The Book of Kells

If you want to see The Book of Kells, it’s going to be crowded, and it’s going to cost you 8 Euros per person.

Pay it.

No one can describe it to you, and reproductions do not do it justice. But it’s not only The Book of Kells (800 AD) you can see; The Book of Durrow (675 AD) and The Book of Armagh (8th c. AD) are also on display in the Library at Trinity College. The Book of Kells is a decorated copy of the Gospels in Latin. It is now in four volumes, two of which are open to the public, one to a text page and one to a decorated page. The Book of Durrow is also the Gospels in Latin with decorated pages, and The Book of Armagh contains some of the earliest examples of Old Irish. All of these books are relatively small: the Book of Armagh measures 7.75 inches by 5.75 inches, and the detail is astonishing.



They are part of an exhibition called “Turning Darkness into Light” which places them into their historical context as well as shows how they were created, including making vellum and coloring ink. You learn about symbolism: the snake, while being a pre-Christian symbol of rebirth was similarly used in early Celtic-Christianity as a symbol of resurrection: reborn when it sheds its skin. There are also little monkish poems about cats, a riddle about vellum, and an odd little ditty about writing about god, that shows that, perhaps, at least some of these boys needed to get laid:

“St. Collum the Scribe”

My hand is weary of writing
My sharp quill is not steady
My slender-beaked pen juts forth
A black draught of shining dark-blue ink

A stream of the wisdom of blessed God
Springs from my fair-brown shapely hand:
On the page it squirts its draught
Of ink of the green-skinned holly

My little dripping pen travels
across the plain of shining books
without ceasing for the wealth of the great
whence my hand is weary from writing.
(11th c. poem in honour of St. Colum Cille)

I have written about writing before, but it never sounds quite like that. In fact, when I write about writing, there is far less jutting, streaming, squirting, and dripping.

The exhibit not only gives you background and context, it gives you an idea of the amount of labor and care that went into the creation of something that we take very much for granted today: books. It gave me the feeling that the written word was respected and the crafts of bookmaking and lettering were revered: a lot of time, resources, and thought had to be put into these books from beginning to end. While I do not want to be living in 8th century Ireland, I do sigh at the perseverance and dedication, not to mention eyesight, necessary for such works of art.

I have found that in museums or places of great historical import, people whisper, which is not only fine with me, but appropriate in the face of such human achievement. I know that most people probably find these works holy because of the subject matter, but I find these creations to be singularly human. Also, when people are whispering, you don’t have to hear what they are saying and be reminded that human achievement is not always great. My favorite comment at the Book of Kells was uttered by a young American woman as she looked at the detailed, beautifully illuminated manuscripts: “There’s holes in the paper.”

Wow! 8 Euros well spent! I wanted to send her back through the exhibit to read every single word. And then give me a report. It makes you realize that a lot of people who are on vacation only go to places because the guide books says so, not because they actually have a personal interest in the subject matter. It makes me wonder why some people leave home.



After we looked at the manuscripts — and we went back a couple of times to make sure that we got a good look at each page on display - we went upstairs to The Long Room where they had a display about Watson and Crick. The room itself is gorgeous, lined with 200,000 of the oldest books in the library’s collection, on stacked wooden shelves with iron spiral staircases and a gorgeous vaulted ceiling. You walk along a gallery of very dusty white marble busts of famous writers and thinkers that also contains Ireland’s oldest harp, said to be Brian Boru’s, and more importantly, used as the model for the harp on bottles of Guinness.



Best advice from the Long Room?
“Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science” by James Watson

Coffee & Sausage Rolls

LePhare Coffee House, Dublin

It’s a strange feeling, morning in a new place; especially if that new place is 3,726 miles away from the old place, you have not slept, and your body thinks it’s 4:00 p.m. and not 10:00 a.m.

We arrived in Dublin on time and without trouble. Customs was busy but not too slow, and we found the bus easily. Our B&B proprietor, P.J., had given us very good directions, which I had printed out, and soon enough we were on the 16A into Dublin, instead of the 16A into Minneapolis. The bus was just as P.J. had said it would be, and we disembarked half a block from the door of “Tinode House.” P.J. greeted us, showed us where to put our bags, gave us a map of the city center, and directed us on our way. We decided to walk for a bit as we had been sitting for hours, and we wound up walking the whole way. It was not far, it turned out. Google Maps just made it look that way.

