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Waiting for the Last Bus: Reflections on Life and Death
Where do we go when we die? Or is there nowhere to go? Is death something we can do or is it just something that happens to us?Now in his ninth decade, former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway has spent a lifetime at the bedsides of the dying, guiding countless men and women towards peaceful deaths. In The Last Bus, he presents a positive, meditative and profound exploration of the many important lessons we can learn from facing up to the limitations of our bodies as they falter, reflecting on our failings, and forgiving ourselves and others.But in a modern world increasingly wary of acknowledging mortality, The Last Bus is also a stirring plea to reacquaint ourselves with death. Facing and welcoming death gives us the chance to think about not only the meaning of our own life, but of life itself; and can mean the difference between ordinary sorrow and unbearable regret at the end. Radical, joyful and moving, The Last Bus is an invitation to reconsider life's greatest mystery by one of the most important and beloved religious leaders of our time.
177 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 1, 2018
About the author
Richard Holloway
88 books126 followersRichard F. Holloway is a Scottish writer and broadcaster and was formerly Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Holloway was educated at Kelham Theological College, Edinburgh Theological College and the Union Theological Seminary, New York City. Between 1959 and 1986 he was a curate, vicar and rector at various parishes in England, Scotland and the United States. He was Bishop of Edinburgh from 1986 and was elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1992. He resigned from these positions in 2000 and is now regarded as one of the most outspoken and controversial figures in the Church, having taken an atheist worldview and commenting widely on issues concerning religious belief in the modern world. His own theological position has become increasingly radical and he has recently described himself as an "after-religionist".
Holloway is well-known for his support of liberal causes, including campaigning on human rights for gay and lesbian people in both Church and State. He is a patron of LGBT Youth Scotland, an organisation dedicated to the inclusion of LGBT young people in the life of Scotland. He has questioned and addressed complex ethical issues in the areas of sexuality, drugs and bio-ethics. He has written extensively on these topics, being the author of more than 20 books exploring their relationship with modern religion.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Holloway was Professor of Divinity at Gresham College in the City of London. From 1990 to 1997, he was a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and held the position of chair of the BMA Steering Group on Ethics and Genetics. He was also a member of the Broadcasting Standards Commission and is currently chair of the Scottish Arts Council and of Sistema Scotland.
Holloway has been a reviewer and writer for the broadsheet press for several years, including The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Sunday Herald and The Scotsman. He is also a frequent presenter on radio and television, having hosted the BBC television series When I get to Heaven, Holloway's Road and The Sword and the Cross. He currently hosts the BBC Radio Scotland book review programme, Cover Stories. Holloway presented the second of the Radio 4 Lent Talks on 11 March 2009.
Holloway lives in Edinburgh with his American-born wife Jean. They have three adult children; two daughters and a son.
Holloway was educated at Kelham Theological College, Edinburgh Theological College and the Union Theological Seminary, New York City. Between 1959 and 1986 he was a curate, vicar and rector at various parishes in England, Scotland and the United States. He was Bishop of Edinburgh from 1986 and was elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1992. He resigned from these positions in 2000 and is now regarded as one of the most outspoken and controversial figures in the Church, having taken an atheist worldview and commenting widely on issues concerning religious belief in the modern world. His own theological position has become increasingly radical and he has recently described himself as an "after-religionist".
Holloway is well-known for his support of liberal causes, including campaigning on human rights for gay and lesbian people in both Church and State. He is a patron of LGBT Youth Scotland, an organisation dedicated to the inclusion of LGBT young people in the life of Scotland. He has questioned and addressed complex ethical issues in the areas of sexuality, drugs and bio-ethics. He has written extensively on these topics, being the author of more than 20 books exploring their relationship with modern religion.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Holloway was Professor of Divinity at Gresham College in the City of London. From 1990 to 1997, he was a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and held the position of chair of the BMA Steering Group on Ethics and Genetics. He was also a member of the Broadcasting Standards Commission and is currently chair of the Scottish Arts Council and of Sistema Scotland.
Holloway has been a reviewer and writer for the broadsheet press for several years, including The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Sunday Herald and The Scotsman. He is also a frequent presenter on radio and television, having hosted the BBC television series When I get to Heaven, Holloway's Road and The Sword and the Cross. He currently hosts the BBC Radio Scotland book review programme, Cover Stories. Holloway presented the second of the Radio 4 Lent Talks on 11 March 2009.
Holloway lives in Edinburgh with his American-born wife Jean. They have three adult children; two daughters and a son.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
December 8, 2020
Be Bwave
I suppose that I’m the target demographic for this book. Having exhausted my three score and ten, I am now on bonus time. I have not been cheated of anything about life. There are family members who care for me. I have no material worries. In short, things have exceeded expectations. So Death is the obvious issue at hand.
“Fortitude is one of the most important lessons life teaches, and ageing may be our last chance to learn it... Fortitude is the ability to endure the reality of our condition without flinching,” Holloway says. But what he has in mind is not the fortitude of a Dylan Thomas:
Nor is it the fortitude of John Donne, who unlike Holloway despite his Anglican priesthood, was consoled by the Christian story of the Resurrection:
Rather, for Holloway fortitude is a sort of British stoicism, a stiff upper lip in response to circumstances that are inevitable. The doomed fortitude 0f the squaddie in the British Square on the 18th century battlefield, the resigned numbness of Nelson’s quarterdeck as his officers stare into the muzzles of Spanish guns with sang froid. Death for him frames living in a way not dissimilar to some existentialist philosophers - as a way to an aesthetic appreciation. Knowing that one is soon to have no appreciation of anything is certainly a spur to feast on it while its there; but that sounds more like gluttony than fortitude.
Holloway thinks that Thomas’s rage implies resistance or bitterness or displaced anger. I don’t understand why. Rage seems to me a perfectly appropriate response to forthcoming annihilation. And I see no reason to connect it with other emotions, nor to condemn it as a waste of energy. All energy is ultimately wasted; what matters is how. However natural and inevitable it is to die, it is nevertheless outrageous, a monstrously excessive cost to pay, not for life but for consciousness. Death is an unjust impertinence despite its certainty. I don’t need to resent Death to quietly spit in its face. My body will be recycled but not my self. Why not rage? Why not spit?
Holloway’s substitute for rage or for joyful Christian expectation is a sort of wan nostalgia. In summary his logic is straightforward: ‘Just think about how much things have changed during your life; how few of your contemporaries are left; how uncomfortable life has become in so many small ways.’ In circumstances he subtly makes equivalent to going over the top into machine gun fire, why shouldn’t Sweet Sister Death be welcome as a restful end to loss, as David Jones says in his In Parenthesis?
So, prepare yourself calmly Holloway suggests: “Slip into choral evensong somewhere to experience the music and touch the longing it carries for the human soul.” A little light spiritual refreshment for the soul on the way out. Or take time to “indulge in that delicious form of reflective sadness we call melancholy.” You’ve earned a bit of depressive wallowing. And a bit of self-pity wouldn’t go amiss either. Best accept that “From the beginning, we were being driven by facts and circumstances that were never in our control.” None of it is really our fault. He even finds comfort in the Calvinist idea of predestination.
