Turning the crank, part two: Jonathan Wooding has more on Dorothy Richardson

‘An epic novel of consciousness exploring the reality of a Quaker convincement? Why have we not heard more about this?’

by Jonathan Wooding 31st July 2026

I like the story of Pentecost. I love its reversal of the Tower of Babel story – all those different languages now cause for celebration and solidarity, rather than discord, and no need to be ascending the heavens via a mighty tower, or even in a fiery chariot. Rather, it is a reason to gather gratuitously and defy the odds. Our ‘frail, travelling coincidence’ in spacetime is now a blessed moment, poised (as Philip Larkin suggests in his poem ‘The Whitsun Weddings’) with incalculable promise.