Baxter, Paul - Power v Love
(06 September 07)Power v. Love
Judith Bore reviews Power v Love by Paul Baxter (Azure Press 2006)
(Reviewed February 2007)
This is a super little book, delightful to look at with a sky blue cover and dust cover and delicate thistle down drifting off the pages throughout. When I say it is about wisdom you might sigh and say, “Oh yes, one of those books that clutter the counters of bookshops.” But you would be wrong.
This is a down-to-earth volume by an agricultural scientist whose previous book was about fruit growing. Yet it is gentle and thoughtful and like the thistledown motif that first appears on the front cover (as does the humour), its witticisms keep things flowing along. It is easy to read but embodies some profound reflections and useful thinking.
Paul Baxter has had much to reflect upon. He grew up in Nazi Germany but was protected from the worst of it by being sent to live in Barcelona and then escaping via Kindertransport in 1939 to England. During the war he was part of a group of boys sent to Australia to study farming. Years later, having gone through university and married, he returned to Germany to do research.
Paul has now been retired for many years and sees philosophising as an occupational hazard of this stage of life. So this book is written by an old man who has kept an academically critical eye on the world but who acknowledges that, at least for now, stories (myths, legends) have a place alongside science in giving us a view of the world and in enabling us to cope with the tribulations, uncertainties and meaninglessness of life.
He has some no-nonsense things to say about information and wisdom, language, science and religion. A non-believer, he has concluded that God and religion have much to tell us about our internal world and by this he means inter-human relationships.
But our writer is also a practical and scientific man and he offers solutions or possible solutions: for example, to the situation in the ‘Holy Land’. He’s imaginative too. He shows us what is wrong with the current religion of our world (he calls it economism) by describing the successful life-style of some supposed inhabitants of Mars.
The earlier chapters seem jerky at times as he moves from topic to topic almost every other paragraph but in this way we get to know who he is, a craftsman organizing his workshop. At last he settles down and tells us stories, a kind of parable first and then he talks about his heroes.
Who is this book for? Well we know it is for Paul’s grandchildren. For now, or for when they are older? It is certainly a book to have around and to let others dip into. I’m sure they will pick it up and find themselves smiling or settling down for a longer read. And for our group convenors in SoFiA it could well be a source of discussion material, for as you might have guessed, Paul is not afraid to call a spade a spade. He is critical and forthright but never strident. It is a gift of a book. Thanks, Paul.
Copies of Paul Baxter’s book are available through
Azure Press, P.O. Box 30 Nunawading, VIC 3131 for $ 30 (incl. postal charges).
