Becoming and Being
by John O'Loughlin
Divided into two parts, the first of which is autobiographical and the second biographical, this compilation of literary sketches strives to outline John O'Loughlin's development as a writer and the influences, both fictional and philosophical, which shaped him over the years leading up to 1982. The first part, containing subjects ranging from sex and politics to health and writers, is slightly Nietzschean in its speculative approach to autobiography, whilst the second and more voluminous part, which deals with the estimable likes of John Cowper Powys, D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Hermann Hesse, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Koestler, Lawrence Durrell, Henry Miller, and George Orwell, is intended to provide a biographical summary and fairly blunt appraisal of authors whose works were to inspire him during his formative years as a writer. It is as though they were the beings whom he was eventually destined to become or, rather, that he became being - and hence an original writer in his own right - via them. Finally there is an appendix comprised of an introduction to and lists of reading material that John O'Loughlin borrowed from his local library (Hornsey Central) over a twelve-year period from 1977-89, which should intrigue those interested to discover how a self-taught and even self-made writer can fare with regard to the acquirement of a literary culture that owes little or nothing to school or college, and somewhat transcends the restricted perimeters of high-school qualifications. - A Centretruths editorial
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Author Biography
John James O'Loughlin was born in Salthill, the seaside suburb of Galway City, County Galway, the Republic of Ireland, of Irish- and British-born parents in 1952. Following a parental split while still a child, he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who had initially returned to Ireland with intent to stay) in the mid-50s and subsequently attended schools in Aldershot (Hampshire), and, following the death and repatriation of his grandmother, Carshalton Beeches (Surrey), where, despite an enforced change of denomination from Catholic to Protestant in consequence of having been put into care by his mother, he attended a state school. Graduating in 1970 with an assortment of CSE's (Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCE's (General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved the comparatively short distance up to London and went on, via two short-lived jobs, to work at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford Square, WC1, where he eventually became responsible, as a clerical officer, for booking examination venues. After a brief flirtation with Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, where he had enrolled to study history, he returned to his former job in the West End but retired from the ABRSM in 1976 due to a combination of factors, and began to dedicate himself to writing, which, despite a brief spell as a computer tutor at Hornsey Management Agency in the late '80s and early '90s, he has continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), Cross-Purposes (1979), Thwarted Ambitions (1980), Sublimated Relations (1981), and Deceptive Motives (1982). From the mid-80s Mr O'Loughlin dedicated himself exclusively to philosophy, his true literary vocation, and has penned more than sixty titles of a philosophical order, including Devil and God - The Omega Book (1985-6), Towards the Supernoumenon (1987), Elemental Spectra (1988-9), and Philosophical Truth (1991-2). John O'Loughlin lives in Crouch End, north London, England, UK, where he continues to regard himself as a kind of bohemian intellectual.
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