It’s difficult to disagree with any of these proposals. But, equally, it’s difficult to take any of this seriously. Age has its privileges and should be taken advantage of. But these particular shibbolethic aphorisms are... well insipid really, of the Keep the Aspidistra Flying variety. We’re getting ready for Death here, not training for a stress-free retirement. These things may promote a quiet Death but I can’t see they are likely to promote a better one.
And Holloway’s insistence on meditating on the prospective last moment before oblivion. What is this? We enter oblivion every night without a worry. Why should Death feel any different than sleep? My last conscious moment has about as much emotional significance as that final moment of the universe from entropic heat death. Holloway apparently thinks that most people fear death. I don’t. I fear pain and I fear loss of love. And Death might be just the thing to avoid both.
As for theories of an afterlife, I’d really rather read some good sci-fi by P K Dick than hear the stale tales of Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism (Judaism is generally more circumspect about the matter). Nor do I find the discussion of cryogenics - terrestrial or orbital - of pressing interest. The only conclusion I can draw from the availability of such services is that the medieval practice of indulgences has found a new market. The virtue of Hope often, it seems, promotes the vice of Gullibility.
In summary I have to say that although I may be the right demographic, I am not the right personality profile for this book. Despite Holloway’s increasing distance over the years from Christian doctrine, he remains so very Church of England. Don’t misunderstand me. I think the Church of England has discovered a wonderful way to live with a religion, namely by making all doctrine more or less optional. But this means that it doesn’t have very much important to say about some things. Death is one of these. This is not a bad thing. But perhaps when one has little say of import about a subject one should refrain from saying anything at all.
I suppose that I’m the target demographic for this book. Having exhausted my three score and ten, I am now on bonus time. I have not been cheated of anything about life. There are family members who care for me. I have no material worries. In short, things have exceeded expectations. So Death is the obvious issue at hand.
“Fortitude is one of the most important lessons life teaches, and ageing may be our last chance to learn it... Fortitude is the ability to endure the reality of our condition without flinching,” Holloway says. But what he has in mind is not the fortitude of a Dylan Thomas:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Nor is it the fortitude of John Donne, who unlike Holloway despite his Anglican priesthood, was consoled by the Christian story of the Resurrection:
“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so...”
Rather, for Holloway fortitude is a sort of British stoicism, a stiff upper lip in response to circumstances that are inevitable. The doomed fortitude 0f the squaddie in the British Square on the 18th century battlefield, the resigned numbness of Nelson’s quarterdeck as his officers stare into the muzzles of Spanish guns with sang froid. Death for him frames living in a way not dissimilar to some existentialist philosophers - as a way to an aesthetic appreciation. Knowing that one is soon to have no appreciation of anything is certainly a spur to feast on it while its there; but that sounds more like gluttony than fortitude.
Holloway thinks that Thomas’s rage implies resistance or bitterness or displaced anger. I don’t understand why. Rage seems to me a perfectly appropriate response to forthcoming annihilation. And I see no reason to connect it with other emotions, nor to condemn it as a waste of energy. All energy is ultimately wasted; what matters is how. However natural and inevitable it is to die, it is nevertheless outrageous, a monstrously excessive cost to pay, not for life but for consciousness. Death is an unjust impertinence despite its certainty. I don’t need to resent Death to quietly spit in its face. My body will be recycled but not my self. Why not rage? Why not spit?
Holloway’s substitute for rage or for joyful Christian expectation is a sort of wan nostalgia. In summary his logic is straightforward: ‘Just think about how much things have changed during your life; how few of your contemporaries are left; how uncomfortable life has become in so many small ways.’ In circumstances he subtly makes equivalent to going over the top into machine gun fire, why shouldn’t Sweet Sister Death be welcome as a restful end to loss, as David Jones says in his In Parenthesis?
“By one and one the line gaps, where her [Sweet Sister Death's] fancy will - howsoever they may howl for their virginity
She holds them - who impinge less space
And limply to a heap
nourish a lesser category of being"
So, prepare yourself calmly Holloway suggests: “Slip into choral evensong somewhere to experience the music and touch the longing it carries for the human soul.” A little light spiritual refreshment for the soul on the way out. Or take time to “indulge in that delicious form of reflective sadness we call melancholy.” You’ve earned a bit of depressive wallowing. And a bit of self-pity wouldn’t go amiss either. Best accept that “From the beginning, we were being driven by facts and circumstances that were never in our control.” None of it is really our fault. He even finds comfort in the Calvinist idea of predestination.
It’s difficult to disagree with any of these proposals. But, equally, it’s difficult to take any of this seriously. Age has its privileges and should be taken advantage of. But these particular shibbolethic aphorisms are... well insipid really, of the Keep the Aspidistra Flying variety. We’re getting ready for Death here, not training for a stress-free retirement. These things may promote a quiet Death but I can’t see they are likely to promote a better one.
And Holloway’s insistence on meditating on the prospective last moment before oblivion. What is this? We enter oblivion every night without a worry. Why should Death feel any different than sleep? My last conscious moment has about as much emotional significance as that final moment of the universe from entropic heat death. Holloway apparently thinks that most people fear death. I don’t. I fear pain and I fear loss of love. And Death might be just the thing to avoid both.
As for theories of an afterlife, I’d really rather read some good sci-fi by P K Dick than hear the stale tales of Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism (Judaism is generally more circumspect about the matter). Nor do I find the discussion of cryogenics - terrestrial or orbital - of pressing interest. The only conclusion I can draw from the availability of such services is that the medieval practice of indulgences has found a new market. The virtue of Hope often, it seems, promotes the vice of Gullibility.
In summary I have to say that although I may be the right demographic, I am not the right personality profile for this book. Despite Holloway’s increasing distance over the years from Christian doctrine, he remains so very Church of England. Don’t misunderstand me. I think the Church of England has discovered a wonderful way to live with a religion, namely by making all doctrine more or less optional. But this means that it doesn’t have very much important to say about some things. Death is one of these. This is not a bad thing. But perhaps when one has little say of import about a subject one should refrain from saying anything at all.
November 9, 2020
Never fear: it’s not your average pie-in-the-sky Christian talk in Richard Holloway’s brand-new book about old age and death. Holloway was a career priest and has written nearly 30 theological works, but he comes at things from a refreshingly different angle. In Leaving Alexandria, one of my all-time favorite memoirs, he recorded his drift away from orthodoxy – even as he rose through the ranks of the Church of Scotland to become Bishop of Edinburgh. He recognizes morality as provisional (like in another of his books I’ve read, Godless Morality) – the Church has changed its mind about women and gay people, for instance – and doesn’t waste time pondering the supernatural or the chance of eternal life, but he still thinks religion has lessons to teach us about how we can approach death with dignity.
