The Consolations of Autumn: Sages in Hard Times - Tapa blanda

Reseña del editor

How did the great sages of the past try to remain functional human beings in the face of loss, misfortune, illness, old age, even social calamity? How did they fight the lonely battles that most of us will have to fight at one or other stage of our lives? How did their particular experience of life equip them for those battles? To what extent did they succeed? Was it hard to lead a semblance of a normal life to enable them to be useful to those near them? Could they justify remaining a little detached when civilisation itself collapsed around them?

As he approached the 75th year of his life, and as he saw chunks of the world seemingly descend into Malthusian turmoil, the commentator Hazhir Teimourian sought inspiration in the lives of the philosophers, artists and scientists he admired. He found that for some, the challenge was almost continuous. These included Socrates, Darwin and Pasternak. For a few, such as Boethius and Beethoven, darkness fell early. For yet others, such as Seneca the statesman, the end arrived reasonably late, but did so suddenly and brutally. Nearer our time, Bertrand Russell sought refuge from depression during the First World War in work and in involvement with public affairs.

Teimourian sought strength also in the works of the poets, for poets invoke beauty, love and longing, joy and sorrow, to speak to our hearts. So a segment of this book is an anthology of poems that have enriched his life over the years. They include a few by himself that he wrote in exceptional moments of sorrow or elation. But he has chosen them in a spirit of realism. Misfortunes and calamities such as illness, bereavement and social collapse cannot be underplayed with the preacher of serenity remaining credible. Thus the anthology includes sections on loss and solace, as well as on love, joy and hope.

The book ends with an appendix of four autobiographical talks commissioned by BBC Radio 4 and praised by the press. They tell the author’s own unusual story, his journey from a remote mountainside in Kurdish Middle East to the most exclusive halls of London. Hopefully, they will cast a little light on what he says elsewhere in the book.

Biografía del autor

Hazhir Teimourian was born in 1940 in Kurdish western Iran and studied classical Persian and Arabic before being sent to London to study science. There he fell under the influence of the philosopher Bertrand Russell and drifted into broadcasting in the World Service of the BBC. In 1980, he was called to The Times as a commentator on Middle Eastern politics and history and remained with the newspaper for 16 years. At times of the most intense turmoil in the Middle East, it felt as if he lived at television studios as ‘presenter’s friend’ and became a familiar face throughout the English-speaking world. To this day, he needs a radio studio at home to cope with the demand. Teimourian’s biography of Omar Khayyam, the eleventh century poet, thinker and astronomer, was praised by the press and has been translated into several other languages. He lives in Sussex with his wife Christabel King and has two grown-up children. For more information on him, please see www.KhayyamByTeimourian.com or www.LimehouseGroup.net