A shamanic novel - 'Far Inland' by Peter Urpeth
Most shamans I've met distrust other shamans. The onetime notion of shamans as nature's bankers, interceding between their population and the natural world so as to know which plants were right for consuming, which animals populations healthy enough to hunt sustainably, has worn threadbare. Their customers seek concoctions to give them victories in love and business, and shamans imbibe the likes of dattura to journey off on life-or-death missions beyond conscious realms in efforts to inflict defeat on rival shamans. My own shamanic book, I Was Carlos Castaneda, saw me enmeshed in the middle of one such shamanic battle. Shamanism has some romantic allure, but enmeshes participants in such a powerful field of illusions spiked with revelation that they easily become enraptured.
A new Scottish shamanic novel was nestling on a shelf at Foyles bookstore on London's Southbank. The opening page read well, so it travelled home with me. I had always felt shamanism should be as lively a thread in Scotland as it was in Siberia. The village priest in the highland village of Glencoe where I lived for some years felt himself to be surrounded by paganism, but when I was looking for appreciation of the sacredness of mountains, for recognition of mountains as independent beings, I found no active practice of such reverence in the culture.
For his novel Far Inland Peter Urpeth mined Inuit and Gaelic tales. We meet several generations of shamans, ending in present-day Sorley who has left his island home in the Outer Hebrides to run an antiquarian bookstore in the City. A very Scottish tilt sees his shamanic journeys triggered by the intake of massive doses of whisky. In Peru the trigger was ayahuasca. I suppose you take whatever you can get. The novel is grand at evoking the landscapes and the journeys in crisp and unfussy flights of detail, and has passages of language to delight in. Oddly after reading it I could remember the names of every character in the book, apart from the protagonist. Names are useful in interaction with other people, but Sorley’s progress through the book is away from all such human engagement. Just as he fled his island family, he ultimately flees his wife in the city to live alone on his island. Shamans cannot survive without understanding is his message, and cannot be understood in the city. He has moved far enough by the close of the book to realize that his newfound vocation as shaman does not need to be dramatic, it can simply mea[Photo]n entering into the elemental nature of life in solo retreat in his island home. I suspect such revelation is akin to those dewy-eyed moments of lucidity and wonder an alcoholic can encounter between bottles. Can shamanism be transplanted to the city? Perhaps, but I do think it is vital to maintain some connection with the natural world. I find great comfort in writing this piece from back among the rain- and wind and sun-swept Pyrenean hills in which much of I was Carlos Castaneda is set. I also think part of the shamanic journey is learning to live in full accord with other humans. That’s also part of the journey of a novel. Far Inland rounds off well enough, but is not as near completion as it believes. I had an engrossing time in the writer’s world, so will buy into the sequel if the journey is ever continued.
A new Scottish shamanic novel was nestling on a shelf at Foyles bookstore on London's Southbank. The opening page read well, so it travelled home with me. I had always felt shamanism should be as lively a thread in Scotland as it was in Siberia. The village priest in the highland village of Glencoe where I lived for some years felt himself to be surrounded by paganism, but when I was looking for appreciation of the sacredness of mountains, for recognition of mountains as independent beings, I found no active practice of such reverence in the culture.
For his novel Far Inland Peter Urpeth mined Inuit and Gaelic tales. We meet several generations of shamans, ending in present-day Sorley who has left his island home in the Outer Hebrides to run an antiquarian bookstore in the City. A very Scottish tilt sees his shamanic journeys triggered by the intake of massive doses of whisky. In Peru the trigger was ayahuasca. I suppose you take whatever you can get. The novel is grand at evoking the landscapes and the journeys in crisp and unfussy flights of detail, and has passages of language to delight in. Oddly after reading it I could remember the names of every character in the book, apart from the protagonist. Names are useful in interaction with other people, but Sorley’s progress through the book is away from all such human engagement. Just as he fled his island family, he ultimately flees his wife in the city to live alone on his island. Shamans cannot survive without understanding is his message, and cannot be understood in the city. He has moved far enough by the close of the book to realize that his newfound vocation as shaman does not need to be dramatic, it can simply mea[Photo]n entering into the elemental nature of life in solo retreat in his island home. I suspect such revelation is akin to those dewy-eyed moments of lucidity and wonder an alcoholic can encounter between bottles. Can shamanism be transplanted to the city? Perhaps, but I do think it is vital to maintain some connection with the natural world. I find great comfort in writing this piece from back among the rain- and wind and sun-swept Pyrenean hills in which much of I was Carlos Castaneda is set. I also think part of the shamanic journey is learning to live in full accord with other humans. That’s also part of the journey of a novel. Far Inland rounds off well enough, but is not as near completion as it believes. I had an engrossing time in the writer’s world, so will buy into the sequel if the journey is ever continued.
posted by Martin at 12:35 PM
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