Shamrock Tea

by Ciaran Carson

Shamrock tea, the magical substance that allows people to experience the world with visionary clarity, can only be found by passing through the famous van Eyck painting The Arnolfini Marriage. The characters who bear this knowledge include a young boy named Carson, his uncle Celestine, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the nephew of a famous Belgian writer. Vividly colorful, Shamrock Tea —nominated for the 2001 Booker Prize and winner of a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001—invites readers to enter another world.

Genres: Ireland, Fiction, Art, Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, Irish Literature, Fantasy

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Ciaran Gerard Carson was born in 1948 in Belfast and educated at The Queen’s University, Belfast. He knows intimately not only the urban Belfast in which he was raised as a native Irish speaker, but also the traditions of rural Ireland. A traditional musician and a scholar of the Irish oral traditional, Carson was long the Traditional Arts Officer of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and is a flutist, tinwhistler, and singer. He is Chair of Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre for poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is married to fiddle player Deirdre Shannon, and has three children.

He is author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, as well as translations of the Táin and of Dante’s Inferno, and novels, non-fiction, and a guide to traditional Irish music. Carson won an Eric Gregory Award in 1978.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time travels are possible if they happen inside one’s mind. And Shamrock Tea is an artistic diary describing such journeys through the past.
The novel is a tour de force of the northern magical realism and it is written in the language of magic.

In the Confessions, Augustine speaks with awe of the vast cloisters of his memory, which is an immeasurable sanctuary for countless images of all kinds. Perplexed by time – since the present has no duration and past and future do not exist – he concludes that the measure of time must be memory; hence a long past is a long remembrance of the past.

So everyone can be a rover in time and space.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange, slow, and dreamy. It takes quite a while for the story to get started, and even once it does it drifts quite a bit. Not for everyone, but I found myself drifting with it more often than not. Still it doesn't particularly go anywhere, nor, I think, was it meant to. So while I did enjoy the reading experience, in the end, I didn't feel like I'd gotten anything from it.

[Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps one of the best, most interesting books I've read in a really long while. The language is, of course, perfect as one would expect from a poet of his caliber. The story is both whimsical and deeply though-provoking. I began re-reading it as soon as I finished it. This is book I want to own and re-read many, many times.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most good books tell you how to read them. In the case of Ciaran Carson’s Shamrock Tea, it's on page 12, where the narrator, a fellow named Carson, muses on the philosophy of Sherlock Holmes: "To a great mind, says Holmes in A Study in Scarlet, nothing is little; and from a drop of water, he maintained, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara, without having seen or heard of one or the other; for all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known when we are shown a single link of it."

Shamrock Tea -- a novel as mischievous and funny as it is smart -- is just such a chain, with Carson using colors instead of drops of water to infer a universe populated by Christian saints and Roman gods, by his uncle Celestine and his cousin Berenice, by unicorns and bees, Napoleon, Augustine and Oscar Wilde, by Sherlock Holmes and his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, by the 15th-century Dutch painter Jan van Eyck and the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, by the neighbors in the narrator’s fractious Northern Ireland city and the thousands of insane inhabitants of the Belgian town of Gheel.

In 101 three-page chapters, each of which is assigned and somehow relates to an obscure or fanciful hue ("Doll's Eye Blue," for instance, or "Jaffa Orange"), Carson takes his narrator to boarding school, through a strange drug trip and into the van Eyck painting "The Arnolfini Portrait" -- literally. The result is a thrilling, dream-like quilt of history, memory, and imagination woven together by connections between all these people and things -- connections both subtle and so fantastically contrived as to seem magical.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

"One sausage alone is a very deep subject," says the philosopher Wittenstein in this novel, which is really a series of short-shorts or maybe cross-genre (fiction/non fiction) pieces no longer than 3 pages. I think that quote kind of sums up the book in a way because each chapter zooms in on a particular saint--or paints or tea or herbals or dreams--and goes into great detail until you have a complete tapestry. The book doesn't quite read like a novel so keep that in mind should you decide to read this. There's really a lot of playful but factual information on some of the following subjects: the painter van Eyck, St. Dympna, Sir Arthur Conan Doycle, Wittenstein, and Gerard Manley Hopkins for the most part. An unusual and interesting read.

[Angelica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very odd. But, enjoyably so. It started a tad slow and some parts were a bit hard to follow. My mom gave me this book after she tried to read it. She couldn't get into so handed it off to me. Overall It was interesting. I enjoyed how things were a bit disjointed. A nice change from books that are so predictably written

[Katrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Περίεργη περίπτωση αυτό το βιβλίο, δεν μπορώ να κατασταλαξω στο αν μου άρεσε ή όχι, οπότε και η βαθμολογία είναι κάπου στη μέση.

[Andrea]

There's no other way to say this: This was the most f'd up book I've ever read. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and colors such as "Bible Black" and very strange kids and a journey through Jan Van Eyck's double portrait of Arnolfini and his bride that takes you out of this world (or truly "into" this world considering the shamrock tea concoction only accessed by travelling through the portrait is a gateway to "reality"). Reading this book was truly a hallucenegenic experience.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is definitely one of the strangest books I've ever read. I thought it was going to be one of those that spirals to an awesome, all-encompassing conclusion. However, it just ended, and I felt like I had fallen off a cliff. I don't know--maybe that was the awesome ending. The two stars was mainly for my pique at the ending. However, in retrospect I could probably bump it up to three stars. But I won't.

