Elegant sepia cover, intriguing title: Philo? Quartet?
Ice Cold in … he's a film-buff this former Bishop, isn't he? But Holloway reveals that an unremarkable industrial town, within spitting distance of vast Loch Lomond, was the Alexandria of his boyhood, the Alexandria he was destined to leave. A Scottish reviewer cannot be detached here, yet Scottish-ness is a given in this 'memoir of faith and doubt', and arguably underpins all the author's sensibilities, religious, poetic and humanitarian.
His early years sound typical for the time and place – supportive working-class family, solid education, escape to climb hills, escape to 'the pictures' for Hollywood's take on things. The circumstances of his first 'leaving' were, however, far from typical. The Episcopal Church was, in Scotland's ecclesiastical loch, if not a minnow a fairly small fish. That there even was a St Mungo's in Alexandria is interesting. An 'English Church' in a Scottish town tended to be a mysterious entity. 'Kind of like Catholics but not …' was as far as most Presbyterians ventured on episcopalianism. Had Richard been RC, pre-adolescent dispatch to a local seminary was possible, even in the 1950s; but 'lad from church-free home opting to leave west Scotland for strict monastic institution over the border, the result of chance encounter with Anglican priest at bereaved auntie's house' – as a film-plot that would have stretched Scottish credulity.
Kelham Hall plays a critical role in Holloway's formation, as a teenager dedicated to making sense of the 'latency' he experienced in the world, and of what he was being told was God. Examination of Kelham's self-contained monasticism, its ethos, characters and rituals, is sympathetic and balanced. Youthful angst is played down, often with a rueful smile, where another author might justifiably have made a meal of it. But eventually Kelham had to be 'left' as well.
The continuing journey – in Africa, the USA, Glasgow, Oxford, Edinburgh – might have been untroubled in 'the honest world unhaunted by divine demand', had the author managed to resolve the 'inner duality' which he movingly seeks to understand. That, in his own eyes at least, he did not, reinforces the theme of 'disappointment' – a leitmotif expanded in one negative after another: restless, unquiet, inconstant, uncertain, unstable, 'a bit of me always poised for flight', an 'accomplished leaver'. His strengths he does acknowledge. He's good with words (but too good – with a reckless 'need to think out loud'?) He's 'the confident man', but maybe 'a phoney, not the genuine article'. He never dramatises himself as a dark night of the soul depressive. Sometimes, however, he is harder on his maturing self than on a spectacular sower of wild oats like Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Merton. He regrets his failing to be 'all out', either in an unambiguous ministry or in elected solitariness. Yet any glance at his clerical career raises the question: why would a second-rater be invited, ordered, begged to become ordained, to minister in this place or that, to uproot his family to another continent to minister there, to return and be a bishop?
For those who are interested, from a theological or a sociological perspective or both, Holloway's analysis of Christians' enthusiasms, waves, fads and styles during the decades of his ministry is masterly. He is not afraid to mention pastoral experiments which with hindsight cause a cringe. Much hard, exhausting work was involved, first in poorly housed Glasgow then in AIDS-afflicted Edinburgh. It was all honest, not dabbling, 'truly trying out ways of being in the place allotted.' Friends, church colleagues and co-workers are all treated generously in this account, as indeed are those who along the way have been less than gentlemanly towards a thinker of thoughts judged not to accord with right religion.
The book is beautifully presented and the notes helpfully numbered in sequence, not by chapter. Aptly chosen poetry and prose quotations point up every reflection, though Scots might ask why 'Ca' the Yowes' is noted as a sad song – the lover is affirming his girl's beauty and goodness as an antidote to all forces of evil. Ah, but it was that unique melody no doubt, that and the elusive singer!
Alison McRobb is an examiner in Hinduism, currently teaching some Hindi, some Latin, some N.T. Greek and the clarinet. She was Chair of SOF in 2005-6.
Canongate Books (Edinburgh 2012). Hbk. 368 pages. £17.99.