Looking at it now, I would have to say that the trip itself had gone very well, its inauspicious beginnings notwithstanding. Even the airplane dinner was pretty good. They did not charge extra for it, which was shocking in this day and age of airline hospitality, but they did charge me for my therapeutic tiny bottles of chardonnay. Our time was passed quickly enough between the ridiculosity of “Talladega Nights” and the pleasant conversation of our row-mate, a Mr. Naughton, who was born in County Roscommon in 1929. One of ten children, he moved to America when he was 18 and lived with his aunt in New Jersey, attending school and then fighting in Korea for three years. His sister still lives in Roscommon, and he was going to visit her. “America has been good to me,” he said. These are the things you learn when you are Pete and you talk to random people. I am always happy for the information, but I am not solicitous. On my own in a strange place, I tend to like to blend in.

It took me awhile to adjust to being here. By this I mean to sink into my “I am a tourist, and I don’t care who knows it” role. I have always hated being a tourist. It’s rather silly, really. I mean, if you are a tourist, it means you are on vacation, and who does not want to be on vacation? But when we get on vacation, we don’t want to look like we are on vacation. When I lived and worked in a tourist town, I had to remember what it’s like to be in a new place and not mock the tourists. I always have to remember what it feels like to be on the other side.

That said, walking in Dublin is like walking at a Renaissance Festival. There are people everywhere, and there is no pattern to either the foot traffic or the auto traffic. Everything is a speedy blur until it stops unexpectedly, right in front of you, for no apparent reason.

We sat in a little coffee shop with our Rough Guide and huge Michelin Map, planning our day. Apparently, Pete subsisted on sausage rolls when he lived in London, so we had a roll a piece. To me, “Sausage roll” sounds like a nickname you use for someone you love, preferably said with a fake French accent (“My leetle sausaahge rrroll”), but it was quite tasty.

We had a little list of things that we wanted to see and do in Dublin and only two days to do it:

The Book of Kells and Trinity College
Guinness Storehouse
Jameson Distillery
Kilmainham Gaol
The National Museum, Library, and Gallery

The above is merely a small sample of Dublin’s offerings. But even that was a lot for two days. We decided upon the Book of Kells as the first stop, and then we would see how things were going. I had consented, for this trip, to be somewhat flexible. As this is not in my nature, I knew that I would have moments of near panic that I would try to keep to myself. Pete had agreed to let me book the first four nights of lodging, as we knew where we needed or wanted to be for those nights, but after that, we did not have a plan, only a general idea of the direction in which we wanted to head and the sights which we wanted to see. It was only our first day, so I was still relatively calm about the fact that I did not know where I would be sleeping five nights from now.

Ireland

It was over half way through the flight to Newark that I realized: the next time I set foot in a Someone’s Land, it will be Ireland. Airports are not the place they are in. They are no place. They are Airportland, all pretty much the same, location to location.

Newark was like Minneapolis is like Houston is like Atlanta (except that Atlanta is more like a spaceport, when you are on the runway at night). On the airplane now, it’s morning, and Ireland is beneath me. Behind me, under the wing, it’s just what I wanted: green uneven fields, hedgerows, villages, lakes and rivers, windmills.
We’re going there.
We’re going to be down in that.


The plane has landed in Ireland, but we are still in America. The plane, like the airport, is a no one’s land. We are still in America until we disembark: the people are the same, The Beach Boys are playing through the speakers. But there are cows by the airport, and it’s very, very green out there.

I know.
Observant am I.

Random Scary Thought

Do you ever think about how much of yourself you leave behind? I am not talking about impressions or neat little stories, I am saying that I am leaving behind a lot of DNA on this plane.
Pete said that this was one way that someone could make another one of me.
“No thank you.”
“Be fun for me. At times,” Pete smirked.
“But I would never get along with her.”

Second Leg

We have not reached cruising altitude, and Pete might be asleep.

For my part, I have discovered that two tiny bottles of airplane chardonnay tend to mellow my ass out just enough for me to get through the flight tolerably well, but I don’t sleep on planes. I don’t even get out of my seat, to tell you the truth. I love watching planes fly, especially near the airport—landing and taking off. I am just not so into this whole being-on-them thing.

