Sunday, December 22, 2013

Stocking fillers: Bishop's Move by Colm Keena and Change in the Wind by Niall OConnor

DERMOT BOLGER,  I imagine, is a busy man – as writer and a reader. And this year he found time to read two of my Christmas stocking-filler recommendations: poet Niall OConnor’s Change in the Wind (Nobul Publishing €10) and Colm Keena’s novel Bishop's Move (Somerville Press €14.99).


Niall OConnor's Change
 in the Wind (image may be
 subject to copyright)


Of OConnor, who published this collection of poems earlier in the year, Bolger said: “Here is a poet who understands the wonder of youth as finely as he grasps the slow journey of old age; a writer whose imagination is equally at home in his native country as when capturing the waterscapes of Venice or streets of Budapest with observations that are eloquent, inquisitive and challenging.”

It is true, I think, and OConnor also manages to confer seasonal relevance
 on his work with Snow:
“…and I watch as in slow motion the falling eyelashes of snow
 whisper me towards sleep…”
And Snow Girl:
“…and after two further button ornaments were pressed
 she stood back with pride
to admire the snow girl by her side…”

Bishop's Move
(image may be
subject to copyright)  
Bolger described Colm Keena’s Bishop’s Move as “Incisively illuminating the high octane of the Celtic Tiger and also the secretive cloisters of ecclesiastical intrigue.” Keena does demonstrate a deft handling of the issues that created strange speculative marriages made in banks and dissolved as quickly in backrooms or on courthouse steps.

However, it is his subtle and eloquent descriptions of the everyday – for instance, ‘She was a thinning cloud of smoke a soft draft would some day soon sweep from the living world’ – that create moments of beauty to reward the reader throughout this novel. 

That and the somewhat biblical openings to many chapters create a sense of the languid liturgical that is at once rooted in our present and some time that is now, maybe, past.

These are slim volumes and perfect stocking fillers. Both are available from a number of bookstores and are also available to order online through their separate publishers. Maybe a home should be found for both in that great new library in the cloud – where e-readers go to read?

Happy Christmas

Barbara Clinton © 2013


Friday, December 20, 2013

Travels in Jordan


MUCH IS MADE of the 'culture shock' experienced by uninitiated Westerners visiting a  Muslim country. And at first, the sight of a young woman covered from head to toe was a bit disconcerting – but really only because she’d just emerged from the depths of the Red Sea at the jetty at Aqaba thus clad She was further accessorised by oxygen tanks, weight belts and breathing apartatus. She stepped out of her flippers as out of slingbacks and strode off up the beach with her Saudi dive mates. Culture shock indeed.

We were not so skilled but our diving instructor perservered. Telling us snorkelling was but a visit to the zoo compared with the safari adventures of the scuba diver, he coaxed us to a depth where the sun danced on the sea bed and the fish were astoundingly plentiful – and breathtakingly multicoloured.

In Petra's ancient city
Close to the border with Saudi Arabia, Aqaba is a diver’s dream come true and, increasingly, a popular sun destination. It is also a busy market town with a thriving port developed along 18km of Red Sea coast obtained from the Saudis in exchange for a large tract of desert in the east.

Ancient-ruin buffs and religious enthusiasts can visit Jordan at any time and come away happy but increasingly so too can more seasonal sunseekers, eco tourists and those is search of outdoor adventure.

We passed three sunny days exploring a seeminly inexhaustable warren of trails and treks that criss-cross the ancient city of Petra and laughed when the man at the tea stall by the amphitheatre told us his donkey was predicting snow. Later that afternoon as we treked the backroad from the Jebel Madhbah High Place of Sacrifice above the magnificant Treasury cloud moved in, the air cooled and stone lions were shadowy, eerie figues in a gatheing mist through which we stumbled into the warm comfort of the  hammam. Next morning we took leave of the Petra Moon Hotel and headed out of town on the 6am bus as the first flurries of snow reached the northern fringes of Petra.

Our migration south did not impress the weather gods and a less-than-friendly sandstorm greeeted us at the desert in Wadi Rum. The sky was loaded a gun-metal grey and cold wind whipped sand in our faces. Off on the horizon a man tried, in vain, to shovel sand drifts off the tracks to allow a train to pass.
Camels in Wadi Rum

And so we fled south again, this time into the arms of the very hospitable people at the Movenpick on the corniche in the aforementioned Aqaba who, unphased by our arrival in their five-star lobby looking like we’d been pulled through a desert backwards, settled us into considerable comfort three days ahead of schedule. 


