Iceland and Greenland

Dear reader, now I have finally lived some of my childhood dreams and visited remote, distant parts of the world, usually ignored by majority of tourists.

When as a child I daydreamed with Atlas of the world in my lap and spend those rainy afternoons pouring over those far away places & names, I could have never in a million years imagined that one day they will become a reality. As it turned out, life had somehow brought me around the world and now I am familiar with most of the main destinations, although there is always some new, another place to visit. This time it was Iceland and Greenland. No idea who had actually named them, because there must have been some confusion with these names - its almost a joke, because Greenland is not green at all and in fact Iceland is actually far greener. They are both fascinating but after the first enthusiasm of being there, its clear that such remote, brutal nature is not exactly the first place you would think as home.

Iceland has lots of interesting thing to see - nature is quite spectacular, full of Martian scenery, huge rocks, moss that grows forever, hot springs, geysers, distant icebergs that melt into rivers & huge waterfalls, canyons and whatnot. It all comes down to the fact that these people live constantly on the edge of volcano, in fact the whole island is basically a volcano and lava is everywhere. They use geo-thermal heating and produce their own electricity (strangely, no windmills because the wind is too strong) and although trees are very rare, locals make good use of greenhouses so they have everything what they could possibly think of, including bananas (which they export!). Reykjavik is truly picturesque, unforgettable place full of interesting, colorful houses, hip & trendy shops and locals seems to be very creative and inventive, I truly enjoyed my time there. If you have chance, I suggest some tour out of town would be absolutely necessary in order to truly appreciate the beauty of the country - I went on a Golden circle tour that took some eight hours and it was fabulous as we visited National Park, giant waterfalls and even geysers (and than we were so full of excitement that we didn't even return on the ship but stayed in town and walked around). I have also visited local History museum which was absolutely fascinating and browsed exposition about more or less very brutal surviving trough centuries of life on volcanic rock. Fascinating place to visit but not sure that I would find this truly appealing as a place to live, because weather is expectedly atrocious and if this weak sun is the highlight of the summer, its probably even worse trough the rest of the year.

Greenland looks surprisingly very much like Norway and Norwegian fjords, except that here there is not a single tree - its all bare rocks and quiet, calm sea, looks almost like some lake. I walked around little Qaqortoq once and that was enough - it is a village-sized little community that survives on a fishing and fish is all they have here. No wood, no food, no trees, everything has to be imported from Denmark and although locals seemed happy in the sun, I cannot for the life of me imagine why would anybody stay here if there is any other option available. When you think about it, its basically deserted rock in the middle of Atlantic, whipped by the wind, rain and snow. Qaqortoq is also unfortunately known as the world's capital of suicides but not because of long winter evenings, in fact completely opposite, it seems lack of night in the summer drives people insane. In any case, I was thrilled to visit but would definitely not chose this as a place to live or even a vacation spot. In fact, I am perfectly satisfied now with seeing both of these places and ready to sail for Canada (Atlantic coast) with its summer weather, beautiful architecture, nice shops and far more appropriate living conditions. All these adventures and living in extreme situations are not exactly for me. 

"A Night to remember" by Walter Lord

Recent re-visit to Belfast and its famous "Titanic" museum (built on the very same docks where original ship was built) inspired me to check out this classic book published in mid-1950s and still unsurpassed document of this unforgettable tragedy. It was my second time in Belfast's "Titanic" museum and this time I noticed details that I somehow missed first time around - it is truly fascinating exhibition, focused not only on "Titanic" artifacts but more on the whole story: Belfast of the time (one of the biggest, if not the biggest shipyard of the world, hordes of poor people working around ship building industry, barefoot children and so on), how the ship was designed and built, cabins and furniture reconstructed, wireless messages preserved, original recordings with survivors stories, the whole chilling story displayed in full glory - it affects me probably more than ordinary, curious visitor as I am seaman myself and in fact have somehow visited four main places connected with "Titanic" story - Belfast (where the ship was built), Southampton (where the crew and passengers embarked), St.John's (where they first caught SOS signal) and Halifax (where bodies were buried) so naturally for me this is not a Hollywood spectacle or gory melodrama but a story close to my heart. I personally see both crew and passengers on daily basis and could easy imagine how any of them might behave in danger.

