AraratBy Frank Westerman Vintage, £8.99
The slopes of Ararat might be barren of plant life, but the place teems with history and myth. This is, say the Bibliophiles, the resting place of Noah’s ark, the trusty sailor and his menagerie first marched out to the world after the creator-in-chief decided to wipe the slate clean and start again.
Now, the mountain is at the heart of conflicts both ideological and geographical; it is studded with UN outposts and barbed wire barricades, trying to make sense of relations between Turkey, Armenia and Iran, all of which lie around its foothills. Meanwhile, true believers still climb its rocky precipices hoping to find the remains of Noah’s tough old boat.
Frank Westerman has set himself an intimidating task; he tackles the historical aspects of Ararat, which swiftly lead to its religious significance, and a web of creationist ideology, which feeds into a discussion on global-warming theories. He is somewhat preoccupied with his religious upbringing, his now purely scientific outlook, and then he has to climb the blasted mountain to boot.
Westerman’s account of how thinking around Ararat has evolved, from the pseudo- religious to the rigorously scientific and all shades in between, is fascinating, studded with texture and detail: his account of how an oil derrick he saw as a child was swallowed by a sudden explosion is humbling; he remarks that the man who calculated God created Earth on October 22nd, 4004 BC, was an Irish Anglican, James Ussher; he stitches together a global patchwork of flood myths, many of which pre-date the Bible.
Where the book stumbles is in the account of his own Ararat expedition: the journey is fascinating, but the climb itself is pedestrian on the page. Maybe true believers were right, and the mountain should not be climbed be mere mortals.
lmackin@irishtimes.com