[Maryna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Если б расчищены были восприятия, всякое предстало бы человеку, как оно есть — бесконечным.
У. Блейк "Бракосочетание Неба и Ада"

Что мне нравится в процессе познания окружающего мира, так это то, что можно "связать несвязуемое и впихнуть невпихуемое". Все вокруг постепенно начинает укладываться в какую-то сетку, напоминающую то ли mind map, то ли систему Менделеева. Я не в коем случае не претендую на что-то даже отдаленное близкое к абсолютному знанию, но даже самое маленькое открытие, когда не просто сообщает тебе какой-то определенный факт, а увязывает его с чем-то другим, уже известным тебе, - это кайф. Это как собрать почти весь пазл, а потом в середину добавить недостающие части. И, о боже, вот оно! Особенно круто, когда вдруг в твоей голове увязываются математика и живопись, физика и современная мода, когда обнаруживаются связи между Матерью Терезой и Бараком Обамой, Фридрихом Барбароссой и Арнольдом Шварцнегером. Ну, вы меня поняли! :)

Так вот книга "Чай из трилистника" и есть та самая иголка с ниткой, которая, как бешеная, мечется между совершенно разрозненными фактами и сшивает их вместе в единое полотно. В данном случае полотно живописное - картину Яна ван Эйка "Портерт четы Арнольфини" (хотя как только его не называют). "В нашей сказочной стране природы все между собой взаимодействует, внося порядок в кажущуюся неразбериху" - это девиз всей книги. Карсон привязывает к каждому событию день почитания того или иного святого, пчелок - к Оскару Уайльду и Конан Дойлю, и так далее и тому подобное. И потом - вуаля! Вот он, смысл! И даже не просто смысл, а нечто глубинное, доселе невиданное. Вот как описывает это один из персонажей: "Наевшись вволю, я пошел на плантацию, дабы приступить к работе. Это оказалось нелегко: если раньше я знал каждую из трав по ее научному наименованию, то теперь видел лишь растения-индивидуальности. Мало того, каждый их лист требовал к себе особого внимания. Да и ни на одной детали строения листа было невозможно хоть на сколько-нибудь задержать внимание, потому что каждая оказывалась какой-то новой конфигурацией. Зеленый был не зеленым, а бесчисленными оттенками зеленого." И это ощущение стоит того, чтобы обкурится чаем из трилистника :)

Но при всех невероятных достоинствах книги, я не нашла в ней души. Великолепнейшие кульбиты ума и ни грамма чего-то нежного и душевного. Главные герои? Хм, мне все равно, что с ними сталось - я не смогла к ним привязаться, я им не сочувствовала и не сопереживала. Книга в чем-то напоминает романы Эко, но, читая "Имя розы" или "Баудолино", я ощущала родственность с персонажами, они мне были так близки, что с ними не хотелось расставаться. Чего не скажешь о романе Карсона.

Однако, тем не менее, книгу можно смело порекомендовать любителям интеллектуального чтения, щедро приправленного постмодернизом и в соусе из половины Википедии :)

8 / 10

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been a reading experience full of heady synchronicity and colorful deja vu. I would love to read it again, but in a way, I already feel like I've re-read it. A brain teaser, and a very fun read for a fan of medieval art, saints lives and entheogens.

[Siobhan Markwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book with a really clever structure. 101 chapters, all more or less the same size (if I'd a Kindle I'd've checked to see if they had the same word count but I don't think they do) each named after a colour, some established hues but others named by the writer. All the colours are shades from the Arnolfini Portrait some jewel-like (carnelian, emerald, amber), some metallic (gilt, gold) some named after materials (carbon black, parchment, beeswax). Each chapter links to its colour and to the following chapter and name checks a saint and the worldly realm they are linked with. There are a tangled web of themes and but let's just say that Wittgenstein's philosophy of language and living, (the naming of things including colours and our shared understanding?) comes together with magical realist elements that riff off the imagination and experimental sense of reality of a child. The Jesuits figure too...give me a child...
The book would repay re-reading and a bit of research; I've only scratched the surface but the rereading would be a pleasure because each segment is digestible but leaves you aware that there's so much more beneath the surface. You also get to think about colours. A lot.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book 18 years ago. The one thing I remember about it were fascinating facts that the authors had about the saints. I hope I'm not imagining that!

He passed away this year. I have a book of poetry I need to read by him from 2008, For All We Know...

[Francisca · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5*



I have no idea what Carson was drinking and/or smoking when he came up with this idea

[Mariana Gevak · Rating 1 out of 5]

Вирішила я продовжити "чайну" тему і потрапила у просак! Такої нудної, дивно-незрозумілої суміші я давненько у руках не тримала! То ніби читаєш "житіє святих",то чиїсь галюцинації,не розумієш чи це серйозно чи жарт такий. Я промучилася десь відсотків 30 і покинула. Якщо хтось читав- поділіться думками у чому сенс даної книги.

[Anastasia Samara · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5/5 ⭐
Περίεργο βιβλίο, καμία απολύτως σχέση με τα βιβλία που προτιμώ εγώ, ωστόσο μπορώ να πω πως το απόλαυσα. Δεν είναι το βιβλίο που θα σε κρατήσει ξύπνιο όλο το βράδυ για να μάθεις τη συνέχεια, αλλά είναι το βιβλίο που θα σου κρατήσει συντροφιά τα πρωινά και που θα σε μπερδέψει και θα σε κάνει να σκεφτείς και να αναλογιστείς.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of this book was comprised of tangential departures from the main narrative which meant that the central story was very slow to develop. There is no great payoff in this book. I prefer books in which author invests his energies developing the central narrative.

[heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful, poetic, and complex view of life with Van Eyck as guide.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weird. Just...weird.

[Noel · Rating 3 out of 5]

art history, time travel, psychoactive drugs and catholicism? A bizarre combination make an interesting book.

[Lauren Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly creative and visual--really paints a picture in your mind. Read it a couple times, though; time/place/reality aren't always clear the first time.

[Sara]

01 longlisted for booker prize

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

больше никогда, никогда не ведусь на названия