Tragic...

Sometime ago in the recent span of eternal Sundays that was my Christmas experience,we were in W H Smiths.

I'd never noticed (I'm a denizen of the Web, why should I bother with W H Smiths?) that a book shop was now obliged to have a shelf dedicated to 'Tragic Life stories'.

My daughter Claire, after spotting an anomaly picked up Dr Brooke Magnanti book (Belle de Jour) which had been miscast as a tragedy, and replaced it with the book about Tony Blair.

She then took a photo.




There is no way on earth that the story of Belle could be said to be tragic:

"I've felt worse about my writing than I ever have about sex for money," she said. Anonymity had become "no fun", however: "I couldn't even go to my own book launch party."
Reference.

But Tony Blair with that quote about God (suggesting that the decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God) shifts his story out of biography and towards tragedy.

It is quite true that in Britain religion doesn't receive the amount of respect religious people think that it should: Tony Blair complained in 2007 that he had been unable to talk about his faith while in office as he would have been perceived as "a nutter".

"It's difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system," he said. "If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say 'yes, that's fair enough' and it is something they respond to quite naturally. You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter."

Seriously though, is the religious aspect of this story relevant?

I don't believe so unless Mr Blaire believed that hastening Armageddon was God's will, that the leaders of the 'Free-world' were doing God's work by lighting the blue-touch paper of this war; that basically the Iraq war would hasten The END (after which -the screaming, the shock and awe, the terror and pain and the four horsemen- the sheep would be divided from the goats) hmm.

Who knows?

Perhaps both he and Bush were hoping for just that!

The rules of tragedy as explained by Aristotle demand that the hero of the story displays hubris or hamartia; that the tragic end of the story is determined by a tragic failure that calls out for nemesis. Hubris is a failure of humility, a failure in empathy -almost as if possessed by a god- the hero believes in his god given right to act as he does.

Hamartia is different; it is the tragic error. The hero in choosing good, chooses something that will lead to unhappiness, or war.

So yes!
The books were restored to a correct order and the photo remains of this tiny, but relevant correction made to the universe.