...Blake left the great wen of London for the freedom of the sea.
It was as though he had been given a secret key. All the things you wish had never happened? AI and satellites playing pinball among the stars? All the ways we went wrong? Blake offered a remedy. He needed no opium, no drink or drugs or kites to attain such a suspension of doubt; he was there already, physically intoxicated by the incalculable hardship and glorious possibilities of life here on earth. He saw and felt this in his own body, incarnate in his flesh; in the planet spinning round the sun, the sea being tugged by the moon. He was an astro-priest launched into the unknown, ready to leave the shell of himself in the alien dust as the sun turned black and his spirit hurtled on.
Risingtidefallingstar (yes, all one word) from 2017 was my introduction to this writer and I was excited to see William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love. Hoare is one of those people who write a wonderful – to me, anyway – and often strange, slightly bewildering combinations of genres and here he traces the legacy of artist, poet, visionary and mystic William Blake through artists, film makers, writers, eccentrics, poets, war heroes, outsiders, outlaws. He goes back to Milton, Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon, and forward to Oscar Wilde, T.E.Lawrence and Derek Jarman in an unclassifiable tapestry of English history, biography, travelogue, memoir, nature writing, religion, spirituality and more.
Written in a passionate, lush, headlong style, the narrative goes in multiple directions and makes unexpected connections (how about William Blake, Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash?). It’s a wild ride. And so dense and intricate that I’m going to have to borrow it from the library again. And perhaps, again after that.
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
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