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Seeking the
Divine Spark:
A Satire in the Style of Evelyn Waugh
Gerard Charles Wilson
This is an engaging novel in the style of Evelyn Waugh's early satires (Decline and Fall and Scoop, in particular) drawing inspiration from the recognisable manner in which the mainstream media, popular media figures and specialist commentators deal with serious moral issues in society.
The story goes far beyond the questionable behaviour of individuals who have manoeuvred themselves into crucial steering positions in modern society. It focuses on the behaviour and attitudes that pervade our materialist society, attitudes that many people have become unreflective about. The story will sometimes make you laugh, sometimes cringe, and sometimes leave you appalled, but will always be 'glittering' in its satire, as one reviewer put it. (See the author's essay on the limits of a Christian novel.)
ISBN 978 1 876262 12 9, pb, 277 pages, $19.95, PUBLISHED January 2010
Australia:
A$19.95
USA:
A$24.95
UK:
A$29.95
All others:
A$29.95
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The Castle of Heavenly Bliss
Gerard Charles Wilson
Revised October 2009
A tender love story and a gripping ideological and religious mystery. The first book in the Winterbine trilogy.
For more information about the story
ISBN 978 1 876262 08 2, 752 pages.
In This Vale of Tears
Gerard Charles Wilson
Revised October 2009
A religious mystery and one person's heart-rending conflict between eros and agape. The second book in the Winterbine trilogy following The Castle of Heavenly Bliss:
ISBN 978 1 87626 09 9, 499 pages.
THE MEDIA OF THE REPUBLIC
Gerard Charles (Wilson)
ISBN 1 876262 06 0 pb 235x155mm 288pp, 1999, $9.95
Though published in 1999, The Media of the Republic presents issues about the media that are very much current. For more information.
This book is no longer available. A revised e-book edition will be available in the future
Read the reviews:
John
Young, News Weekly
Sam Roggeveen,
Quadrant
Tony Abbott,
The Adelaide Review
THE TELECARD AFFAIR: DIARY OF A MEDIA LYNCHING
Gerard Charles
ISBN 1 876262 10 9 pb 215x140mm 232pp, 2001, $9.95
On 10 October 2000, the Canberra Times broke a story about the misuse of Peter Reith’s government-funded telecard. The analysis of the media’s reporting of the Telecard Affair is unrelenting, and targets some well-known media figures. This is a book to secretly delight people who have been on the receiving end of the media’s activity. For more information.
This book is not longer available. A revised e-book edition will be available in the future
Read the reviews:
John Young,
News Weekly
R.J. Stove,
News Weekly
Jack Waterford (Editor-in-Chief of The
Canberra Times)
Gerard Charles Wilson replies to Jack Waterford
Present projects
EDMUND BURKE: KNOWING AND REASONING IN POLITICS
Gerard Charles Wilson
This book is a reworking and refining of a masters thesis in philosophy: Natural Law Conservatism: The epistemological basis of the Political Philosophy of Edmund Burke. It is my priority writing task at the moment. The following description will be adjusted shortly to reflect the new orientation of the work. Particular attention will be given to an analysis that is proper to the concept of human rights.
THE SUMMARY
In this book I aim to explain Edmund Burke's ideas on the nature of
reasoning and to isolate a set of epistemological principles by
undertaking a detailed exposition of his writings and speeches.
Burke was an eighteenth century English politician who was a foremost actor in the major political issues of his time. I intend to show, first, that in order to justify his political position Burke fell back on a coherent set of moral and political principles whose underpinning was an understanding of the classical tradition of Natural Law and, second, that he set these principles within a unifying epistemological framework inseparable from that understanding.
The project will be presented in four parts. Part One will serve as an introduction to the controversy about the claim that a Burkean philosophy exists. In addition to surveying various views about Burke’s alleged political philosophy, I will look briefly at the recent scholarship on eighteenth century natural law and the methodology proposed by the recent work on the historiography of eighteenth century political discourse. Part Two will be an examination of the arguments running through a number of pamphlets and speeches dealing with the major issues of Burke’s political career. This examination is designed to isolate key features of Burke’s political and moral vision and its connection with a natural law view. Part Three will use Burke’s material on the French Revolution and Jacobinism to bind together the account of his fundamental moral and political principles and to show how his concept of obligation arises from this. In Part Four I will attempt to show how Burke’s moral vision is unified by an implied epistemological scheme that delineates the possibility, the acquisition, the ratification, the maintenance, the revision and correction of moral knowledge. I will propose that Burke’s epistemology can be seen as forming a ‘contextual’ basis of knowing and reasoning. An important distinction will be made between a contextual epistemology and an atomised epistemology.
Tentative publishing date: December 2010
Me and Pete: Recalling a Fifties Childhood
Gerard Charles Wilson
The 1950s, as those who lived through them would know, were so different from the first decade of the new century that they now seem like another world - a world of social and moral values directly opposite to those of the present. In the social atmosphere of today it seems hard to imagine that it was a coherent social and moral world. The author, a pretty ordinary fifties boy with a very naughty streak, looks back on those years, telling the story not so much about himself as about the world in which he grew up. Among other things, he seeks an explanation about why he maintained features of that world, in particular his religious beliefs, when so many of his contemporaries not only jettisoned it, but came to despise and feel ashamed of what once was. These reflections are an important part of the reminiscences of the author and his life-long best friend Pete. For more information.
Me (right) and Pete (left) on our tricycles Christmas time 1949/50
I have interrupted work on this book for the moment.