Cain: prose, poetry

by Richard England

published by Kite, 2021

In his Lazarus, published earlier this year, Richard England strove to comment on and decipher the figure of the biblical Lazarus whom Jesus Christ raised from the dead. Though the author uses greatly his imagination about this remarkable figure, his book is based ultimately on what the Gospels tell us about this extraordinary event.

In this new book, the figure discussed is Cain, first son of Adam and Eve. The book of Genesis tells us about God’s disapproval of his sacrifice to Him and how he became the first human murderer by killing his brother Abel.

Cain is aware of having done wrong, his only complaint being God’s curse on him that will prevent him from continuing to till the earth, and compels him to go elsewhere as an exile, with God’s mark on him testifying him as murderer, but imposing on anyone who kills Cain a very grave punishment.

The book cover

Cain flees to the Land of Nod, east of Eden where he begins to build structures. At some point, whether before or after the killing of Abel we are not told, he marries and has children, one of whom is Enoch for whom Cain, who we are told lived 730 years, built the first city ever which he called by his son’s name.

In fact, the author’s main interest in Cain is that he was the first architect and city builder and, in this book, which is partly in verse and partly in prose, he dedicates a long prose chapter to Cain as a builder of the first city, all of course as conjectured by England, an eminent architect and author of books connected with architecture.

An imaginary city

The entire book is a fleshing out of the short and spare account of Cain’s life and acts in Genesis, a book written long after Cain had disappeared.

The author quotes St Augustine as saying that while Abel had produced the City of God, Cain built a City of Men. Satan, who had caused the fall of Adam and Eve, had a hand, we are told, in the building of Cain’s city, causing Cain’s planning to go wrong and distorted.

He dedicates a long prose chapter to Cain as a builder of the first city

In fact, to quote the author, “what was originally in the mind of its creator a dream-like utopia was now being transformed into a malevolent dystopia”.

England presents Cain’s city as the first of the innumerable cities that would be built with the wisest of intentions and would gradually deteriorate into something ugly or even hideous.

Surely, he has in mind what has happened and is happening to towns and cities not just in Malta but in many other countries. As Ian Ritchie, the very distinguished architect, asks in the chapter he has written for this book, “Are we witnessing a version of the Global Enoch?”

Cain

If the city of Enoch was destroyed by the great flood we know as Noah’s Flood, can many cities now existing be destroyed by the effects of global warming?

England has Cain in mind as the progenitor of architects of every time and country, and even goes to the point of poking fun at himself when after describing Cain’s original aim to become immortal for what he created, he adds humorously that “architects have always had monumental egos”.

England’s Cain is far from the black figure existing in many people’s minds. His sin, though a very grave one, is only one, and he clearly wishes to expiate it not only by building the city of Enoch, though this was the greatest of his deeds, but also in having children who are inspired to create music and sculpture.

Another imaginary city

His semi-admiring view of Cain comes out most clearly at the end in which he visualises Abel in heaven asking for and being given God’s permission to go down to Satan’s realm and lift Cain “to the seraphic realms of Paradise”.

This book is in a way a tribute to Cain as the first inspirer of man-made beauty. The alternation or juxtaposition of verse or prose and imagery (fine work by Christina Darmanin), of verses printed vertically, of chapter titles printed in large, colourful letters reminiscent of Hebrew lettering, make the reader open the book again and again at different pages and wonder at it.

Cain, whether a historical personage or an arresting allegorical figure, must have had few finer tributes in book form than this.