The Road to Grantchester
James Runcie
Having read it
★★★☆☆
An okay read and one which started well but seemed to drift a bit later on. In some ways, the drifting nature (maybe Runcie’s intended purpose of the story) reflects the central character’s own thoughts and challenges about finding his way in (theological) life after being caught up in war and the trauma of battle.
A good passage
Jennifer is kind, but there are moments when the family seems to have forgotten what it’s like to have Sidney at home. Every time he enters a room they feel they have to put him at ease or entertain him when what he really wants, if he is honest, is to be left alone.
A second good passage
‘No. But perhaps I don’t need one [a Damascus Road moment].’ Now is not the time to lecture Alec Chambers [Sidney’s father] on the theological significance of the Supper of Emmaus. ‘I just need to acknowledge the kind of peace I can’t find anywhere else.’
A third good passage
Sidney goes on to explain how there might yet be delight in the cloud of unknowing. Certainties may be simpler, he argues, but he is determined to bring his own thoughtfulness to this new opportunity if he can; to have the courage to be slow to judge or condemn except in matters where lives are in danger or evil is made manifest. He will learn and love and care and dwell in mystery, recognising that the greatest happiness often comes from outside ourselves, that life needs to be spiritual as well as physical, and that the transcendent, in whatever form it is embraced, can redeem the everyday.