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Of Men and Angels by Michael Arditti

In my version of the story, when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, their eyes would be opened not to their nakedness, with all the shame that that has bequeathed to subsequent generations, but to age and pain and frailty and decay. The knowledge that they gained would be not of sin but of time. It is time that gives human life meaning but that also manifests your distance from God. It is time that introduces imperfection into the universe. It is time that will, in time, be redeemed by eternity.

"Time is not our natural element...," as Simon Leys once said in another context. This book explores time, how myth and concoction can become belief in time, how contemporary circumstances influence interpretations of ancient belief in each age to support conduct which changes in time... all against the backdrop of Sodom, the nature of whose sin we cannot now be certain of. The book is somehow reminiscent of Shankavali in Hindu tradition which explores contradictions in faith not so much to damage it but to reinforce it.