Put in my place They say you should never read your reviews but, as an inveterate newsman, I just can’t stay away from them. Yet I’m more than a little puzzled by last week’s review in The Irish Catholic headlined ‘The Spirit of Place’ (7 November). It combines my book, Tóchar – Walking Ireland’s Ancient Pilgrim Paths, and a book by French journalist Sylvain Tesson, Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin in the Middle Taiga. Reviewer Peter Costello points out that the latter, winner of the prestigious Prix Medici in France, recounts the author’s spiritual quest through Thoreau-esque isolation in a remote region of Siberia near Lake Baikal favoured by Russian New Age spiritualists. Pointing out that in the end, Tesson “seems a slightly lost soul,” he then suggests that Darach MacDonald might “learn the lesson of Thoreau and Tesson of staying in one place”. The problem with Tóchar, it seems, is that it is “filled with encounters and hectic with constant movement”. Real spiritual searching, the reviewer points out, is accomplished by staying put and he cites a medieval Gaelic poet (translated by Frank O’Connor) on the futility of heading off to Rome in search of answers that can be found at home. Apart altogether from the difficulty of “walking Ireland’s ancient pilgrim paths” without moving from one spot, I am astounded that someone who travelled from Ste Germain-des-Pres in Paris to Lake Baikal in Russias Siberian wilderness is deemed to have stayed in one place, while I went off on a fool’s errand by only going a few miles out the road to Lough Derg and from there to other places of pilgrimage right here in Ireland. The review also criticises me for passing on something about a minor 17th century character I encountered in west Waterford and for using the phrase magic soul of Celtic Christianity which, he remarks, is the “language of the holiday brochure” – or advertising. I believe the reviewer read that phrase in the publicity material sent out with review copies, which seems an eminently suitable space for “holiday brochure” language, in my view. Yet every cloud has a silver lining, and if the reviewer indulges in selective quibbles about my book, then I will indulge in selective approbation of his review. So here is his concluding remark (minus the introductory “but”): “Many will greatly enjoy this book, which I suspect will inspire a good number of them to follow the ancient pilgrim paths of Ireland in future summers.” Now I could hardly ask for better than that.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 23:10:11 +0000
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