Where do book ideas come from

Had to mingle among several hundred people this weekend, and yet again the question came back: Where do you get your ideas from?

I think every writer will agree that it's one of the most frequently asked questions. I answered it several times in this blog, it seems easy to do in this impersonal way, but when it comes to answering face to face I go blank. Having answered it innumerable times over the years I feel deflated, like a balloon letting air out bit by bit until it's empty. So, in the words of Agatha Christie I result to a short: From my head. Then I feign sudden thirst and rush to the drinks table.

I am tempted to print out Agatha's answer, carry it in my wallet and hand out to the curious:

If one idea in particular seems attractive, and you feel you could do something with it, then you toss it around, play trick with it, work it up, tone it down, and gradually get it into shape. Then, of course, you have to start writing it. That’s not nearly such fun – it becomes hard work. Alternatively, you can tuck it away, in storage, for perhaps using in a year or two years time.

Romero and El Salvador, 30 years later

In a society disfigured by violence, massive emigration, inequality and poverty, and the social and political irresponsibility of its leaders, Oscar Romero is still a hugely significant figure. Although the historic situation of the country is not what it was thirty years ago, when he began his ministry as archbishop, his message has no lost its relevance. At that time, the country was entering a period of bloody and cruel civil war; now, social violence leaves more wounded and dead than the incipient conflict did then.

Rodolfo Cardenal, SJ.

DreamWorld

One concept corrupts and confuses the others... I am speaking of the infinite ... We (the undivided divinity that operates within us) have dreamed the world. We have dreamed it strong, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous, in space and secure in time; but we have allowed tenuous, eternal interstices of injustice in its structure so we may know that it is false.”
Jorge Luis Borges

Before a great man there is even greater woman

In 1552 the princess, 17 at the time, married the heir to the Portuguese throne. When he died two years later, she returned to Spain.

Young, beautiful, and aware of her royal position and power, Juana was also endowed with a talent for ruling. While her brother, Philip II of Spain, was in England as husband of Mary Tudor, he made Juana regent. From 1554 to 1559 she was the effective ruler of Spain.

Juana had an additional ambition: to become a Jesuit. Telling none of her family, she informed Spanish grandee Francis Borgia, an early Jesuit, that she wanted to join the Society of Jesus.

So perilous was the project that all existing Jesuit correspondence about the situation avoids her name, using the pseudonym Mateo Sanchez, or Montoya, instead. In a quandary, Ignatius appointed a committee to advise him. It recommended that Juana enter the Society as a permanent scholastic; truly a Jesuit but forever in formation. Otherwise, with solemn vows, she would have been—according to canon and civil law—legally dead, dispossessed of everything, and incapable of ever marrying again.

With the novel, simple, and terminable vows of a Jesuit scholastic, she could have separated from the Society if necessary. When Juana pronounced her three religious vows as a Jesuit, absolute secrecy was enjoined on everyone.

She could make no obvious change in her manner of life. So, for her, poverty meant leading a rather austere life at her already simple court. Chastity meant never marrying again. Obedience—well, her letters show her sometimes trying to give orders to Ignatius and Borgia. SOURCE

The operative word here is "tried" to give orders, and the author of this article does not amplify, but elsewhere I came across Jesuits saying that Juana "gave orders" to Ignatius and Borgia. If they were followed through it would mean that the feisty woman was actually in charge of the Jesuit Order, no? They say that "Behind every great man there's a great woman", but here's an example that it actually works the other way around.

Juana:

Spooks and snitches

For some time researchers were trying to figure out the identity of a secret services asset known as Bolek. Allegations circulated that the asset was none other but Lech Wałęsa - the legendary Solidarity leader, future President of "free" Poland.

Despite Wałęsa's repeated denials the allegations never went away. Whether Wałęsa was an asset or not, one thing is certain - the former secret services as well as communist era military intelligence wield enormous power to this day, skillfully operating yesterday's knowledge about today's political figures. If you ever wandered what happened to all those hundreds of thousands of operatives after the political shift you can pick up THE FIFTH INTERNATIONALE, a book dealing with the very subject.

Former Polish President – a Communist Secret Service agent – a book Hundreds of Poles queued outside Warsaw bookstores yesterday to snatch up copies of a new book claiming former Polish president, Solidarity union leader and Nobel laureate Lech Walesa was a communist agent in the 1970s, Polish National TV reported.

Queues formed before 8 am outside Warsaw's Institute of National Remembrance - a research centre that investigates Communist and Nazi crimes - for the release of "Walesa and the Security Service."
Others tried their luck at the numerous bookstores that carried limited numbers of the 700-page volume.

The book "Walesa and the Security Service" by Slawomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk has new evidence that Walesa was an informer for Poland's communist-era secret service in the 1970s while working at the Gdansk shipyards and later, as president, removed archive documents that implicated him.

Walesa, 65, has denied the allegations and called the institute's authors "fanatics" with libellous claims. He has threatened legal action and said he will soon release his own book to tell his side of the story.

Although the rumours have circulated for decades, the book brought the debate to a head and sparked controversy in Polish politics.

Walesa became an anti-communist hero worldwide after he led a strike at the shipyards against Poland's communist regime in 1980, helping bring down communism at the end of the decade. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.

Walesa won a 2000 court ruling that said he was not a spy. But opponents, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski, say they know he had worked for communists.

Some see the allegations as tactics used by right-wing politicians for political gain. In a recent survey conducted by the daily Dziennik, 43 per cent said they did not believe the former president worked with the secret police.

The book sparked wide public interest and dominated last week's newspapers and talk shows.

Outside the institute, the crowd grew frustrated when the 600 copies sold out at noon. An official tried calming impatient customers with promises that more copies would be available in two weeks. Many say they what matters for them in the book is not deciding about Walesa's guilt or innocence but making it possible for everybody to learn the truth about secrets of communist past. SOURCE

The most serious threat to U.S. interests

"All through the
1980s and early 90s [U.S. army intelligence officers] recognized that
‘the most serious threat to U.S. interests was not secular
Marxist-Leninism or organized labor but liberation theology."

Author Peter Hallward in his book: Damning the Flood.



On Amazon

Globalisation - a path to Hell?

Fr Jon Sobrino, SJ, in Edinburgh:

He drew on his latest book, 'The Eye of the Needle' - No Salvation
Outside the Poor' to contrast what humanises and gives life with
what dehumanises and destroys life. Globalisation,
in particular, is terribly dehumanising because though it implies
a good, it is in fact destructive and divisive. The
poverty gap - or wealth gap - dehumanises even before we make
an enquiry about any causal relationship between the rich and
the poor. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus sums
up the global reality very well, says Sobrino. In contrast,
the poor themselves humanise us, and the Latin American bishops
of the Medellin conference famously urged us to make an 'option
for the poor'. For Jon Sobrino the poor, in fact, lead
us to the divine, and he proposes an 'option to let salvation
come from the poor'. SOURCE