The Center of Our Own World

A "fingerpost" is one of those old signposts that point in different directions. As Wikipedia describes them they are "traditional British and Irish sign posts comprising a post with one or more arms — known as fingers — pointing in the direction of travel to named places on the fingers." Here you stand and there they are- how to get to where you are going.

Well, maybe. Or so it seems in the very interesting historical mystery novel, An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. There is a murder and four letters describing the events around the murder. Each letter from one of the principals gives the story as they interpret it. There's an Italian physician interested in blood transfusions, a cryptographer involved in the 17th century English intrigues, a son attempting to clear his father's name, and an antiquarian, lost, it seems, in his musty books.

Are they who they seem to be? What are they hiding and what are they trying to reveal by making sure only the right information gets out? Pears gives us a remarkable treatise on the ways philosophy, science, theology and politics can interweave, conflict and be used for whatever purposes we want.

Underneath the mystery is the simplicity that not all signs point to the right thing. Each of us is limited by our own point-of-view and can even skew things to make sure they fit. The conflict in medical thought in the book is nothing short of creepy. We see the role of superstition in our human thinking and that is quite discomforting.

In the end we can see that we believe we are the center of our own worlds and make all judgments based on that simple self-understanding. Our core beliefs and values color all we see. As a result we can then be so wrong that we are blinded to the reality in front of us, the clues that point in other directions, the understandings that can be our hope or our destruction.

In all that, with the philosophies and discussions going in so many directions, if we can be so wrong in what we know- maybe our beliefs are not as safe and solid as we like to think. On less than that have wars been started.

In short An Instance of the Fingerpost is worth the read.