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REVIEW: ARARAT: IN SEARCH BY FRANK WESTERMAN
Daily Telegraph
12:01pm BST 12/09/2008
UK
Richard Francis goes in search of the mythical mountain
One of the world's most ancient and widespread stories is of a
virtuous and practical boat-builder who enabled life to survive a
great flood. The tale is told in the Torah, the Bible, the Koran
and the epic of Gilgamesh; its hero is called Noah, or Ziusudra,
or a host of other names. One of the places where Noah is believed
to have beached his ark is on Ararat.
The mountain has great mythical and religious significance, but
also has geological, political and historical identities. There
are continental faultlines beneath, perhaps volcanic fires within,
and conflicts all around, with Turkey, Russia and Iran jostling for
position. Armenian suffering, Kurdish aspirations and Christian-Muslim
rivalry boil across the countryside.
Along with the mountain, Ararat also explores the smaller-scale
complexities of the Dutch writer Frank Westerman's first 40 years:
his childhood and beliefs, his marriage, his parenthood. The life of
the writer is refracted through the book's subject.
Westerman can be artful and arch, particularly in the early part of
the book. He opens with his own deluge experience, when, as a young
boy, he was playing in the middle of a river just as the water level
was raised by dam controllers. Annoyingly, he abandons the story in
full flood, returning to it some pages later, where we discover that
though he was washed along by the surge, his parents, camping nearby,
never knew he had been in danger.
Similarly, he strains to make dramatic a blow-out in the oil field
where his father worked: "That was the situation in which our
little family found itself; no more threatening than that, but no
less threatening either." He was too young at the time to remember
it. "No one was killed and no one was injured. We were all able to
save our cars," said the engineer in charge.
Not much like the great flood, then.
But describing the life he led while writing the book is fair
enough. He goes mud walking in the Waddell Shallows, apparently
to prepare his muscles for the climb up Ararat, but really to pit
himself against the threat of inundation; the experience of being in
a vast stretch of water, mud sucking at his legs and safety far in
the distance, comes over vividly.
Equally absorbing are accounts of his visits to former school
and college teachers, a formidable group that sheds light on his
intellectual development and offers reflections on the relationship
between science and faith that becomes the book's central concern.
The confrontation with Ararat, when we get to it, is an odd combination
of planning and improvisation.
Westerman buys all sorts of gear in the best mountaineering shop in
Amsterdam but does not try out his rigid "Category D" boots until
he is on the slopes (I picture him waddling like the Tin Man). He
negotiates for months with one expedition organiser, then switches
to another at the last minute.
Such inconsistencies reflect a curious and rather endearing ambiguity
about the nature of the climb: I couldn't work out whether this was
proper mountaineering or an adventure holiday.
Plenty of oddballs were on the mountain slopes, mostly ark-seekers
"with their moustaches and ill-fitting trousers", the latest in a long
line of fundamentalists who contradict their faith, as Westerman points
out, by needing proof that Noah really did land somewhere nearby.
The trick, he decides, is to put the stress on "seeker" rather
than "ark", thus enabling himself to have something in common with
them. This enjoyable book ends in that spirit, just shy of Ararat's
summit.
Daily Telegraph
12:01pm BST 12/09/2008
UK
Richard Francis goes in search of the mythical mountain
One of the world's most ancient and widespread stories is of a
virtuous and practical boat-builder who enabled life to survive a
great flood. The tale is told in the Torah, the Bible, the Koran
and the epic of Gilgamesh; its hero is called Noah, or Ziusudra,
or a host of other names. One of the places where Noah is believed
to have beached his ark is on Ararat.
The mountain has great mythical and religious significance, but
also has geological, political and historical identities. There
are continental faultlines beneath, perhaps volcanic fires within,
and conflicts all around, with Turkey, Russia and Iran jostling for
position. Armenian suffering, Kurdish aspirations and Christian-Muslim
rivalry boil across the countryside.
Along with the mountain, Ararat also explores the smaller-scale
complexities of the Dutch writer Frank Westerman's first 40 years:
his childhood and beliefs, his marriage, his parenthood. The life of
the writer is refracted through the book's subject.
Westerman can be artful and arch, particularly in the early part of
the book. He opens with his own deluge experience, when, as a young
boy, he was playing in the middle of a river just as the water level
was raised by dam controllers. Annoyingly, he abandons the story in
full flood, returning to it some pages later, where we discover that
though he was washed along by the surge, his parents, camping nearby,
never knew he had been in danger.
Similarly, he strains to make dramatic a blow-out in the oil field
where his father worked: "That was the situation in which our
little family found itself; no more threatening than that, but no
less threatening either." He was too young at the time to remember
it. "No one was killed and no one was injured. We were all able to
save our cars," said the engineer in charge.
Not much like the great flood, then.
But describing the life he led while writing the book is fair
enough. He goes mud walking in the Waddell Shallows, apparently
to prepare his muscles for the climb up Ararat, but really to pit
himself against the threat of inundation; the experience of being in
a vast stretch of water, mud sucking at his legs and safety far in
the distance, comes over vividly.
Equally absorbing are accounts of his visits to former school
and college teachers, a formidable group that sheds light on his
intellectual development and offers reflections on the relationship
between science and faith that becomes the book's central concern.
The confrontation with Ararat, when we get to it, is an odd combination
of planning and improvisation.
Westerman buys all sorts of gear in the best mountaineering shop in
Amsterdam but does not try out his rigid "Category D" boots until
he is on the slopes (I picture him waddling like the Tin Man). He
negotiates for months with one expedition organiser, then switches
to another at the last minute.
Such inconsistencies reflect a curious and rather endearing ambiguity
about the nature of the climb: I couldn't work out whether this was
proper mountaineering or an adventure holiday.
Plenty of oddballs were on the mountain slopes, mostly ark-seekers
"with their moustaches and ill-fitting trousers", the latest in a long
line of fundamentalists who contradict their faith, as Westerman points
out, by needing proof that Noah really did land somewhere nearby.
The trick, he decides, is to put the stress on "seeker" rather
than "ark", thus enabling himself to have something in common with
them. This enjoyable book ends in that spirit, just shy of Ararat's
summit.