The thematic scaffolding of this short book, which grew out of a Radio 4 series that aired in 2016, is acceptance versus denial. For Holloway, going prematurely bald was like a preview of ageing, and the futility of the quack hair restoration pills he ordered from a magazine was his first lesson in accepting what you cannot change about yourself. Seeing ourselves as we really are is a lifelong struggle, Holloway acknowledges; some only grasp their identity right at the end, as death approaches. Predestination is a doctrine common to Christianity and Islam, but he is more inclined to mix free will and fate. His recurring metaphor is of a deck of cards: life is a hand that you are dealt, but you get to choose exactly how to play it.
This is a richly allusive book, full of snatches of literature (especially poetry), as well as excerpts from obituaries and from funeral addresses Holloway has given. He also discusses the fear of death, the dystopian possibilities of cryogenic freezing, countering regrets with forgiveness, and how the way we face death could redeem a disappointing life. Holloway’s is a voice of wisdom worth heeding, and he is honest and humble instead of giving pat answers to life’s enormous questions. I would be particularly likely to recommend this to readers of Julian Barnes’s Nothing to Be Frightened Of who want a contrasting perspective.
A couple of favorite passages:
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
The thematic scaffolding of this short book, which grew out of a Radio 4 series that aired in 2016, is acceptance versus denial. For Holloway, going prematurely bald was like a preview of ageing, and the futility of the quack hair restoration pills he ordered from a magazine was his first lesson in accepting what you cannot change about yourself. Seeing ourselves as we really are is a lifelong struggle, Holloway acknowledges; some only grasp their identity right at the end, as death approaches. Predestination is a doctrine common to Christianity and Islam, but he is more inclined to mix free will and fate. His recurring metaphor is of a deck of cards: life is a hand that you are dealt, but you get to choose exactly how to play it.
This is a richly allusive book, full of snatches of literature (especially poetry), as well as excerpts from obituaries and from funeral addresses Holloway has given. He also discusses the fear of death, the dystopian possibilities of cryogenic freezing, countering regrets with forgiveness, and how the way we face death could redeem a disappointing life. Holloway’s is a voice of wisdom worth heeding, and he is honest and humble instead of giving pat answers to life’s enormous questions. I would be particularly likely to recommend this to readers of Julian Barnes’s Nothing to Be Frightened Of who want a contrasting perspective.
A couple of favorite passages:
“I have ministered [Last Rites] myself and seen the peace they can bring at the end. I have sent good friends into the arms of a merciful God I was no longer sure I believed in. And I was convinced not only of the efficacy but of the honesty of what I was doing. I was not there to ventilate my doubts but to help the dying find the strength to cast off and take the tide that was pulling them out.”
“Religion is at its most compelling when it restrains the urge to explain death away and contents itself with voicing our sorrow and defiance that [death] keeps beating us into the ground. It feels most authentic when it stops preaching and becomes, instead, our song, our protest, the handkerchief waved against the immense tank looming at the corner of the street.”
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
February 14, 2019
When one of my nephews was about 6 years old he asked me what happens to people when they die. I said that different people believed different things, and explained some of those beliefs. But what do you think, he asked?
Have you noticed that children ask the most profound questions, and yet somehow as they grow up society shuts down that curiosity? The author, who was the former Bishop of Edinburgh, continues to ponder these questions, and this little book was thought provoking, and moving, and surprisingly upbeat considering the topic.
I was raised with religion, but have not been graced with faith for most of my life, so while I have little use for religious dogma, I continue to be fascinated by how religions fit under the umbrella of philosophy. The author, now in his ninth decade, is an agnostic, and so this book is a meditation of life and death without all the dogma. Reflections are interspersed with poetry and eulogies. It's a little book that explores weighty themes.
I listened to the audiobook, which is wonderfully narrated by the author, and it's well worth the five or so hours it takes. I have no doubt that this is one I'll be reading again.
Have you noticed that children ask the most profound questions, and yet somehow as they grow up society shuts down that curiosity? The author, who was the former Bishop of Edinburgh, continues to ponder these questions, and this little book was thought provoking, and moving, and surprisingly upbeat considering the topic.
I was raised with religion, but have not been graced with faith for most of my life, so while I have little use for religious dogma, I continue to be fascinated by how religions fit under the umbrella of philosophy. The author, now in his ninth decade, is an agnostic, and so this book is a meditation of life and death without all the dogma. Reflections are interspersed with poetry and eulogies. It's a little book that explores weighty themes.
I listened to the audiobook, which is wonderfully narrated by the author, and it's well worth the five or so hours it takes. I have no doubt that this is one I'll be reading again.
April 12, 2018
I received this one for review from NetGalley.
I have mixed feelings about this one. I wanted so badly to enjoy it, but unfortunately ended up DNF'ing at around 56%.
Richard Holloway is a Bishop that has spent decades assisting people to achieve a peaceful death. Waiting for the Last Bus is less of a memoir and more of a commentary on grief, forgiveness and religion. There were definitely parts of his writing that I enjoyed. For example, throughout each chapter Holloway would provide segments of poetry and other works to help demonstrate the concepts he was writing about which I felt added to the overall atmosphere of the book. And I did find his writing style enjoyable and easy to read.
However, at one point he writes about older adults being mistreated because of their age without ever explicitly referring to this mistreatment as ageism. I'm not sure what the disconnect was at that point in the book, but it was frustrating because I was really wishing he would call it what it was.
Additionally, for a while he speaks about whether or not humans are able to make choices in their life and then moves into asking for forgiveness. I really struggled with this section because it felt as if the author were saying that everything is completely out of our hands and we are incapable of making decisions (good or bad) which conflicted with other statements in the book up to that point.
Maybe if I considered myself a religious or spiritual person I would have enjoyed this more. But after a while I felt that the content became disjointed and I had a hard time keeping track of what he was trying to say.
I have mixed feelings about this one. I wanted so badly to enjoy it, but unfortunately ended up DNF'ing at around 56%.
Richard Holloway is a Bishop that has spent decades assisting people to achieve a peaceful death. Waiting for the Last Bus is less of a memoir and more of a commentary on grief, forgiveness and religion. There were definitely parts of his writing that I enjoyed. For example, throughout each chapter Holloway would provide segments of poetry and other works to help demonstrate the concepts he was writing about which I felt added to the overall atmosphere of the book. And I did find his writing style enjoyable and easy to read.
However, at one point he writes about older adults being mistreated because of their age without ever explicitly referring to this mistreatment as ageism. I'm not sure what the disconnect was at that point in the book, but it was frustrating because I was really wishing he would call it what it was.
Additionally, for a while he speaks about whether or not humans are able to make choices in their life and then moves into asking for forgiveness. I really struggled with this section because it felt as if the author were saying that everything is completely out of our hands and we are incapable of making decisions (good or bad) which conflicted with other statements in the book up to that point.
