Evil: An Investigation

Ever since the Devil tempted Adam and Eve with the apple (consequently, earning them the wrath of the Almighty and banishment from Paradise), Old Nick has slunk about on the world stage in a host of guises, from the garish to the banal, going about his nasty business - an assassination here, a homicidal rampage there, a mass suicide.

It is a daunting enterprise, tackling a subject as recondite as evil. But Morrow brings to the task all those virtues that make him one of the world’s finest living writers: a keen sense of perception and history, a flair for argument and analysis, and – most important – an ability to express even the most abstract of ideas with telling precision, in language of the highest order.

Through this 266-page dissertation, Morrow - often described as the “master of the think piece” - discusses evil in all its manifestations, whether elusively metaphysical or in such obvious incarnations as Bin Laden, Jack the Ripper, the Marquis de Sade and Hitler. He talks about the similarities between humour and evil, offers interesting anecdotes to illustrate complex perspectives, sets his eyepiece on some of evil’s ambiguities, and tries to understand the pathology of this malign force on both global as well as personal levels – the nature of evil in war, and as it resides in the darker recesses of the id, for example.

In much the same vein as he has handled many of his essays for TIME magazine, Morrow uses rhetoric and elegant prose – and here is where the charm of the book lies. Less theology than philosophy, this tome offers no pat answers to perplexing questions of evil, but it certainly enthuses the everyday reader to cogitate upon a subject that has obsessed theodicists for eons.

On a lighter note: with Morrow hot on his tail, Old Nick had better keep a low profile…