Jackson Radcliffe's Blog - Posts Tagged "philosophy"

When I started writing, I adopted a humorous tone, even when writing about serious topics. I thought this was because I couldn’t take myself too seriously as a writer, and that’s probably true. But there’s more to it.

Humour punctures holes in big ideas. It undermines conventions and stands the world on its head. It goads us into questioning things that seem self-evident or beyond debate.

Comedians are everyday philosophers, helping us look at our world through fresh eyes. With my writing, I’m exploring my beliefs about the world and trying to articulate a coherent world view. And you can’t do that without having a few laughs along the way.

In fact, the concept of a coherent world view may turn out to be the ultimate cosmic joke. What if, instead, humour turned out to be the universe’s guiding principle?



This article was first published at my personal blog, Blog Blogger Bloggest.

Wow! This book is a rollercoaster read. I finished it, then started reading it again immediately. It blew my mind.
I’ve just read it again for a third time, and felt compelled to write something. I want to evangelize on behalf of Ms Thomas and spread the word about this book.
The book doesn’t start out too well. Nothing terribly interesting happens on the first page (or rather, it does, but the narrative downplays it), and the voice doesn’t really get you into the head of the protagonist. But stick with it, because things really start to pick up after a few pages, and it doesn’t take very long at all before the book is fully up to speed.
It starts out as a gripping mystery story, split between a contemporary character – a researcher in a university – and an Edwardian writer. The mystery revolves around a cursed book (everyone who reads it dies), a disappearing professor, a sinister doctor at a circus and recipes involving holy water and other arcane ingredients. The mystery draws us in, deepening and deepening, until wham! the book transforms into something totally unexpected and mind-boggling.
Yes, quantum physics is here, as well as circus acts, dangerous books and time travel. There’s also romance, transgressive sex, thought experiments, armed killers, and religion. There’s a lot of philosophy too. You name it, it’s here, and yet it works. The narrative is strongly rooted in modern science, although it veers perilously close to the edge from time to time. The female protagonist has a strong, compelling, immediate way of narrating the story, helped by the use of first-person present tense. It’s a hugely imaginative tour de force!
The ending probably isn’t what you expect, but by the time you’ve got some way into the book, you’ve probably given up on any expectations you might have had. Just go with it. Give the book a try and see what happens. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s just a book!
Originally published at JacksonRadcliffe.com.

Two popular metaphors for life liken it to a journey, or a circle. Yet both are entirely unhelpful I find. For there is no circle of life, nor any destination.

Every life is a unique set of experiences, to be lived once and never repeated. When it is over, it’s over. Life is not a progression towards some final state or goal, or a path to an unknowable beyond. It is here. It is now.

Nobody truly knows what life is for, but the philosopher Alan Watts perhaps came closest when he described life as a dance. And the point of a dance, he said, is the dancing.

One day there will be no more dancing. So I urge you, dance until the music stops.

Originally published on jacksonradcliffe.com.