Dark Energy

I saw this mysterious dark sphere arrive in the Kröller Müller Sculpture Gardens in the summer of 2018 surrounded by the curators and the Gerard Lammers' driver who has just unloaded it with his hands on his hips waiting to leave. I captioned it Touching the Void on my Flickr page but the Kröller Müller webpage has listed its new acquisitions and its actual name is 'Battery for Five Fingers' and if I had been closer would have seen the five round holes which "invite you to insert your fingers in order to charge yourself up" and the hatted man is indeed charging himself up.  The granite ball has been given to the Kroller Muller by the artist Jan van Munster and I wonder if the man 'charging' could be van Munster himself.

The long hot summer of 2018 as can be seen has taken its toll on the grass

 The lorry has left and the logistics of handling this large 9 ton granite sphere, or as the artist says 'amassed energy', has been passed on.  When one thinks of the deep time from which granite has emerged then indeed this is a planet sized "big ball of amassed energy".  Maybe I will be able to return to this wonderful art gallery and garden some time in the future and charge myself.

• Battery for Five Fingers has been installed in the Kröller Müller Sculpture Garden this year and can be seen on their page 'Four New Acquisitions in the Sculpture Garden'

• Jan Van Munster Wikipedia page

• Jan Van Munster webpage

Henry Moore Animal Head

Animal Head  by Henry Moore (1957)

A mythical animal gazes at the gardens of the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands.  Is it mammal, reptile or from another dimension?  It could be described as a gargoyle, those that frighten and guard a church from evil or harmful spirits, this one looks more benign surrounded by the natural world and only a product of the artists imagination, one yet to come or arriving fully formed like an evolution of a species.

Henry Moore cast this animal head from 1957-1967 another has made its hone in  Tate Britain but I don't know if it is on display.

Summer in Willeskop Nature Reserve

Hollandse IJselpad Sign

A little bit of watery delight in the Green Heart of the Netherlands Willeskop Nature Reserve invites one in.

We gazed across the lake at the hundreds of water birds while a pair of hen harriers wheel overhead.

The path leads us through trees and dozens of red admiral butterflies most hiding in plain sight as they merge with the tree bark.

Past wild flowers the bright light of high summer making a large white butterfly almost transparent.

Greylag Goose

The lake comes into view again

If you live in a land flat as a pancake then build your own viewpoint. A tower to take in the polder landscape

Irresistible to visit

Yes you can see for miles and miles

Wave to the dog walkers.

Return to earth and cross over to the other side of the lake

We were fascinated by the integrated step stile on the gates.

Enjoy the shade of the trees

Try to pass by a pair of swans taking their ease on the path with their lone chick, one swan hisses a scary warning. I would guess they have lost all their other offspring so of course highly protective of their only child. Eventually they take to the water and we continue on our way.

Go over a bridge

and yes another one

This is a one way bridge for the farmer to gain access to his fields.

These cows were mooing to their compatriots two lines of water away

Who were calling back, probably wishing there were cow bridges.

The polder windmill at rest no raging torrents to move.

Our enjoyable nature walk now comes to an end.

Blue Tailed Damselfly

A blissful time in the polder landscape.

Willeskop Nature Reserve footpaths 

Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch

First published in Dutch as 'De ontdekking van de hemel' in 1992 and translated by Paul Vincent in 1996.

A 700 page chunkster of a book (although the original Dutch was even chunkier) that roams through philosophy, architecture, linguistics and theology. In other words this is probably a great book for cold winter days and dark nights when you have time on hand.

page 4 -"That's right, They have discovered our profoundest concept - namely, that life is ultimately reading. They themselves are the Book of Books. In the year 1869 the wretched creatures discovered the DNA in the cell nucleus, and at the time we kidded ourselves that it was of no great significance, because they would never have the bright idea that the acid contained a code - and in any case would never be able to break it - but a hundred human years later they had deciphered the genetic code down to its subtlest details. We made them too clever, using the very same code.

The premise of the book is that the covenant has been broken between The Chief and mankind beginning in the 17th century with Francis Bacon's* pact with Lucifer. Rationalism and the Age of Reason follow as mankind gain more knowledge. The book stats as a conversation between tow inhabitants of another sphere, which one presumes to be some sort of heaven, discussing how they have to do something to prevent the human race discovering heaven by putting on earth a 'spark', a human deus ex machina. A lot of things have to be contrived before that happens, which include two world wars and much death and destruction heading for one point, where the book begins. A meeting in the 1960s between Onno Quist, black sheep of a powerful political Dutch Calvinist family and Max Delius, son of a Jewish mother and a German Nazi father. The two intellectuals become bosom friends.

The first chapters are very slow, after a racy prologue, but I guess if you are manipulating fate it takes time; which moves much faster for immortals than for mere humans. It ticks along quite nicely when the wheels of destiny start to turn.

