To the Great Sea A Story for Christmas

Doug Thompson

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Why I wrote this book

Although this book was written at a time of personal loss it explores the protagonist’s liberating encounter with Christianity at its very outset. It is effectively a re-telling of the ‘Christmas story’, albeit from the viewpoint of the least prepared, least religiously inclined of the three Magi whom chance had so casually brought together. It charts both a hard physical journey and a concomitant oblique spiritual enlightenment, as well as exploring human relationships developing in a time of extreme adversity. The rocky, sandy wastelands traversed serve to remind us of the common hardships, the prevailing sense of helplessness of lives lived out under the tyrannical rule of Herod – any Herod - and of the occupying Romans – whoever they may be.

The story seeks to recreate a contemporary sense of bewilderment at the unfolding of the legendary events, against a background of myth, superstition and imperfect knowledge, as the context for the irrepressible human urge to question, to discover and to hope for better. It is a book that is likely to appeal to readers who want rather more than a story that turns, however well, merely on sex and violence. It is intended to nudge thought as well as providing pleasure in the characters, their journey, and their individual quests.

The author compares his work to John Fowles, William Golding and Cesare Pavese.

Synopsis

What is this man afraid of? What is he fleeing from? Where is he going? Who, indeed, is he? Having crossed the great river, he has vague notions of heading westwards towards the Great Sea - until chance intervenes. On a whim, he changes direction to follow a moving star that can stop men dead in their tracks. Crossing the vast, empty desert, he encounters another much larger group of travellers, led by a 'seeker after truth'; the fabled magus Melichior of Ninevah. The unfolding story this man's life spent wandering, endlessly searching, and the wisdom he has acquired, enthral the fugitive and they agree to travel on together. Melichior is also following the star, though apparently with far more knowledge about it. After strange, coincidental and inexplicable encounters, they eventually end up at an encampment of travellers outside a small town. They go up into this town to see what they can find - anything that might point to the fulfilment of the age-old prophecies of the coming of a king who will conquer and rule the whole Earth...Doug is influenced by Eliot's poems The Journey of the Magi and Four Quartets. He also takes inspiration from Cesare Pavese, John Fowles and William Golding. To The Great Sea is a work of well-crafted prose that will be enjoyed by high-brow readers.

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