Maybe if I considered myself a religious or spiritual person I would have enjoyed this more. But after a while I felt that the content became disjointed and I had a hard time keeping track of what he was trying to say.
June 14, 2018
I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook it was very thought provoking.
Very well written and narrated. Recommended.
Very well written and narrated. Recommended.
April 12, 2018
Until two years ago, no one close to me had died; not since I’d been old enough to understand it. But 2016 came with chill winds and ruthlessness, and the last two years have seen the loss of five close family members. It hasn’t been easy. But it has had one useful outcome. I used to be afraid of death. It was a terrifying transmutation that I didn’t understand and didn’t want to acknowledge. But necessity has changed that and now, in the light of my family’s losses, I’ve had to accept it as an unavoidable part of human life. This all explains why I was drawn to this book, in which Richard Holloway – former Bishop of Edinburgh; thinker; compassionate critic; agnostic – uses his own old age as a spur to think about how we can live well and, when it comes to it, die well. Open-hearted and generous, studded with poetry and his memories of friends, it’s rather beautiful: inspiring and, oddly enough, rather upbeat...
For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/04/10/w...
For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/04/10/w...
February 5, 2021
This collection of musings on mortality is comforting yet deeply personal as the author navigates his late eighties. After spending much of his life immersed in theology and philosophy, the author writes these setting-sun essays with calm resignation despite facing a “crisis of faith” period. He doesn’t see it as a crisis, however, merely a period of questioning the existence of God and doubting the existence of an afterlife. Using poetry as therapy, he passes through the stages of grieving his own demise to elevate the finality of death into eloquent memorial verse. At the close of the collection, the author views the end of his life as a comforting walk culminating in boarding the “last bus” into whatever light awaits.
June 16, 2018
This book is a very inspiring read about the concept and the reality of death and dying. I hope to achieve even a measure of Richard Holloway’s wisdom in my life. This book is an excellent start. Highly recommended for all us mortal beings.
My thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.
My thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.
April 15, 2019
The Last Bus is a book that addresses the subject of death and dying. This is a real mixture of philosophy, theology, anthropology, history and memoir. Holloway does not shy away from what is so often a taboo subject and that in itself is quite refreshing. A reflective and informative read.
April 20, 2018
Just read it. I’m about to read it again.
April 7, 2021
WAITING FOR THE LAST BUS – RICHARD HOLLOWAY
I had not heard of Richard Holloway before reading this book. I understand that he has been a cleric by profession. But he is perhaps more interestingly, a student of religion and a man who has essentially abandoned a literal interpretation of Christian doctrine and focused on religion’s value to us in a more human and social context.
In this book, he considers the human condition, our will to live and particularly, our inevitable demise.
My initial feeling is that the book is presented in a slightly disjointed way. Some chapters are not distinct enough and several points are revisited if not repeated. There are perhaps too many quotes and references. And I don’t agree with all that he says. For example, because we socially have become more accepting of women’s and gay rights, that does not necessarily mean in itself that we have developed a greater moral compass. Certainly not as individuals. His presumption is unjustified.
He also gets a little too fanciful in imagining an ‘ultimate form of inequality’ with some kind of revolt by the poor occurring if/when it became the norm in society for wealthier individuals to preserve their bodies to be revived in future years. More likely is that they’d simply be jealous: individualism rules. But such is Holloway’s bent towards human nature righting itself.
Nevertheless, my feelings towards the book remain essentially positive. I admire Holloway’s independent mind, I agree with his views on death and dying, both the negative implications socially on our health service and just as importantly, his realistic appraisal of what death really means to us and how we could best prepare ourselves.
In this day and age it was also particularly refreshing, in his last chapter, to witness such soul searching honesty and humility in anyone talking about their own character. Getting to know the ‘stranger’ that is yourself: it touched more on confession. Very poignant..
But this book remains perhaps best viewed perhaps as a reference book, a distillation of interesting ideas and an invitation to explore other work. Due partly to the emotive subject matter, but also through delicate handling, there are several passages that may well leave a lump in your throat. I have selected three particular subjects raised,:
The first is that gratitude, however awkward, is the appropriate attitude to adopt in facing death in old age. When we look at the bigger picture, most of us have been blessed with the good fortune to experience life on this planet and for that at least we should think ourselves lucky. Holloway quotes a very eloquent passage from the end of Alan Hollinghurst’s novel The Line of Beauty, in which the hero Nick, an early victim of the AIDS epidemic, anticipates a positive test result and his imminent death:
‘He (Nick) tried to rationalize the fear, but its pull was too strong and original. It was inside himself, but the world around him, the parked cars, the cruising taxi, the church spire among the trees, had also been changed. They had been revealed…..The emotion was startling…..It was a love of the world that was shockingly unconditional……It wasn’t just this street corner but the fact of a street corner at all that seemed, in the light of the moment, so beautiful.’
Death paradoxicaly, reveals the beauty of the world to us and we should no doubt consider this sooner.
The second issue is Holloway’s recounting a touching little story about his own father.
Holloway writes persuasively about the role fate has on our lives, how we must ultimately ‘play the cards dealt us’, one aspect being how often the poor through history have suffered at the hands of time and change.
Holloway’s father was a man of working class stock, a proud man who ‘endured hardship without complaining’. As a young man he became a successful ‘block printer’ allowed even to wear a ‘bowler hat’ as a reflection of his esteemed status. But through changes in technology, still as a young man, his trade became obsolete and he literally had to find any work going.
Nothing was ever mentioned about this forced change, but several years later, in his father’s small two roomed cottage, Holloway discovered a small cloth–wrapped bundle under his father’s bed: he had kept two ‘mells’, the tools of his original trade. Holloway reflects on what meaning his father attached to those ‘mells’, the ‘pride and purpose’ they must have given him and the sense of ‘betrayal and disappointment’ that he kept to himself.
However, still the most movingly discussed - and most emotive - subject raised in the book is how to manage - indeed how religion can manage - the death of a child. This is clearly a problem Holloway has encountered personally. We might accept with him in the cold light of day, that life is a lottery, that we come from nothing 8 of a child produces an impassioned cry for injustice. And how do you prepare a child to accept their death? As Holloway puts it: ‘The priest is emptied of everything except defiance in the face of absolute loss’. And praying for the presence of a loving god is an ‘act that contains its own meaning’. Belief or not in any literal religious truths become irrelevant.
It was through a novel, Last of The Just, about the Holocaust, by André Schwarz-Bart, that Holloway says he was able to reason out his thoughts on this matter. In one section Ernie Levy with his girlfriend Golda are with a band of children they have been protecting, on a ‘death train’ to Auschwitz. When another child dies, Ernie reassures the others ‘He’s asleep’ and gently lays the body on a pile of other corpses.
One small girl remarks: ‘He was my brother’ and Ernie comforts her and tells her they will all eventually be happy in the Kingdom of Israel.
When another child asks if they will be able to get warm day and night there, Ernie again reassures him: ‘Yes, that is how it will be.’