"A Night to remember" was not the first - nor the last - book about sinking of "Titanic" (in fact, there was, famously, a fictional novel called "Futility" written some fourteen years earlier and it described huge trans-Atlantic cruise ship that hit the iceberg and sunk, the name of that fictional ship was "SS Titan" - how about creepy coincidence) however it is remembered as the best non-fictional account of what exactly happened, since author Walter Lord bravely attempted to separate facts and fiction, interviewing survivors himself and in fact his writing style is curiously detached: decidedly he is not taking any sides and almost like journalist reporting about some incident, he is satisfied with merely informing us this is how, where and what happened. What appears at first as perhaps dry description, soon works out miraculously because we get involved in a story by the sheer power of storytelling - by quoting words, names and places, Walter Lord manages to appear completely truthful and we understand this is not some fictional account but a exact description of survivors accounts. However, he is also aware that even survivors remember things differently (perhaps from shock) and of course most of survivors would not admit being selfish and thinking about themselves when for example half empty lifeboats would not turn back to collect people still crying for help in a freezing sea. Walter Lord does not go so far as to criticise what is obvious now - that first class passengers had always different treatment and were given places in life boats, while third class crowd drowned mercilessly, even the whole families - we are to understand this was different time (described by many as "glorious era" but in fact cruel world with disgusting class distinction based on money, bank accounts and privileges) and accepted social behaviour means "gentlemen" bowed hats to ladies as women and children escaped to lifeboats first, while real gentlemen stayed behind facing sure death. Hollywood movie extravaganza naturally wrapped scripts around fictional love stories which historically were not possible as class distinctions kept passengers absolutely divided and people wouldn't even attempt small talk if they were not properly introduced first and assumed they belong to the moneyed class. (Best example is famous "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" who proved to have been brave, admirably capable and heroic person but was not liked by other first-class passengers because she was "new money" and did not belong to any of old wealthy families.)

This gripping book (it took me exactly two days to read it and this is with all my non-stop working hours, read mostly on dinner breaks and after midnight) interested me to the point of obsession - there is just so much of details about human behaviour, survival instinct, how we face large issues and naturally the whole idea of huge ship disaster that I might re-read it again from different perspective eventually. Even now I see the way passengers communicate with each other and I am aware that certain people think about themselves only, while others show more compassion. Where on "Titanic" there were servants trained to be submissive (and gladly gave their places in lifeboats to wealthy gentlemen because they considered them to be more worthy of survival), I doubt that any of crew today would put anybody else before themselves but who knows, I might be wrong, perhaps compassion and care for others is as strong and natural as any other instinct. One thing I know for sure is that I could never live with myself if I found myself in situation that I am in a lifeboat and there is possibility we could turn back and save even one life - this actually happened during sinking of "Titanic" and life boats did not turn back from fear that they all might sink - I would probably risk my own life just to get somebody out of the water. It is a truly fascinating story and well worth reading - several times.

"1434: The Year Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and ignited the Renaissance" by Gavin Menzies

This is something right up my alley, entertaining and informative speculation what if that actually makes lot of sense and appears logical in historical contest.

We are aware that China was light years ahead of Western Europe when it comes down to technical discoveries, inventions and cartography but for some reason, official explanation was that Western Europe and its Renaissance was true beginning of human knowledge and understanding of universe, rebirth of ancient knowledge long forgotten from antiquity and fall of Roman empire. We accept that whatever knowledge about building, astronomy and technology ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome had, was preserved somehow in monasteries and slowly re-discovered in Renaissance (no doubt contact with Arab world trough crusades also helped, although I wonder that crusaders saw further than loot).

