Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
The reason I chose this book is because the Sinai desert one of the most silent places in the world. Because the climate is very warm and dry, it isn’t easy to inhabit and consequently it is very quiet. It’s into this environment that the early Christians headed to experiment with what difference leading a silent life makes, and, specifically, what the effects of silence on prayer might be.
How do you understand the term ‘silence’?
Well on one level, it’s very simple – silence is just an absence of noise. But actually it’s a bit more complicated than that. In the dictionary, silence can be defined in two separate ways, as either an absence of language or an absence of all noise. What I’m interested in is the reduction in the amount of man-made noise – and particularly speech. This is mostly because there are very few places, except perhaps outer space, where there is actual, physical silence.
You now live a pretty silent life. Is A Book of Silence autobiographical?
Bits of it are autobiographical, but it’s also based upon the research I did into the concept of silence and its cultural history. I have lived in Southwest Scotland, in London and in Oxford in the past, which were too noisy for me. Around the millennium year I moved north and started looking for the house I now have. I moved in two years ago. It is in Galloway, far away from anyone else. I love being alone, I love being silent, and I love certain kinds of landscape, very austere, empty. Living in solitude has taught me a lot about the importance of silence, and some of this obviously informs the book.
The Desert Fathers is about an early society who opted to live in silence. Tell us why you picked this book.
The reason I chose this book is because the Sinai desert one of the most silent places in the world. Because the climate is very warm and dry, it isn’t easy to inhabit and consequently it is very quiet. It’s into this environment that the early Christians headed to experiment with what difference leading a silent life makes, and, specifically, what the effects of silence on prayer might be. What the desert travellers were up to is actually very similar in a way to what the Buddhists do: seeking inner peace and love of God. They were also seeking the meaning of kindness and hospitality – if anyone were to turn up in the desert then they would welcome them fondly. Their adventure is something Waddell describes with heartbreaking empathy.
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Moving to Scotland into a solitary house on the remote moors of Galloway, Sara Maitland now lives the life of quiet she celebrates in her latest book, A Book of Silence. The book is an examination of the importance of silence, its cultural history, and the aversion contemporary society has to it. Although she is now a nonfiction writer, she also has a large bibliography of novels and short stories.