An accompanying woman digs her fingers in Ernie’s shoulder with scorn and demands: ‘How can you tell them it’s only a dream?’
Ernie, giving way to dry sobs finally responds: ‘Madame, there is no room for truth here.’
It is hard not to be effected on reading that!
In his book, Holloway presents a worthy argument that absolute or literal truths can be problematic for many people of faith today and that any religion not able to embrace what Keats called a ‘Negative Capability’ - whereby faith is evident in people not through literal truths or reason, but the ‘poetry’ of religion, like music, song and festivities - is in danger of signing its own death warrant.
Holloway also makes worthy proposals regarding ‘remembrance’ and ‘forgiveness’. This is all well and good-intentioned.
But I must make one final point. Whilst it is commendable to ‘forgive’, especially at the point of someone’s death, it can be hard simply to dismiss a person’s dislikeable character throughout life. As a child Holloway admits to a romantic escapist adoration of John Wayne through his films at the cinema. He acknowledges rightly that ‘John Wayne was an act’, not the real, fat balding and toupee wearing Marion Morrison who had managed to avoid the ‘draft’.
But Holloway lets him off the hook, suggesting that finally in death he faced up to the ‘stranger’ in himself with the words ‘Let’s go’ as he was dying of cancer.
I don’t know what real evidence there is of Wayne’s change of attitude to humility, but sadly perhaps, I am more inclined to stick to a view of Wayne’s character reflected in the autobiography of the film critic, Barry Norman.
When among a number of journalists brought over to interview Wayne, Norman aware of the star’s extreme right views politically, asked him what he thought of Vietnam (where the war was raging on with no end in sight.) Wayne, drinking bourbon to excess, suggested calling Kosygin (then premier of the Soviet Union) and promising: ‘You send….one more gun to Vietnam and we’ll bomb Moscow.’ Norman laughed, thinking him to be joking which was not the case. The interview disintegrated and when Norman remarked: ‘You can’t be serious’, Wayne took offence repeating back Norman’s words, mimicking his English vowel sounds.
With an instinctive mischievous wit, Norman quipped: ‘That’s very good. I didn’t know you could do an English accent.’
My point is simply, that just occasionally, a bit of nasty medicine hits the spot. For all the goodwill that Holloway can find in the world.
I had not heard of Richard Holloway before reading this book. I understand that he has been a cleric by profession. But he is perhaps more interestingly, a student of religion and a man who has essentially abandoned a literal interpretation of Christian doctrine and focused on religion’s value to us in a more human and social context.
In this book, he considers the human condition, our will to live and particularly, our inevitable demise.
My initial feeling is that the book is presented in a slightly disjointed way. Some chapters are not distinct enough and several points are revisited if not repeated. There are perhaps too many quotes and references. And I don’t agree with all that he says. For example, because we socially have become more accepting of women’s and gay rights, that does not necessarily mean in itself that we have developed a greater moral compass. Certainly not as individuals. His presumption is unjustified.
He also gets a little too fanciful in imagining an ‘ultimate form of inequality’ with some kind of revolt by the poor occurring if/when it became the norm in society for wealthier individuals to preserve their bodies to be revived in future years. More likely is that they’d simply be jealous: individualism rules. But such is Holloway’s bent towards human nature righting itself.
Nevertheless, my feelings towards the book remain essentially positive. I admire Holloway’s independent mind, I agree with his views on death and dying, both the negative implications socially on our health service and just as importantly, his realistic appraisal of what death really means to us and how we could best prepare ourselves.
In this day and age it was also particularly refreshing, in his last chapter, to witness such soul searching honesty and humility in anyone talking about their own character. Getting to know the ‘stranger’ that is yourself: it touched more on confession. Very poignant..
But this book remains perhaps best viewed perhaps as a reference book, a distillation of interesting ideas and an invitation to explore other work. Due partly to the emotive subject matter, but also through delicate handling, there are several passages that may well leave a lump in your throat. I have selected three particular subjects raised,:
The first is that gratitude, however awkward, is the appropriate attitude to adopt in facing death in old age. When we look at the bigger picture, most of us have been blessed with the good fortune to experience life on this planet and for that at least we should think ourselves lucky. Holloway quotes a very eloquent passage from the end of Alan Hollinghurst’s novel The Line of Beauty, in which the hero Nick, an early victim of the AIDS epidemic, anticipates a positive test result and his imminent death:
‘He (Nick) tried to rationalize the fear, but its pull was too strong and original. It was inside himself, but the world around him, the parked cars, the cruising taxi, the church spire among the trees, had also been changed. They had been revealed…..The emotion was startling…..It was a love of the world that was shockingly unconditional……It wasn’t just this street corner but the fact of a street corner at all that seemed, in the light of the moment, so beautiful.’
Death paradoxicaly, reveals the beauty of the world to us and we should no doubt consider this sooner.
The second issue is Holloway’s recounting a touching little story about his own father.
Holloway writes persuasively about the role fate has on our lives, how we must ultimately ‘play the cards dealt us’, one aspect being how often the poor through history have suffered at the hands of time and change.
Holloway’s father was a man of working class stock, a proud man who ‘endured hardship without complaining’. As a young man he became a successful ‘block printer’ allowed even to wear a ‘bowler hat’ as a reflection of his esteemed status. But through changes in technology, still as a young man, his trade became obsolete and he literally had to find any work going.
Nothing was ever mentioned about this forced change, but several years later, in his father’s small two roomed cottage, Holloway discovered a small cloth–wrapped bundle under his father’s bed: he had kept two ‘mells’, the tools of his original trade. Holloway reflects on what meaning his father attached to those ‘mells’, the ‘pride and purpose’ they must have given him and the sense of ‘betrayal and disappointment’ that he kept to himself.
However, still the most movingly discussed - and most emotive - subject raised in the book is how to manage - indeed how religion can manage - the death of a child. This is clearly a problem Holloway has encountered personally. We might accept with him in the cold light of day, that life is a lottery, that we come from nothing 8 of a child produces an impassioned cry for injustice. And how do you prepare a child to accept their death? As Holloway puts it: ‘The priest is emptied of everything except defiance in the face of absolute loss’. And praying for the presence of a loving god is an ‘act that contains its own meaning’. Belief or not in any literal religious truths become irrelevant.
It was through a novel, Last of The Just, about the Holocaust, by André Schwarz-Bart, that Holloway says he was able to reason out his thoughts on this matter. In one section Ernie Levy with his girlfriend Golda are with a band of children they have been protecting, on a ‘death train’ to Auschwitz. When another child dies, Ernie reassures the others ‘He’s asleep’ and gently lays the body on a pile of other corpses.
One small girl remarks: ‘He was my brother’ and Ernie comforts her and tells her they will all eventually be happy in the Kingdom of Israel.
When another child asks if they will be able to get warm day and night there, Ernie again reassures him: ‘Yes, that is how it will be.’