That evening, in the hotel bar we eavesdropped on young American cyclists trading survival tales of snow on the Desert Highway as they got quietly drunk and forgot to go to dinner.


Determined to walk in the footsteps of Lawrence of Arabia we eventually dragged ourselves off the sunloungers and returned to the great expanse of Wadi Rum. From our Bedouin Whispers desert basecamp, in the shelter of a great sandstone cliff, we struck out on jeep and camel safaris. Wobbly legs and an uneasy stomach muttered darkly the answer to one of life’s great questions. Camels are known as ships of the desert because seasickness may be the reward for riding one.

In the evening we ate Bedouin fast food – chicken and veg cooked for four hours (rather than the usual eight) in hot stone and cinders – stared over oceans of wavy sand at magnificant sunsets, knocked back Bedouin whiskey (strong sweet tea), and feel asleep under the white light of a full moon in our Bedouin tent. After dark, the men of the camp brought out traditional musical instruments for a session around the big open fire at the centre of the communal tent.

Jabal Umm ad Dami is the highest mountain peak in Jordan. We reached it  after a two-hour jeep ride From the summit we looked out over the great sandy expanse of what for many Irish people today is the new promised land, Saudi Arabia, to the south and tracked a road as it snaked its way south from a border checkpoint. Until recently people living in this region paid little attention to the border, herding their sheep to grazing wherever they could find it.

Having watched the great resorts of Egypt and Israel colonise the opposite shores of the Red and Dead seas, Jordan is improving and growing its own resorts but for now, at least, still retains some of the old world charm of resort days past. 

The Dead Sea’s micro climate can offer near constant balmy conditions (and, they say, less UV danger) to those who want to do nothing more streneous than bob about in the manner of an angler’s float on water so saline if Jesus didn’t walk on it, he should have. We hobbled over rocks of crystalised salt to float on our backs reading the newspaper until hotel life guards decided we were crinkly enough and fished us out, forcing us indoors to treat ourselves to the Movenpick’s signature salt and mud scrubs.


However, when the man sporting an impressive grey beard, nice sunglasses, traditional full-length diswashah and red and white keffiyeh drove up in a battered white Toyota pickup we knew it was time to checkout. He hoisted our backpacks into the back, and off we headed in our Bedouuin taxi for the Dana Nature Reserve, where we spent a couple of days enjoying the excellent hikes in this beautiful protected area.
That's Saudi Arabi
 back there

Well before the paved road gave way to a rougher track it was clear we were in nomads’ land. Herds of camel sauntered about over acres of sand, goats and sheep skipped and trotted, and children played around the many tent settlements. A woman in traditional jilbab and hijab shepherding goats over a great flat expanse of sand and rock reminded us of Biblical times – until she fished in her pocket and brought out a smartphone.

While many young Bedouins are abandoning nomadic living to settle in government-provided villages, thousands of families still live in tents close-woven from goats hair by the women. A young university graduate working as a tourist guide at the Feynan Eco Lodge told us that though he lived in the village with his wife and baby, he still decamped to rejoin his parents and other family in the tents for the long, hot summers.

But long, hot days were not troubling us in the early, northern part of our trip which began with some unusually cool weather even for this end-of-winter season.

So it was on a lukewarm, if sunny, February afternoon, we found ourselves on the banks of the river Jordan, the site where John the Baptist baptised Jesus at our backs, a Jordanian soldier strapped to an automatic weapon by our side, and across the river now dammed to a much narrower existence, Christian pilgrims barefoot in little circles, arms raised to the sky, singing on land – controversial as you like – considered Arab or Jewish but certainly not Christian. That river bank is under Israeli control and we though we couldn’t see them were told armed soldiers were present there too.

Our Muslim guide was a treasure trove of cross-referenced religious scripts and between entreating us to stay on the path pointed to the many ironies of religious difference. But biblical referencing can be draining and Jordan river holy water secured, we returned to our taxi and headed on to sample the R&R promised at the Movenpick Dead Sea resort, where we were spoiled and pampered to within an inch of our proletariat lives.

The capital has bustling, unpretentious feel to it, but Amman is a thriving Middle Eastern city, rich in cafe culture and street life, and well worth a visit. Alcohol is available in Jordan– in many restaurants and hotels – but it was refreshing not to have it dominate every social interaction. In the cool of evening, friends, courting couples and families sit under trees in the park, in restaurants or streetside cafes or a bench near the mosque just to chat.

