Brother by Ania Ahlborn

Ania Ahlborn’s Brother is an atmospheric thriller that’s made me think of evil, its effects and consequences, and whether it can be redeemed. 

Amazing storytelling and writing.

I was utterly hooked from the very first page!

Michael Morrow has done vile things, unspeakable and repellent, very typically evil. But still…does innocence and goodness remain within, or are one’s deeds the determining factor?

The Morrow family commits abhorrent and cruel acts as is their norm, but then, by which criteria are we to condemn?

Vedic philosophy says that the Vish and Shiv are both aspects of the divine: creative and destructive energies, yin and yang, different sides to the same coin.

Are they destroying (and killing) so that new life may be created, or is there no discernable philosophical/metaphysical explanation?

Is evil, violence, and destruction inevitable within the context of human societies and living systems as a whole?

Krishnamurti says, “Belief is corruption because behind belief and morality lurks the ‘mine,’ the self… we consider the belief in God, the belief in something, as religion.”

I’ll go further and say that the human mind works to understand the world and its relation to it using belief systems; we believe in good and evil, right, wrong, acceptable, etc.

But he continues with, “One society will condemn those who believe in God, and another society will condemn those who do not. They are both the same. So, religion (and other abstract concepts) becomes a matter of belief, and belief acts and has a corresponding influence on the mind; the mind then can never be free. But it is only in freedom that you can find out what is true, what is God,… your very belief projects what you think ought to be”.

In so doing, can we finally understand and come to grips with evil?

But I digress…

Ania Ahlborn’s Brother is an atmospheric thriller that’s made me think of evil, its effects and consequences, and whether it can be redeemed. 

A literary thriller masterpiece!