An accompanying woman digs her fingers in Ernie’s shoulder with scorn and demands: ‘How can you tell them it’s only a dream?’
Ernie, giving way to dry sobs finally responds: ‘Madame, there is no room for truth here.’
It is hard not to be effected on reading that!
In his book, Holloway presents a worthy argument that absolute or literal truths can be problematic for many people of faith today and that any religion not able to embrace what Keats called a ‘Negative Capability’ - whereby faith is evident in people not through literal truths or reason, but the ‘poetry’ of religion, like music, song and festivities - is in danger of signing its own death warrant.
Holloway also makes worthy proposals regarding ‘remembrance’ and ‘forgiveness’. This is all well and good-intentioned.
But I must make one final point. Whilst it is commendable to ‘forgive’, especially at the point of someone’s death, it can be hard simply to dismiss a person’s dislikeable character throughout life. As a child Holloway admits to a romantic escapist adoration of John Wayne through his films at the cinema. He acknowledges rightly that ‘John Wayne was an act’, not the real, fat balding and toupee wearing Marion Morrison who had managed to avoid the ‘draft’.
But Holloway lets him off the hook, suggesting that finally in death he faced up to the ‘stranger’ in himself with the words ‘Let’s go’ as he was dying of cancer.
I don’t know what real evidence there is of Wayne’s change of attitude to humility, but sadly perhaps, I am more inclined to stick to a view of Wayne’s character reflected in the autobiography of the film critic, Barry Norman.
When among a number of journalists brought over to interview Wayne, Norman aware of the star’s extreme right views politically, asked him what he thought of Vietnam (where the war was raging on with no end in sight.) Wayne, drinking bourbon to excess, suggested calling Kosygin (then premier of the Soviet Union) and promising: ‘You send….one more gun to Vietnam and we’ll bomb Moscow.’ Norman laughed, thinking him to be joking which was not the case. The interview disintegrated and when Norman remarked: ‘You can’t be serious’, Wayne took offence repeating back Norman’s words, mimicking his English vowel sounds.
With an instinctive mischievous wit, Norman quipped: ‘That’s very good. I didn’t know you could do an English accent.’
My point is simply, that just occasionally, a bit of nasty medicine hits the spot. For all the goodwill that Holloway can find in the world.
June 11, 2023
My husband and I were on one of our last trips after both our parents passed away. We had been taking care of them for the last four years of their lives.
We were exhausted, and this was an opportunity for us to get away and just rest. And yet, we couldn't help but feel ourselves still wrapped in grief. There was so much to process and understand and appreciate about the experience of end-of-life.
At the Pilgrim's Way Bookstore in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA I was perusing through some books, and this book stood out to me, so I decided to purchase it. I am now bringing my review to Goodreads.
Wonderful.
Insightful.
Intelligent.
Humble.
Thoughtful.
Difficult.
The author considers his good life and how people manage their worries. He explores the big questions and faces his own uncertainties.
Mostly he gets to the very crux of what it means to be alive.
There is discussion about after-life. When he goes there, he loses me a bit. I appreciate more his discussion on making the most of being here now.
We were exhausted, and this was an opportunity for us to get away and just rest. And yet, we couldn't help but feel ourselves still wrapped in grief. There was so much to process and understand and appreciate about the experience of end-of-life.
At the Pilgrim's Way Bookstore in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA I was perusing through some books, and this book stood out to me, so I decided to purchase it. I am now bringing my review to Goodreads.
Wonderful.
Insightful.
Intelligent.
Humble.
Thoughtful.
Difficult.
The author considers his good life and how people manage their worries. He explores the big questions and faces his own uncertainties.
Mostly he gets to the very crux of what it means to be alive.
There is discussion about after-life. When he goes there, he loses me a bit. I appreciate more his discussion on making the most of being here now.
July 5, 2018
I have been reading Richard Holloway for many years now - from the thought-provoking 'Godless Morality, via the fascinating and challenging 'On Forgiveness' to the widely read memoir 'Leaving Alexandria'. Holloway is a clever, deeply reflective writer, who has grappled with the challenges of religious belief for almost all of his life. In this book, he draws on his very personal experience - he's in his ninth decade - to think about approaches to death and dying. In doing so, as you might expect given that he made his living for very many years as a Professor of Divinity and Episcopalian priest, he draws on the narratives of religion. But he also pays his dues to a rich variety of artistic sources, particularly poetry, which have inspired and informed his reflections. I have to confess that since I also enjoy many of his favourite writers - Larkin, MacNeice, Joan Didion, Julian Barnes - this enhanced the reading experience for me, considerably; as did -and I know some people might feel that I am drifting into bathos here - his love of dogs, the sadness he feels at the death of his old dog Daisy and the realisation that he is too old to have another dog to share his wanderings in the Pentland Hills.
I have two wee quibbles though: firstly, because I have read some of his earlier works, some of the ground he is covering seems too familiar, too well-trodden; and secondly, probably because the book was a series of radio essays, the linking structure doesn't always hang together - it feels as though it wanders about a bit too much. However, this is still a very good book; and if you have never read Holloway before, and you are interested in reflections on mortality -and why wouldn't you be, since none of us will escape it - there is a lot to enjoy here from the pen of this erudite, and most humble of human beings.
I have two wee quibbles though: firstly, because I have read some of his earlier works, some of the ground he is covering seems too familiar, too well-trodden; and secondly, probably because the book was a series of radio essays, the linking structure doesn't always hang together - it feels as though it wanders about a bit too much. However, this is still a very good book; and if you have never read Holloway before, and you are interested in reflections on mortality -and why wouldn't you be, since none of us will escape it - there is a lot to enjoy here from the pen of this erudite, and most humble of human beings.
December 21, 2021
We spend a lot of our time and effort not thinking about death.
Humans are afflicted with tragic self-consciousness that does not seem to bother other animals. Pain that seems to be unique to humans is an awareness of our bodies is so keen it can lure us into depression and self-hatred.
What will our last moment alive be like? We may not be conscious when we finally slip away. But suppose we are. Will we notice it? Will we know it at the final moment?
According to Hindu teaching, your soul or spirit is a wanderer that's had many lives in the past before it came into the one you happen to be in at the moment. And it will live many more lives in the future when this one is over.
A Vatican decree in 2016 forbidding Catholics from keeping the ashes of their departed at home, scattering them in nature of dividing them between members of the family.
The opposite of gratitude for life is greed for more of it. It is the inability to enjoy what we have now because we are already lusting after the next edition.
Be brave in the face of death. Be sad at leaving. But don't let those be your final emotions. Let it be gratitude for the life you had.
People too easily forget that words can't do everything. Some things just can't be said.
Humans are rarely at peace with themselves and find it hard to live with the muddle and confusion. They are always on the lookout for a savior who will chase all their troubles away.
Time not only steals those we love; it even steals our memories of them.
Those we love leave us. We see them no longer, but we try to hold on to them as long as we can.