Much of the time we ate in the cheap-eat street cafes but in Amman treated ourselves to dinner at the Tannoureen restaurant. All around us tables brimmed with families and friends, reunions and Saturday night gatherings. Beside us, about a dozen women on a night out, all in traditional Middle Eastern dress, their meal finished, sat back and enjoyed the hooka pipes, sending the heady aroma of smokey mixed-fruit wafting towards our table. That, for two non-smokers, somehow marked the perfect end to a wonderful trip.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Forgotten Santa

On Christmas Eve, Ellie was standing in the kitchen watching her mother’s arm disappear to her elbow in the turkey – a pale lavender thing, head tilted like a drunk on a long, loose, goose-bumped neck. The bird, as her mother liked to say, reclined across the generous proportions of a Sunday newspaper. The gizzard, heart and liver she set aside; the other yellow, grey and bluish innards she discarded on still more newspaper.


Christmas Tree in Auckland

She’d know he had some time by the empty glass with its track of Guinness and the cake crumbs on the good china plate. She’d set out this snack on a small table beside the armchair her grandfather liked to sit in. He, also, always arrived late on Christmas Eve, and said it was better to leave stout not milk for Santa because children all over the world left milk and he’d appreciate the change.

Ellie's pleasant reverie was cut short by a sudden and terrible realisation that unhappily coincided with a loud sucking noise as her mother’s hand escaped from the turkey - one last time. She hadn’t written to Santa - barely six but already forgetful. Now there wasn’t time. There was no way he could know Ellie had been good but had just forgotten. He’d probably find that hard to believe, anyway, Ellie thought. She didn’t know she was crying until her mother said ‘What’s wrong, it’s just the turkey, it’s a messy old job but I’m done now’.

But what was turkey mess to Ellie? She couldn’t even smell it anymore because her nose was running. Christmas lay in ruins before her. No need for her to leave out stout or cake. No need to lie afraid of not being able to sleep too early in the first place and wake too early in the second. No little dilemmas about putting toys away until after dinner when the good crockery was safely back in the sideboard, and Granda was snoring in his chair.

But now Ellie's mother was down beside her, her face level with hers – the way it was when she really needed her to understand what she was saying. And she was saying: ‘Of course he’ll remember you’. But Ellie sobbed: ‘No, there are too many little children in the world, and it’s just him and it’s all I had to do, and I was good, I was really good, and I want a doll without pointy heels and elbows, but now he doesn’t know...’

When her mother said: ‘We can phone him’, Ellie's first thought wasn’t ‘But we don’t have a phone’ or ‘How do you know Santa’s number – how do you know Santa has a phone’ but ‘My mother is the best mother in the world’. And then her mother had tissues and was saying ‘Blow’ and Ellie blew; and then her mother had Ellie's overcoat, and her own, and the car keys.

Roadside hedges stood stiff in the dry-night frost to let them pass. Her mother wiped mist from the windscreen and the heater, belting out cold air, undid her work. The village had settled down for the night and everything was quiet. The telephone kiosk, like a candle, lit up the footpath between the church and shop.

Ellie's mother parked beside it and left Ellie in the car. Her bulk filled up the phone box and she was dialing. The little girl watched transfixed, no longer cold, but thinking: ‘He’s probably left already’. At least, she thought, he should have given the distances he had to cover. Her mother gave her a wave and then turned her back. Ellie watched her mother's breath make clouds in the confined space. Her head nodded a couple of times. Then she hung up and came back to the car.

‘Santa’s left already’. Ellie's heart sank. ‘But the elf in charge at the North Pole said of course Santa hadn’t forgotten you – he suggested we get home quickly so Santa doesn’t find you awake when you should be sleeping’.

Ellie thought: ‘But he doesn’t know what to bring me’ but refused worries about dolls with pointy heels or Santa arriving before they got back home. Instead she said: ‘Thank you, Mum’ and her mother said: ‘You’re very welcome, now let’s go home so I can stuff that turkey.’











































































































































































Ellie knew she’d use the giblets – as funny sounding as the gizzard – to make the gravy. That set Ellie's mind wandering to Christmas Day. Thinking she really liked the part after dinner better than the part before, even though the part before included waking up to Santa’s presents.










Barbara Clinton © 2013