Maybe I need to understand exactly how planes fly, and then some of my fear will be assuaged. Because it just seems like magic to me.

Speaking of magic, I think that one of the charms of Harry Potter for me is that it is distinctly un-modern. How’s that for a distracting nonsequitor? By “unmodern,” I mean that the world of Harry Potter does not rely on gadgets, machines, and technology. I know, they have magic, but they have not used magic to create more work for themselves. No one is worried about his or her cell phone. No one comes home from work and watches TV. No airplanes.

As much time as I waste on the Internet, I think I could do without it if it did not exist.

Yeah, he’s asleep. His mouth is open. How do people fall asleep so quickly? It’s a skill I have never mastered.

Small Wonders, Equally Small Worries

September 25, 2007

I never thought I would be happy to be in Newark.
I know.
It’s an easy joke.
Bit of a low blow, really.

But it has not been the most auspicious of beginnings.

Checking in at the Minneapolis airport, my information did not match, and I had a moment when I thought that my reservation was not going to be there at all. The magic of computers is that they can both cause heart-stopping woe as well as breathtaking relief. I still don’t know what happened, but the nice, blonde lady at the counter punched some information into her seemingly very old terminal, resolved the situation, and I was checked through to Dublin.

The night before, at home in St. Paul, we debated back and forth about luggage: to check or not to check. Pete was bringing his guitar, Woody, and we figured we would just bring everything with us on the plane. That way we did not have to worry about things not making the connection in Newark. You can imagine our joy upon realizing that the plane was an 18 row by 3-seat little wonder with enough room overhead to hold a vanity bag. At the Jetway, we hastily removed computer, reading material, and purse, and Pete watched in anguish as Woody moved slowly down the conveyor belt in what we hoped would not be a death march. Next time, I check ahead and pay attention to the kind of plane I am on.

To further the comedy of errors, my in-flight magazines clearly had fruit juice spilled on them, and Pete’s flight card was stuck to the cover of his magazine, which was removed from the pages, by a fairly new piece of chewed Doublemint. These are not terrible things, in and of themselves, but they strike me as signs of inattention, which is not what you want from your airline, especially if you are a nervous flier. Every little thing can seem like a bad omen, even if your analytical mind doesn’t believe in that sort of crap.

The woman behind Pete had boarded the Houston 5:05 pm flight and was mad that they had let her do it. I thought, “Grab some personal responsibility, lady. First of all, why would you be boarding at 3:50 for a 5:05 flight? And secondly, you sat on your own take-away cup of tea that you put on your own seat. Who are you going to blame for that?”

These things made me feel anxious and uneasy.

Overly dramatic, I know, but we do lead a relatively privileged life. Our worries are comparatively minimal and almost unbearably silly.

As planes do not have dealer or maker logos like cars, let alone hood ornaments (I think that might interfere with wind resistance or something), I did not know what kind of plane I was on, aside from the fact that it was unexpectedly small for a flight to the east coast. Once I found a flight magazine that was not sealed by gum or pink, warped, and crinkly with fruit juice, I discovered it was plane from a Brazilian manufacturer that I had never heard of, which also did not inspire confidence.

Once in the air, the densely packed though not terribly thick band of clouds below us gave the illusion of safety, like an airbag. I was not always a nervous flier; I have developed into a nervous flier. It has a lot to do with knowing what you have to lose, which has a lot to do with actually having something of great importance to lose. This thing of great importance is my life with Pete. I try to remember Pete’s advice: There’s nothing you can do. All of this is out of my hands. But Pete is already on vacation, and he has been for a while; I am not. I’m already a bit of a worrier, and the last few days had been nothing but go, go, go--absolutely chock full of to-do lists. I was feeling a bit put upon. At this point, with all that behind me, I had moved on to my immediate worries: once we landed in Newark, there was the connection to make to Dublin. Once there, we have to make it to our B&B. I would be able to relax for a couple of days then, or at least a day, until we had to pick up our car.

Sad, really.
It’s nice to know that a country awash in Guinness awaits me.

Dear Abby,

I am thinking about remodeling my home, but I am concerned about the possibility of martial law being declared in or around the fall of 2008. Should I proceed? What do you think martial law will do to home values in middle America?

Signed,
Addled About Adding On