We didn't get to deal our hand in life. We only got to play the cards we were given. And how we play the last card can win the game.
Humans are afflicted with tragic self-consciousness that does not seem to bother other animals. Pain that seems to be unique to humans is an awareness of our bodies is so keen it can lure us into depression and self-hatred.
What will our last moment alive be like? We may not be conscious when we finally slip away. But suppose we are. Will we notice it? Will we know it at the final moment?
According to Hindu teaching, your soul or spirit is a wanderer that's had many lives in the past before it came into the one you happen to be in at the moment. And it will live many more lives in the future when this one is over.
A Vatican decree in 2016 forbidding Catholics from keeping the ashes of their departed at home, scattering them in nature of dividing them between members of the family.
The opposite of gratitude for life is greed for more of it. It is the inability to enjoy what we have now because we are already lusting after the next edition.
Be brave in the face of death. Be sad at leaving. But don't let those be your final emotions. Let it be gratitude for the life you had.
People too easily forget that words can't do everything. Some things just can't be said.
Humans are rarely at peace with themselves and find it hard to live with the muddle and confusion. They are always on the lookout for a savior who will chase all their troubles away.
Time not only steals those we love; it even steals our memories of them.
Those we love leave us. We see them no longer, but we try to hold on to them as long as we can.
We didn't get to deal our hand in life. We only got to play the cards we were given. And how we play the last card can win the game.
June 12, 2019
This parish priest honestly shares his doubts and wavering faith. He's presided at many funerals and helped the faithful, agnostic and atheist face the end of their own lives. At eighty, he contemplates his own death, "Sooner or later the bus will be along for me. But I've been a walker all my life, so when I hear its approach afar off I hope I'll have time to lace on my boots and set out to meet it."
He quotes poetry liberally, with 101 footnotes and references, from the bible, Niettzche, Larkin, Didion... Reflections upon reflections upon reflections.
...
from Alan Hollinhurst's novel, The Line of Beauty:
The emotion was startling... It was a love of the world that was shockingly unconditional. He stared back at the house, and then turned and drifted on. He looked in bewilderment at number 24, the final house with its regalia of stucco swags and bows. It wasn't just this street corner but the fact of a street corner at all that seemed, in the light of the moment, so beautiful.
...
W.H. Auden on grief and despair:
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
He quotes poetry liberally, with 101 footnotes and references, from the bible, Niettzche, Larkin, Didion... Reflections upon reflections upon reflections.
...
from Alan Hollinhurst's novel, The Line of Beauty:
The emotion was startling... It was a love of the world that was shockingly unconditional. He stared back at the house, and then turned and drifted on. He looked in bewilderment at number 24, the final house with its regalia of stucco swags and bows. It wasn't just this street corner but the fact of a street corner at all that seemed, in the light of the moment, so beautiful.
...
W.H. Auden on grief and despair:
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
September 18, 2018
Richard Holloway, a former Bishop of Edinburgh, reflects on life and death. He is now in his 80's, although I am younger, at 60 the very strong likelihood is that I more years behind me then ahead. Bishop Richard has courted controversy with many conservative Christians, it is no shock to read him state that he doesn't believe in God or in Heaven. I, as a Christian, sit somewhere between been not a conservative, but not a full blown liberal. I must admit for some time I have felt there could be a God without necessarily there been an afterlife. On this one I tend to agree with Dave Tomlinson in his book "Black sheep and Prodigals" that there may or may not be a Heaven, but the emphasis should be our living now. The book is short but wide ranging, looking at different views of an afterlife, scientific ideas on delaying or cheating death, preparing for death. The book has helpful advice such as writing to those you leave, and closes with a helpful section on accepting and making peace with your shadow self. I found this a helpful read and would recommend it to anyone who is starting to think about the fact that death is closer than we might prefer to accept.
March 15, 2019
The most helpful book on the subject of mortality and loss I have read so far. Most books like this just make me rage with their empty platitudes, and are usually just sad stories about people dying and how awful it is and the vibe is very “oh well make the most of life, kumbayah”.
This book is more about life really. And how to live it.
This book is more about life really. And how to live it.
May 11, 2018
An interesting and valuable reflection in an - admittedly - beautifully produced format. Worth gifting to a friend in need.
February 9, 2019
loved the poems and some of the thoughts but some of it went way over my head
November 9, 2020
This is an excellent, thought provoking book written with a light, amusing touch. I’ve reached the stage in life where reflections on life and death seem appropriate, and this is a book I’ll read again. Holloway considers our fears of death, both for ourselves, and for those whom we love. He looks at what comes next, both for the deceased and for those left behind. A former monk, agnostic, and bishop, Holloway has written a book which is accessible to us all, not just Christians.
July 15, 2019
I hate to think about death, suffering health anxiety and melancholia at the passing of time, of youth and of the role I have in my children’s lives. This book has everything to recommend it. No preaching, a tolerant viewpoint and a willingness to gain understanding from a wide variety of sources. A wise book and one to treasure.
March 24, 2022
I’m not sure I have the words to describe how beautiful and how important and relevant this book is. Listened as a library audiobook but think I need to own a real copy to return to again and again
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August 17, 2022Richard Holloway discusses the many issues around death and dying. We will all take the last bus, and he talks about different ways people wait for that last bus. I especially liked the last chapter. Although dealing with death, this was not a bleak read. Quite the opposite.
June 23, 2019
Quite a gem - and you don't need to be religious to find this book so.
Holloway illustrates his musings with much excellent poetry.
Holloway illustrates his musings with much excellent poetry.
February 9, 2019
Richard Holloway's most recent offering takes the reader to places our culture has deemed 'no fly zones'. We dislike the subject of death. Thinking of it, dwelling upon it, and god forbid, talking of it, is akin to taking a child to the dentist - a most unpleasant endeavor.
As an octogenarian and the former Bishop of Scotland, he is uniquely qualified to tell the tale. From my own experience in hospital chaplaincy, I know something of the journey from which he writes. Walking alongside those who are transitioning from this plane to the next is no easy task. A task made much more difficult when those about to cross the threshold harbor a lifetime of regret and fear.
With the grace of a poet and the heart of a lion, Holloway pulls away at the fabric of the shroud of death, unraveling its mystique like a cheap sweater. The reader is challenged to embrace this universal fate that awaits us all, like an old friend. "The reality is that death has rung [our] bell, and peace will come only when [we] open the door and say, 'you got here sooner than I expected, but come in and sit down while I get my coat on.'"
Holloway provides a depth of wisdom and insight that comes only from the road less traveled. His latest work, takes the reader down that road with precision, emotion and intuitiveness. Don't miss this bus.
As an octogenarian and the former Bishop of Scotland, he is uniquely qualified to tell the tale. From my own experience in hospital chaplaincy, I know something of the journey from which he writes. Walking alongside those who are transitioning from this plane to the next is no easy task. A task made much more difficult when those about to cross the threshold harbor a lifetime of regret and fear.
