. My...

Now the Conference stands up to sing About the blood that dyed the scarlet banners, Face after flushed face lauding a vampire king.

At church service this morning all the sinners Were non-political. The leaders came To Blackpool as sincere long-distance runners

Away, by miles and years, from the blood of the Lamb That clotted in their youth: a tourists’ stain On arras or flagged floor,...