The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Shamrock Tea by Ciaran CarsonMichelle Reale
Ciaran Carson. Shamrock Tea. Granta, 2002. 308 pp. Paper: $12.95.
Smoke it or drink it; the effects are the same. Shamrock tea induces magical flights of fancy and the ability to see colors, transcend time, consort with saints, and imagine worlds beyond reality. Belfast writer Ciaran Carson writes with a modernist’s sensibility in the tradition of the greatest of the genre, such as Italo Calvino. The Arnolfini Portrait by the great Flemish artist van Eyck is the centerpiece of this almost psychedelic adventure and the portal through which shamrock tea and untold adventures can be experienced. The young Carson, his uncle Celestine, and his cousin Berenice begin the journey and are joined by Ludwig Wittgenstein, a Father Brown, and a young Maeterlinck, who happens to be the nephew of Maurice Maeterlinck, an art dealer in Ghent. Guided by knowledge of the saints, their feast days, and an array of intellectual minutiae, Carson, Berenice, and the young Maeterlinck, subliminally representing the Trinity, embark on a journey of discovery back into time, guided by an array of colors seemingly mundane in the ordinary world but jewel-like and brilliant beyond compare under the influence of shamrock tea. Colors provide the title of each chapter, such as Paris Green, Beguine Blue, Rhinoceros Black, and Lilac Haze, allowing the reader to experience an almost mystical and medieval view of time and place through the prism of color. Carson is ingenious in his successful mixture of adventure, literary and religious allusions, and the interconnectedness of each part of the journey, which becomes more and more apparent with each successive chapter. With this frolicking joyride, Carson proves that, indeed, it is the journey and not the destination that matters most. The journey ends up precisely where it begins. Where that is, exactly, is part of the fun and limited only by the reader’s imagination. [Michelle Reale]