Gavin Menzies suggest - very passionately, convincingly and in fact backing every single chapter with facts - that it was not some special air of Renaissance or even a particular time but a specific reason why Renaissance happened: it was because a huge Chinese fleet arrived in Venice (trough Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Mediterranean) bringing gifts, slaves, maps and encyclopedias of their knowledge and these documents, given to kings were preserved in archives and castles, just to slowly wait their re-discovery and this is a true influence on our Renaissance. According to Menzies, Chinese emperor Zhu Di sent a huge fleet with gifts to Venice with idea to enlighten the barbarians with Chinese knowledge and expectations that barbarians will respond with annual tributes. No doubt Chinese were way ahead of Europeans in technology and their knowledge of the world (for example) by far eclipsed anything we knew (including measurements of longitudes and latitudes) - it is documented they sailed as far as East Africa and they described cities on Nile, pyramids and Cairo (which they called Misr). However, the most interesting part of the book describes a curiosity that maps of the world (with detailed descriptions of all continents) were actually known and used by Columbus and Magellan, the fact that makes the whole "discovery" a bit confusing - what it means to discover places that were already known by somebody else? Menzies explains that these maps were given to Venetians by Chinese, among with many other documents. Even better, Leonardo de Vinci's famous technical inventions seems to be nothing but illustrations of Chinese encyclopedia "Nung Shu" which was known in Europe several generations before he was born. By far the most interesting bit of historical mystery is the fact that people among coast of Dalmatia (today Croatia), particularly on island Hvar, have unexplained Asian DNA (scientifically proved by Department of Molecular Genetics) that Genzies suggest is the result of locals mixing with Chinese slaves escaped from those ancient ships. That DNA is virtually absent in rest of Europe (and even Croatia itself) but present on Dalmatian islands? Official explanation is that this could be leftover from days of Mongol invasions but this curious inheritance of Chinese and Asian (Mongol) genes is really noticeable nowhere else but on islands - logically, if these were really results of Mongol invasions, we should be able to trace their footsteps all the way up north to river Drava and than down to the sea? But we find this oddity only on islands and Menzies explains this with 1434 arrival of Chinese fleet to Venice and influence of escaped Chinese sailors and slaves who stayed on these islands. There is much, much more curiosities in the book and its quite mind boggling. 

Excellent read.

"Taltos" by Anne Rice

Final part of the trilogy about Mayfair witches, "Taltos" kills off some old characters and introduces several new ones, including the oldest and the most powerful demon so far - as always, we get life stories told in flashbacks, lots of cruelty, murders, rape, incest, infanticide and so on but my impression is that this time around Rice treats them all with just a bit more of gentleness and affection. The story is still dark and could best be described as supernatural thriller but authoress obviously cares for her characters and tries to soften up the blows that ended previous volume so brutally. "Lasher" was exciting read but it did end up in lots of blood that was perhaps not necessary as we were never truly convinced that bad guys were really bad - once you know them and understand their motives, they were just a lonely outcasts, more like some kind of Frankenstein. Here, being demon is not really bad enough - as Rice explains, it is not necessary a bad thing in itself because perhaps its simply another race, older than humans, in fact humans might be far more cruel and dangerous and she makes a point by explaining our shared history that goes far before Stonehenge. 

The whole focus of this novel - besides obvious thriller plot - is the difference between them and us, something that Rice has explored previously in her famous Vampire novels. She toys with the idea of good humans and evil demons, just to switch the roles and point how humans can be immensely more sadistic for the sheer thrill of it. Because the previous novel had such a nasty ending, Rice shows more care for her demons this time around and now they are more to be pitied than feared, after all they are lonely survivors and very much alone of their race in the whole world. This sudden change of perspective kind of confused me a bit, as previously we were led into thinking that Lasher was dangerous and evil, now we understand that he actually was not completely alone and could have friends (or wife) if he only knew, from his own kin. I mulled it all over in my head after the last page and thought how Lasher didn't have to spend centuries obsessively hovering above Mayfair family, because unknown to him, there were other similar demons around the world who could be his company and help him get the human body. Where previously he was dangerous and scary, now he seems just lonely and desperate - although Lasher does not even show up in this volume, his memory still lingers on trough character of far more powerful Taltos who is lonely monster himself. This time Rice does not brutally kills the monster but out of compassion gives him a girlfriend, a willing bride to her Frankenstein.

Another interesting thing is how Rice smoothly and craftily breezes over potentially explosive subject of underage sex and teenage pregnancy: her young witch Mona is not exactly a nymphomaniac (more a wild, untamed young thing, focused on sexual adventures and seduction) but hellbent on conquering every man in her sight (from young boys to eighty year old cousins) and when she eventually gets pregnant, the whole Mayfair family behave like its the most natural thing in the world that thirteen year old girl have sex (with some unknown person) and will give a birth to a baby. Rice is too busy with description of Mona's physical beauty and sex appeal to even stop and think for a moment about that child bearing a child - probably nothing unusual in terms if human history and what used to happen trough centuries, but I never was convinced that it doesn't matter. Mona's story eventually turns into Rosemary's baby but this time around Rowan and Michael are powerless to destroy it (unlike in previous novel, for which I never forgave them).

