Afterlife
by Philip C Almond, IB Tauris, £25
Augustine knew all about the limits of the imagination. “When we were boys,” he once explained, “born and brought up in a landlocked region, we could already form some idea of the sea after we had seen water even in a small cup; but the flavour of strawberries and of cherries could in no way enter our conceptions before we tasted these fruits in Italy.”
Some things are simply beyond our ken until we experience them. The afterlife presumably sits securely in that category, but this hasn’t deterred us from speculating about it in the most intricate detail. I’ve always been rather impressed, for example, by the audacity of Johannes Gonopius who, back in the 16th century, insisted that everyone in heaven was sure to speak the Brabantic Dutch of his hometown.
