Irish Roots

As the nation pays their respects to the late Queen I reflect on my Irish sides, my ancestry through both lines: paternal and maternal, the former being stronger than the latter. Driscoll and Healy and Connors. A gentle melancholy takes possession, an inherited yearning for Ireland, the old country, though in what parts my Irish roots are I do not know. My ancestors left long long ago, set up new roots in Wales and in England; and yet from time to time the old country draws me. The accents, the stories.

Written September 2022.

O'Malley Home, Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland, 1913, Robert Henri (source: WikiArt).

One German, One British

The same trench life, the same trench warfare in the same savage landscape. The same iron messengers with their hissing song. The same injured routine: dressing-stations and military hospitals, then back to the front, returned to their unit, their division, their regiment, their platoon, their troop. The same variety of words with the same meaning used. The same tiny imponderables – a chance meeting, some random thing – determining one's fate, one's position in the same war. Nothing (experience-wise) between them: Jünger and Blunden, one German, one British.

From journal, September 2022. 

See Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger.

Picture credit: Spring in the Trenches, Ridge Woods, 1917, Paul Nash (source: Imperial War Museum, London / WikiArt),

The Road to Byron

Intrigued by Bruce Chatwin's mention of his spineless and floodstained copy of Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana, and of how he attempted to ape Byron's itinerary and journal style I obtained my own well-bound, less marked library volume. While I have no wish to follow Chatwin following Byron's actual footsteps I could at least try to understand, I thought, why Oxiana is considered a masterpiece of 1930s travel writing, and compare too Chatwin and Byron's two journal entries: 5 July 1962 and 21 September 1933. Of the first it's too soon to say if I agree with the masterly verdict, though it's certainly enjoyable; of the second the similarities are all too obvious.

However, Byron moves in circles unknown to me. His companion Christopher is not explained. In Palestine Christopher is 'received as the son of his father.' Who is his father? On the next page I gather his father is Sir Mark Sykes. Still a blank, that is, it means nothing, but at least it's a name.

Who is Rutter? Perhaps a fellow correspondent for a London newspaper if I presume Byron was in that line already or knew associates in it?

Who is Herzfeld? I'm left with the distinct impression he must be an archaeologist, or at the very least has a keen interest in archaeology, who, 'it seems, has turned Persepolis into his private domain.'

Names and networking. What Oxiana doesn't provide I must research. Alternatively, I could, I suppose, accept my conjectures.

*

I continue to read with one eye on the journey and one eye gathering information: Christopher breadcrumbs. Christopher is fond of Persia. Christopher has friends in prominent positions. Christopher reads Gibbon; he must therefore like history. Christopher's hero is a German soldier called Wassmuss. Christopher told the Tabriz police (in French) he was a philosphe. (Byron said he was a painter, whereas Wikipedia lists him as an author, historian and art critic.) Christopher is liked by biting insects, particularly fleas.

Christopher Hugh Sykes, English writer, second son of Conservative Party politician and diplomatic advisor Sir Mark Sykes. (I failed to take note of his mother, not even her name, for which I now feel ashamed; his sister however did raise sufficient interest for me to jot 'Sculptor'. A clue perhaps to more I possibly thought but didn't follow up.) Christopher led a full and active life, stints here and there – in the Foreign Office and British Embassy in Berlin where Harold Nicolson was counsellor, before switching to Oriental Studies and pursuing other adventures. He married too (with issue), though again I didn't note who or when, and so the legacy of Sykes' continues.

Christopher explained, though the information gained unsupported by any other source other than Wikipedia.

The Herzfeld breadcrumbs grow but remain unsolved. At a lunch Byron introduces him as 'Professor', and Herzfeld speaks, to dissipate the boredom, of his domesticated porcupine. There it stops...then, some pages later, I think to turn to the index...Aha! Professor Ernst Herzfeld.

Who, though, is Noel?

I will never know who Noel is, who the Noels were – a party (of Noels) was mentioned, but I have verified from an unreliable source that Ernst Emil Herzfeld was a German archaeologist and Iranologist, who was appointed Professor of Middle Eastern Archaeology in Berlin in 1920. He surveyed and documented many historical sites, but was later forced to leave his professorship in 1935 due to his Jewish descent.

Another Byron-dropped name is demystified.

From journal (from a series of Byron entries), August-September 2022. 

See The Road to Oxiana (Vintage Books) by Robert Byron.

Picture credit: Robert Byron (source: Good Reads).

One House, One Person

Things fade; time grows. Mechanics obey and alternatives – other possibilities – are excluded. All that is passed or lost is dreamed of. All that did or didn't happen, or can never happen now. The loss of a house, the loss of a person, though both in their own way still living. Perhaps still standing but disguised; perhaps solely existing in the mind, as was. One house, one person to which the waking and sleeping mind return, no link between them.

Picture credit: Empire of Light, Rene Magritte (source: www.renemagritte.org).

Written August 2022.

Om

The inward eye, the bliss (and the woe) of solitude, enclosed within the cult of self, literally scratching at wounds, fictionally beating the old heirloom, the dinner gong. Session begineth; session endeth.

A figure sitteth (on the sofa), head bowed, fictionally covered by the matriarch's (Nan Miriam's) black lace mantilla, eyes closed, inhale...exhale...Buddhist breath, Buddhist count, and inner voice chant: empty mind om empty mind om.

But no, a jungle of noises (from outside) creeps in, and bright mental images flash – a parrot, a hummingbird – in and out of the canvas. Word thoughts, often unconnected, destroy its silent blankness once and for all. The parrots now talk politically: 'A democratic “free” country does not exile divisions nor unite them; they exist just the same.' GONG!

Written under the influence of Salman Rushdie, The Moor's Last Sigh just prior to the news breaking in the UK of Rushdie being stabbed, 12 August 2022.

Picture credit: Me and My Parrots, 1941, Frieda Kahlo (source: www.fridakahlo.org)