Articles written by David Elliott

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About me - David Elliott

I hit fifty this year, incredibly enough as I thought I was still nineteen. The doctor casually informed me the other week that I'd 'have to start being careful', though he didn't specify about what. If he was referring to drinking then he can bugger off,

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Travel > Spain Travel destinations: Toledo, Spain: 3 of 7
Four hundred years ago it would have been the smell of grilled heretics rather than croissants wafting to my nostrils in the Zocodover Plaza. Times have moved on of course, but even these days in Toledo some of the darker aspects of Spain's exotic some might say benighted imperial past cling to the older buildings like the sm... More..
Arts & Humanities > Classical Literature & Mythology The odyssey of the Odyssey: 3 of 6
The Odyssey, even more than that other great legacy of the ancients, the Iliad, has suffused and indeed shaped Western culture as no other book apart from the Bible has managed to do. Poets, artists and philosophers have been referring to its abiding images and truths about human nature since Homer first dreamed the story up ... More..
Arts & Humanities > Classical Literature & Mythology Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy Texts: 2 of 4
Dante's Divine Comedy is the story of the soul's journey from the depths of despair to pure enlightenment, and you don't have to be a Catholic or even religious to be awed and inspired by it. If you ignore all the academic dust that has settled on this astounding creation over the seven hundred years since it was written, and... More..
Religion & Spirituality > Buddhism Book Reviews: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Soygal Rinpoche: 1 of 2
I first read the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead', in the acclaimed 1927 Evans-Wentz translation, some twenty years ago and found it pretty heavy going. At the same time, I appreciated that it was packed with the wisdom of the ages and wished that it could have been more accessible, rather than reading like an early twenti... More..
Travel > Europe Travel experiences: Bankside, London, UK: 1 of 1
I'm standing on a narrow, cobbled street in London, looking up at a blackened corpse hanging in a gibbet. This guy must have done something pretty diabolical, like steal a loaf of bread, or perhaps he even insulted the Bishop. It was probably the latter, because the Bishop's palace is just a few hundred yards down the street,... More..
Travel > Europe Travel experiences: Tynemouth Priory, Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear, UK: 1 of 1
The massive barbican broods like the wreck of a mythic hero, brought to his knees by time but still a commanding presence, keeping a watchful eye on the village that has changed out of all recognition in the seven hundred years that they have both stood here. Beyond its battlements, the North Sea churns in winter storm and a ... More..
Travel > Europe Travel experiences: Abbotsford House, Melrose, Scotland: 1 of 1
For anyone who loves Sir Walter Scott, Abbotsford is a place of pilgrimage. I arrived there on a drizzly afternoon in early September, crushing sodden leaves underfoot and tightening my scarf against a gale. The ground was like a sponge, and dark clouds that could have been painted by Constable rolled across the sky. On such ... More..
Arts & Humanities > Historical Literature Book reviews: War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy: 1 of 1
War and Peace is a huge tent of a novel that hangs off just a few poles, these being three main families: the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys and the Bezukovs. It is set at the time of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the year 1812 is the primary axis around which the characters and events circle, and from which they derive their ... More..
Arts & Humanities > British Literature Book reviews: The Surgeon of Crowthorne, by Simon Winchester: 1 of 1
Originally published in England as The Surgeon of Crowthorne a tale of murder, madness and the Oxford English Dictionary', this book is for me chiefly remarkable for including my own personal recurring fantasy. I'm not talking about the murder and madness bit, but rather about the two adjoining cells at Broadmoor which were a... More..
Arts & Humanities > American Literature Short story reviews: Cathedral, by Robert Carver: 1 of 1
The narrator of this typically short, sparely written tale is expecting an old, blind friend of his wife's to come to visit them for a few days. She hasn't seen him in ten years, since she worked for him one summer, and she is very excited about it. The friend has recently lost his wife to cancer. His dead wife had been her r... More..