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‘Ark’ introduces us to the children’s David, the shepherd boy who kills the giant Goliath with a single stone from his sling. Then he becomes king, lusts after Bathsheba (who in turn becomes pregnant) and very nastily arranges for her husband to be killed by sending him back to the war.
In ‘Prophet’, David is brought to recognise the abuse of power that has led him to sin against Yahweh. The prophet Nathan foretells that Bathsheba’s child will die as a result of David’s dishonouring of Yahweh. As penance, David spends seven days fasting and meditating and emerges wiser, kinder and with psalms to sing.
Primarily a poet, Cook writes with impressive empathy for David. There is both a painterly eye and a physicality about her prose. Michael Symmons Roberts’s endorsement of Lux rightly focuses on its ‘striking portrayal of religious belief under pressure’.
The third part leaps forward to the spring of 1528 and to the poet Thomas Wyatt. Henry VIII’s desire for Anne Boleyn can be compared to David’s for Bathsheba. Henry acquires rich Flemish tapestries depicting the early lovers, and arranges a dramatic pageant to exhibit them, witnessed by Wyatt. The poet is familiar with the story and the psalms, and David’s seven songs of penitence have ‘long inhabited him’. He has time while in the Tower to remember and ‘English’ them — making them, one critic has said, penitential in matter and a penance for the reader. The connection between David and Wyatt seems to me a bit precarious (Cook did the same with Achilles, linking him to Keats). Wyatt’s falcon is depicted on the cover, symbolising both freedom and light.
Lux
Author: Elizabeth Cook
Publisher: Scribe
Page count: 403
Price: £16.99
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