Max meets Ada Brons and they become lovers but she discovers that the bond between him and Otto is greater than his love for her so she finishes the affair, but moves in with Otto. The three friends travel to post revolutionary Cuba where a baby is conceived, but Ada does not know who the father is, Onno or Max. She marries Onno and Max attends the wedding.

Page 242 - "There was a rather charged atmosphere. The Amsterdam style with which everything was being done here - the bride and groom on a bike, the reception in a pub, artists everywhere, freethinkers and Reds, no sign of clergyman; instead, a revolutionary document from the Napoleonic period - and now they were saddled with a war criminal from the German occupation: their dismay was not entirely incomprehensible. Such things did not happen in The Hague. Of course everyone at this table knew who his father was, but hence who his mother had been. People here knew everything - except who he was. Onno's brother... offered him a chair with a friendly smile , and when he sat down amongst them he felt the weight of the family"

Ada's father has a heart attack while she and Otto are visiting Max's workplace and they set off in a storm to the hospital, but a tree falls on the car, and although they all survive, Ada is in a coma. The baby is born some months later by cesarean section, Ada is still unconscious. Everyone loves this beautiful baby that never cries and has mesmeric eyes. But who is going to look after him? Various members of Otto's family offer but Max suggest that he and Ada's mother act as foster parents and this is what happens. This new family move in together as Max takes up an astronomy position outside Amsterdam. where a great radio telescope is being built. and with Otto's connections take residence in part of a castle occupied by artists and intellectuals who will, as fate planned, educate the young Quinten for his ultimate purpose and destiny.

The telescope is positioned on land where there was once a camp during the war for Jews, like Max's mother, before being sent to concentration camps. All traces of that previous purpose are being eliminated. This is really the core of Mulisch's exploration of 20th century Dutch history and psyche, but through the prism of Greco-Roman philosophy and the place of man in the universe as well as the Judea-Christian ideas driving the plot as time moves through the second half the the century and the world changes.

The novel is divided into four sections from "the beginning of the beginning" through to "the end of the end" and the 65 chapter headings each contain an idea, which is a wonderful construct.

This is a bumper book of ideas and a tour de force of writing but essentially I found it a rather cold book. I did not really care about any of the people and their concerns and felt they were essentially just devices to move the plot along. Maybe Mulisch was behaving as capriciously as the gods with his characters.

People love 'Discovery of Heaven' and seem to read it more than one, it certainly has enough ideas in it to stand more readings and maybe also lead to exploring the subjects he discusses.

The book has excited enough interest for a film to be made, with Stephen Fry taking the part of polymath Otto, on the insistence of Harry Mulisch, a choice which I think would work very well. How much of the book would transpose to film I'm not sure.

Verdict - An interesting book makes me want to have a look at others he has written. The Complete Review have a overview of his work here

Quote by Harry Mulisch in an interview I rather like "I have a theory that everybody has an absolute age which he will always have. My absolute age is 17"

*Footnote on Francis Bacon

I studied the Renaissance as part of a course many moons ago so those concepts in the book were familiar to me but I knew very little about Francis Bacon and had to look him up in the Oxford Companion to English Literature.

He started off his career as a barrister and then was elected to parliament in 1584, but had a driven ambition. He was taken up and helped by Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Essex, who he was later to prosecute and convict of treason. Off came Essex's head. He rapidly progressed after Elizabeth's death and was created Viscount St Albans but was convicted of taking bribes and his public life was over in disgrace. His writings were very influential and these are the ones that concern Mulisch, as Bacon contributed to the division between art and science in contemporary, although not his own, time.

In one of those strange coincidence that often happen in life I read the following reprinted in, I think, the Independent newspaper as :

Best interview question

"Rudolf Freiburg: Are you familiar with...Bacon's doctrine of the faculties of the mind, ratio, memoria and imaginatio?

Julian Barnes: Francis Bacon?

Freibur: Yes, Sir Francis Bacon. He sees parallels between faculties of the mind and fields of human knowledge. So memoria corresponds to history, ratio to philosophy, and imaginatio to poetry or literature. And then he says 'Get rid of imagination as it doesn't serve a purpose.' Could one say that treating the world as you sometimes do in your books, one can observe an infiltration of memory by imagination, and will this lead to - I hope the question isn't getting too complicated - would this also lead to the infiltration of history by imagination?"

Julian Barnes: Gosh! 'I don't know' is the answer"

From Do You Consider Yourself a Postmodern Author?, reprinted in Conversations with Julian Barnes

First book read towards the 2010 New Authors, New Worlds, New Cultures Challenge hosted by Literary Escapism and also incidentally to the Everlasting Europe Challenge on Library Thing.