『Triptych Ep 2:5 | I Cheerfully Refuse, The Fighting Temeraire, No Line on the Horizon』のカバーアート

Triptych Ep 2:5 | I Cheerfully Refuse, The Fighting Temeraire, No Line on the Horizon

Triptych Ep 2:5 | I Cheerfully Refuse, The Fighting Temeraire, No Line on the Horizon

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The Masterpieces 1. Leif Enger's I CHEERFULLY REFUSE (2025) We start with a very up-to-date masterpiece this time: Leif Enger’s 2025 novel I Cheerfully Refuse. Enger is perhaps not so well known on this side of the Atlantic, but he deserves to be. His writing is lyrical and evocative, and the world he creates for this novel is fascinating. It falls within the genre of dystopia but it wears that lightly. For example, we never discover the nature of the cataclysm that transforms the world, only that it has occurred at some unspecified moment prior to the story. The fact that Enger wrote it during the Covid lockdowns (a bit like Amor Towles’ A Gentleman In Moscow) is not incidental, however! Set in the Great Lakes of North America, Enger’s characters wrestle with the challenges of this new environment, struggling to create a sense of order and community against the odds, while constantly trying to preserve their humanity. Recently widowed when his beloved wife Lark dies, Rainy befriends Sol, a young tearaway who joins him on his Orpheus-like journey. Despite coming from an essentially Christian foundation, the book is far too well-written and brilliantly conceived to descend into crude tub-thumping. Instead it is a moving and ultimately hope-filled testimony to reslience and wonder (not a million miles away from Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven). For more, listen to the conversation Russell Moore had with Leif Enger soon after the book came out – it’s full of fascinating and intriguing insights into the book and its meanings. 2. J. M. W. Turner's THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE (1838) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) was one of Britain’s greatest painters and of all his myriad works, The Fighting Temeraire is perhaps his most beloved. In polls purporting to identify Britain’s greatest/favourite/best (etc) painting, this frequently comes out on top (whatever that means). It is certainly one of the main attractions in the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. This is a painting about transition, about the end of one era overlapping with the commencement of a new one. It depicts the final journey of the Temeraire (which had seen glorious service at the Battle of Trafalgar itself), as the ship is towed from Sheerness in Kent along the river Thames to Rotherhithe in south-east London, where it was to be scrapped. For various reasons, this painting is an impossibility, a fiction to portray a greater truth. But it is one of those paintings that mesmerises the viewer, because the more you look, the more you see. Turner adored painting grand landscapes (in the manner of Claude) with the gorgeous wide colour-spectrum so characteristic of dawn and sunset. But it is no accident that this moment of high nostalgia is bathed in a pre-dusk light. It is unsurprising then that this image means so much to a nation prone to nostalgia about past, so-called glories! And therefore, it was the perfect setting to a James Bond reaching the end of his usefulness… 3. U2's 3 Songs from NO LINE ON THE HORIZON (2009) It was only a matter of time. U2 had to make it onto Triptych at some point, for reasons that regulars to my blog will know all too well. I’m only hoping that you were all impressed by my self-restraint in holding it back to this stage in the second season. Instead of taking one song, or one album, we’re doing something a little unorthodox but there is actually method in the madness. And no, this is NOT the album U2 foolishly gave away to the world for free if they had an iPod or iPhone or whatever it was at the time. That was definitely a misfire. This album is the one before that one, and came out in 2009. It’s quite hard to pin down as a whole, but after the opening title track, it does seem to be formed of three little groupings. And this is the first set. They are the most explicitly theological of the album’s tracks, and they each do intriguing things. You can go into a lot more depth if you wish by reading this longer engagement that I wrote some years’ back. But for now, read the lyrics (r) and listen to the episode! Other Mentions: 3 'Slappable' Characters! Joel: Yoda from the Star Wars franchiseSophie: Uriah Heep from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield Mark: Kenneth Widmerpool from Antony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time (esp when played by Simon Russell-Beale)
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