With the grace of a poet and the heart of a lion, Holloway pulls away at the fabric of the shroud of death, unraveling its mystique like a cheap sweater. The reader is challenged to embrace this universal fate that awaits us all, like an old friend. "The reality is that death has rung [our] bell, and peace will come only when [we] open the door and say, 'you got here sooner than I expected, but come in and sit down while I get my coat on.'"
Holloway provides a depth of wisdom and insight that comes only from the road less traveled. His latest work, takes the reader down that road with precision, emotion and intuitiveness. Don't miss this bus.
March 6, 2021
Summary - A life affirming book full of poigniancy, and barrel-aged wisdom that makes me yearn to talk more with the generations ahead of me.
A quietly radical book, which underlines the old coupling of age with wisdom. This is one of those meditatively mature books that draws on a long life to take stock, in a personal way that speaks louder than its lightly-written words to the biggest age-old themes of death-in-life, the meaning of life, and how human's deal with endings.
UK readers might be put in mind of Richard Coles (ex-Communards, now vicar-and-BBC broadcaster). It's unflinching in its handling of fatalism and mortality, peppered as it is with elergies for friends and loved ones that Holloway himself knew.
This book makes me nostalgic with yearning for conversations with elders. Where do we get to meet retirees in our everyday lives, when church has been wiped away, pubs and community centres either shuttered for good or segregated into ever-more-specifically-themed niches, and our lives drawn into narrow online forums or closed friendship groups? This book spoke to me, and post-lockdown I want to find voices like Richard's that I in turn can speak with.
A quietly radical book, which underlines the old coupling of age with wisdom. This is one of those meditatively mature books that draws on a long life to take stock, in a personal way that speaks louder than its lightly-written words to the biggest age-old themes of death-in-life, the meaning of life, and how human's deal with endings.
UK readers might be put in mind of Richard Coles (ex-Communards, now vicar-and-BBC broadcaster). It's unflinching in its handling of fatalism and mortality, peppered as it is with elergies for friends and loved ones that Holloway himself knew.
This book makes me nostalgic with yearning for conversations with elders. Where do we get to meet retirees in our everyday lives, when church has been wiped away, pubs and community centres either shuttered for good or segregated into ever-more-specifically-themed niches, and our lives drawn into narrow online forums or closed friendship groups? This book spoke to me, and post-lockdown I want to find voices like Richard's that I in turn can speak with.
April 9, 2022
Never judge a book by it’s cover they say. Well I did exactly that, searching the library for my next book to read on a dark and dull afternoon I stumbled across this and felt drawn in by the beautiful cover. I felt as if this had called to me in some way. I must admit I did find it hard to get into at first, but when I started I struggled to put it down. I am 30 years old and I suppose I would consider myself an agnostic. So when the talk of religion came in i found myself equally disappointed and intrigued. However this was not your typical religious repent for your sins before death type of book. Although this did feel geared towards an older audience, I feel like most adults of any age can learn a lot from this book. Whether you are currently terminal, healthy, worried about death or just want to learn more about how you can accept death with grace when the time comes. You also do not have to be religious at all to appreciate the beauty and brilliance of RH’s writing. It helped me particularly to realise that I need to live my life the way I want to and be authentic to myself before the last bus comes for me. * will be adding more to review*
June 21, 2018
"So tenderness is all."
"But if the moment comes and our character is revealed to us, we must accept it and admit who and what we are."
"No present, no future, only the compulsive memory of the past. The inability to forgive works the same way. It imprisons us in the past, whether in our personal or in our group relations. That's why most of the wars and feuds that characterise human history are the constant rehearsal of a past offense."
"If we refuse the paradox that it is through death that life is constantly renewed, we may end in the paradox that our denial of death has made life unbearable."
"Nothing is true but change, nothing abides."
"the trouble with holding too tightly on to the past is that you preserve the bad as well as the good: ugly prejudices as well as beautiful virtues."
"It is life before death we concentrate our attention on."
"Blessed are the improvisers for they make all things new."
"But if the moment comes and our character is revealed to us, we must accept it and admit who and what we are."
"No present, no future, only the compulsive memory of the past. The inability to forgive works the same way. It imprisons us in the past, whether in our personal or in our group relations. That's why most of the wars and feuds that characterise human history are the constant rehearsal of a past offense."
"If we refuse the paradox that it is through death that life is constantly renewed, we may end in the paradox that our denial of death has made life unbearable."
"Nothing is true but change, nothing abides."
"the trouble with holding too tightly on to the past is that you preserve the bad as well as the good: ugly prejudices as well as beautiful virtues."
"It is life before death we concentrate our attention on."
"Blessed are the improvisers for they make all things new."
July 24, 2018
A most excellent treatment of the subject of life and death, and aging, for those of us who think about such things. Many wise and moving quotations and references, besides his own sound reasoning, and experiences recalled.
P. 15, “...Fearing the not-being-there that follows death is as silly as regretting that we weren’t here before we were born.” (Epicurius)
P. 85, re Courage as the wise person's response to the fear of going, and Gratitude as the answer to the desire to stay forever.
P. 134, re Grief "It has to be done."
P. 150, “...'Amor fati', love of the fate I was dealt....” Acceptance.
From my note about p. 6, I am left with a desire to find the poem "The Burning of the Leaves" by Binyon. And so many more poems and books and songs and paintings I want to have a look at.
How good it is to read a book that makes you want to read more.
P. 15, “...Fearing the not-being-there that follows death is as silly as regretting that we weren’t here before we were born.” (Epicurius)
P. 85, re Courage as the wise person's response to the fear of going, and Gratitude as the answer to the desire to stay forever.
P. 134, re Grief "It has to be done."
P. 150, “...'Amor fati', love of the fate I was dealt....” Acceptance.
From my note about p. 6, I am left with a desire to find the poem "The Burning of the Leaves" by Binyon. And so many more poems and books and songs and paintings I want to have a look at.
How good it is to read a book that makes you want to read more.
June 8, 2019
This book of reflections on life and death was eloquently written. I was not able to read it fast. I had to focus (in a good way) and let it soak in. If I was distracted, I simply had to put it down and come back. It deserved my full attention.
Imagery is vivid such as when the author used the analogy of life and death as a stage performance:
“Death and dying have been taken over by the medical profession; and there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that it sees death not as a friend we might learn to welcome but as an enemy to be resisted to the bitter end. And the end often is experienced as bitter, as a fight we lost rather than as the coming down of the curtain on our moment on the stage, something we always knew was in the script.”
There is a chance I will read this book again as it very thought provoking.
Imagery is vivid such as when the author used the analogy of life and death as a stage performance:
“Death and dying have been taken over by the medical profession; and there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that it sees death not as a friend we might learn to welcome but as an enemy to be resisted to the bitter end. And the end often is experienced as bitter, as a fight we lost rather than as the coming down of the curtain on our moment on the stage, something we always knew was in the script.”
There is a chance I will read this book again as it very thought provoking.
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