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  By Daffyd ap Rees

  Oct 18, 2011
  From 'A Review of Myngath', by Julie Wright, New York, 2011 [begin quote] "Myngath is David Myatt's autobiography. To those unfamiliar with Myatt, he has been called, at various times, in the last forty years, an evil genius, the most evil nazi in Britain, a ferocious Jihadi, a pagan mystic, a deeply subversive intellectual, and described as the mentor who drove David Copeland to kill. Given this varied and somewhat strange and extreme life, one might expect his autobiography to provide interesting, if not fascinating, personal accounts of street brawls; meetings with Muslim extremists; life as a neo-nazi fanatic, as a convert to Islam, and then as a Muslim apostate. What one gets, however, is something of an apologia - often rather cursory accounts of some events in his life, followed by an explanation of his feelings and motives. Occasionally, Myatt adds one of his own poems in order to express these feelings. David Myatt's story is of a violent, driven, often fanatical and... More > selfish man, obsessed with making his own inner and extremist political vision real, who gradually rediscovers his humanity after suffering two personal tragedies, and who ends up writing, in probably the most poignant passage of the book, that the tragedies had, "at last - after so much arrogance and stupidity and weakness on my part - revealed to me the most important truth concerning human life. Which is that a shared, a loyal, love between two people is the most beautiful, the most numinous, the most valuable thing of all." Of his departure from Islam, Myatt writes that it resulted "from one singular, important, event..." To wit, his love for a woman, and the subsequent tragic death of that woman. Overall, this apologia - I do not feel it deserves to be called an autobiography - might therefore be more correctly described as a modern allegory, a tale of redemption, and it is this which, in my opinion, makes it a worthwhile and ultimately a valuable book to read. For its interest lies not in the person or character of Myatt himself - not in his various peregrinations, nor even in his own motivations for his deeds and involvements - but rather in the allegory: a modern Faust without the cloying appearance of God at the end." [end quote]< Less
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