"Lasher" by Anne Rice

Honestly, I didn't mean to read this at all - after all, I read (perhaps I should say re-read) "The Witching Hour" exactly a year ago and concluded that on the second look, the book was not really so thrilling as I remember the first time around. The saga about New Orleans family of witches started brilliantly but got bogged down with way too many sidetracks into long and detailed history of the family and somewhere along the way I got even frustrated why the main story (set in present time) completely became second to all that huge family tree. So I let the sequels be and focused my attention to other books but somewhere in the corner of my mind I always remember that there is a trilogy of Mayfair Witches waiting for me to finish it. As I just finished "The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" and was browsing trough my book collection, lo and behold, something tempted me to just have a peek into sequel to "The Witching Hour". Curiosity killed the cat.

Its simply not possible to 'just have a peek" into Anne Rice novel. As I already wrote earlier, Rice is a masterful storyteller, a gothic magician with witch powers of her own who grabs a hold of reader from the first page and before you know it, you are sucked into her world. I had actually completely fell under her spell and not only that I could not put the darn thing down but found myself reading (with greatest excitement and pleasure) long into the night after my work, in the morning before the work, even during my dinner breaks. It got so bad that I even considered smuggling my Kindle to work and pretend I am doing something important while reading it, but felt guilty about it. It could be that I spend too much time with literature that did not really thrilled me, and now this is something that actually truly and genuinely excites me - I always loved Anne Rice and read so many of her novels that it all became blur and should probably re-read them all again. Whatever faults I found with "The Witching Hour", everything is forgiven now - I still think its one of the best things Rice has ever written (after all, I went trough it twice) - majority of the story happens in present time and even though we do have obligatory character's life story as told trough flashback, it didn't bother me this time around. If anything, I feel stupid for not continuing reading this trilogy immediately because now I slightly forgotten the names of all those people and who is who - however I do remember Rowan, Michael and the whole Talamasca business (which this time around turned sinister and I don't believe them anymore). Nobody really important dies, although there are tones of death, blood, murders and incest, in fact Rice was positively going trough rampage this time around, I mean she was really, truly and definitely painting the picture with some strong, dark strokes and mixed it all with religion, cathedrals, plague, my God I am still reeling from all that power - powerful writer - I enjoyed this so much that my next reading choice is easy to predict. What else to do but to continue with the third part of the trilogy. Mayfair witches, here I come again. 

"Beauty and the Beast" ("La Belle et la Bête") by Jean Cocteau (1946)

Since I always professed true love for old black & white classic movies, it comes as no surprise that Cocteau's version of Greek myth about Orpheus and Eurydice is one of my all-time favorite movies and even now I treasure memories of that magical old masterpiece that thrills me every time I watch it again trough the years. Who know why it took me so long but now I finally turned my attention to another famous work by this French director, his even older movie about Beauty and the Beast.

It must be one of the most unusual, unforgettable and life-changing cinematic experiences I ever had.

For one thing, every single scene in this old movie is pure perfection of artistic expression and everything is so sophisticated and dreamy that it makes you wonder whatever happened to cinema in the meantime because it seems that certain point in the history we actually had visionaries like Cocteau (and Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini and few others) who had approached the medium as an art form that invites visual creativity instead what we see today, a synthetic fast-food entertainment tailored for teenage audiences who love fart jokes and computer animation. Well, Cocteau did not have computer animation and he actually instructed real live actors how to behave, they all moved, talked and acted with precise, theatrical elegance that is not even meant to look realistic (nobody even talks or moves realistically, they are all very delicate and artificial, almost like ballet dancers) since this is fairy tale, after all. At the very beginning, even before movie actually starts, Cocteau ask the audience to approach this story with childlike innocence and faith, to enter the magic land of make-believe with open heart and enjoy the tale. 

Once upon a time...

