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A Division of the Light by Christopher Burns (view source)
Revision as of 19:39, 29 August 2020
, 19:39, 29 August 2020no edit summary
Gregory Pharoah is a professional photographer whose genre is sometimes photojournalism, but more commonly portraiture or nudes. Like his job, his nature is towards the superficial. One day, returning from photographing a bishop (for clarity, this is a portrait assignment and not a nude!) he is the only witness to a street robbery where Alice Fell is the victim. Alice is a fatalist who believes in some kind of divine plan that means there is a reason for everything. She's enigmatic, by nature and by design as this is a quality that she enjoys cultivating. Thus these two different characters become part of the same story and what happens in the following six months is ultimately surprising and even shocking.
Christopher Burns's ''A Division of the Light'' is strangely compelling but not an easy read, not least as the two main characters are not particularly likablelikeable. I found both cold in their different ways and while liking the characters' personalities is not essential, I found that my interest in them was reduced slightly by the polarity of their views and ultimately I didn't believe in them. However, there is much to admire here and it's an intense book that explores big issues including fate, faith, rationalism and coincidence. Several of Pharoah's recent photojournalism commissions relate to religious matters - coincidence or fate?
The title itself is clever - of course light is the element that photographers strive to capture, but it is also extended to consider what you might call the light of faith. The story takes some unexpected turns that are both unsettling and thought provoking.