With surprisingly substantial script built around the slim fairy tale about Beauty who has to sacrifice herself and live with horrible Beast, we are drawn into the magic land and fairytale village where characters are almost Kibuki-like, black & white pantomime. Almost everyone (except the Beauty and her good father) is greedy, manipulative and nasty: her two sisters are vain creatures who perceive themselves entitled to aristocratic circles and her brother is a lazy gambler who gambles away their furniture so money lender empty the house rooms even while sick father lies on his death bed. The Beast live in his own castle full of dark shadows and strange, invisible servants - ghostly hands hold the torches and eyes of the sculptures follow Beauty everywhere she walks. We can also simply feel that her initial disgust of her host turns not just into acceptance but (between the lines) perhaps a sexual attraction. Beast might be repulsive, because he is hairy and horrible to look at, but his gentle eyes and gentlemanly behavior towards her shows there is more than meets the eye and yes, its exactly because he is symbol of unrestrained, animalistic passion hidden inside that Beauty finds herself so fascinated with him. She might even like the idea to be ravished by him, though this has never been said explicitly. That he eventually turns into handsome Jean Marais is not a surprise, we kind of expected him to be some magic creature under a curse but what is a surprise is that at the end we actually miss the Beast the way he was before the curse was lifted. Like everything else in this movie, the ending is completely artificial and we are supposed to be glad for the Beauty who now holds impeccably curled and outfitted Marais in her arms, though what we actually feel is that she might prefer hairy Beast instead. It might have not been director's idea, after all he was just following the outline of fairy tale, but from my perspective I see it as a weak ending where girl would be far happier with the Beast than with this supermodel who lacks the excitement she knew earlier. 

"The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe

Recently I enjoyed re-visiting that old classic, "Robinson Crusoe" and this time around, at this time of my life, I found it full of wonders that I missed completely when reading in it my childhood and was probably focused on adventure aspects of the story. For one thing, it was surprisingly meditative and lots of Robinson's solitary thoughts appealed to me (I was also aware of novel's old-fashioned charm and certain 300 years old ways of thinking did not bother me - reader has to understand the time when Defoe has lived in and it completely different moral and religious atmosphere). I must be literary the only one of all my friends and acquaintances who has actually searched for - and read - this famous novel's sequel, published immediately after "Robinson Crusoe" which turned out to be runaway best-seller and hit all over the Europe.

"The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" continues exactly where we left Robinson Crusoe last time around - he was in England with his faithful servant man Friday and he even managed to get married to a warm-hearted and supportive wife, but contrary to what we would expect from someone who lived trough such dangerous times and adventures, life did not teach our protagonist any lessons. He is completely absorbed in his wanderlust and must admit to himself that ordinary civilian life has no joy for him. There is something very interesting that he says about himself, which I was completely surprised to read because here is Daniel Defoe writing 300 years ago but his words completely describe my own thoughts - I have been roaming the world now for years and more or less sailing trough various lands and continents with great passion - A restless desire it really was, for when I was at home I was restless to go abroad; and when I was abroad I was restless to be at home - this is completely true and I had often talked about it with colleagues who experienced exactly similar feelings, we all yearned to finally end our jobs and return home but once we were back home, ordinary life seemed so boring and predictable that we just couldn't wait to go back traveling. 

Sequel naturally does not have the same impact, for various reasons, primary because this time around Robinson Crusoe is not alone anymore. He is now a wealthy man who is constantly surrounded with people (constantly buying and selling one thing or the other) and although he still falls into various adventures, they actually happen to others, not so much to him. For example, the large part of this sequel is about what happened on his island and its inhabitants that he left there - while Defoe obviously delights in going on about smallest details, it does gets a bit long-winded and it drags the novels down. In the second part of the book Crusoe finally gets going and he actually roams the world, from Madagascar to China, travels on camels trough Siberia and eventually returns to England at the age of 72, but we are not completely convinced this is the end of his journeys because he appears truly unrepentant and too set in his ways. Perhaps Defoe wrote it too fast to cash in in huge success of the original and if he waited a little longer he might have approached the sequel differently, I found the sequel a bit exhausting (where original was truly enjoyable) and there were lots of instances where 300 years between Defoe and contemporary reader were showing - mostly where Crusoe was concerned with religion, saving souls of local natives ("heathens" and "barbarians") and even going so far to actually put the whole darn caravan in serious danger by destroying idols of some Tartar village. Crusoe/Defoe himself was completely convinced that burning someone else "false idol" was brave and right thing to do but we read it differently today and it kind of bothers us because we have different, far more accepting perspective of world's different religions. Another curiosity is Defoe's decidedly unfavorable perception of Chinese empire - when his character visits wonders of Peking, Great Wall of China and everything that so impressed European travelers, Crusoe is dismissive about them all and constantly compares them to what he feels is much greater wealth and civilization of Europe (England precisely) - now we know that Defoe himself never actually traveled to China so its interesting to wonder where he got these ideas. Interesting curiosity but not as half as thrilling as the first part.