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Nor Iron Bars a Cage
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October 22, 2016This is just one of your typical 'English woman in her sixties incensed by inaccurate reporting of the conflict in Sri Lanka in the 1980s gets kidnapped and interrogated in Jaffna for a while' type autobiographical accounts. The main interest I suppose is the extra Catholicism, instinctual anti-marxism, and recollections of travels in Greece in the 1950s.
Tremayne was seized on the grounds of being a suspected spy, while she has many amusing comments making clear her opinion that people who choose to become kidnappers tend not to command profound intellectual capacities, she leaves the impression that the only reason that she was driving about on her own in a rented Fiat in a conflict zone with letters of safe conduct from Sri Lankan military command, without having shared her travel plans in (gasp) pre-mobile phone days with anyone, was righteous indignation that newspapers were taking the side of the Tamil Tigers, when she knew that a Marxist movement was by definition not a genuine folk insurrection and that she believed that by driving around , seeing things and talking to people herself she could some how support the case of the Sri Lankan government despite having no press or diplomatic contacts, and having no knowledge of any local languages (save English), this leads one to the feeling that stupidity is not divisible, and naivety not unknown even among well travelled older women, either that or there was something in the youths of EROS' suspicions, or perhaps this was a case of arrogance.
Anyhow, the gun carrying youngsters despite limited command of the English language do their best to quiz her about her presumed membership of MOSSAD and the SAS, about which she knows far less than they do. She invents nicknames for them including 'Kenyatta, Fuzzy, and Sambo', after which she writes, more or less ' I am not a racist, but...'. They also give her exercise books to write down her reflections which she does in between washing her clothes and watching a pair of geckos eat mosquitoes. Chiefly she writes about her travels in Greece, she had a few words of Greek and describes that the paterfamilias in one house she stayed in, succeed in conveying through mime his opinion that if the Bulgarians invaded they would rape every man, woman, and child in the country, which reminded me of Jerome K. Jerome pointing out how difficult it was to get an omelette in a foreign country compared with how easily ballet dancers conveyed entire stories by simply spinning on one leg and hold an arm out. In Greece she meet Freya Stark of whom she initially had a poor opinion since from her own Father she had internalised that the only reason why women do anything is to get attention from men, plainly a hell of a burden to drag about with you. But eventually she realises that Stark is simply sensible and adventurous, persuading the young Tremayne to travel by rented horse rather than trying to walk everywhere while not having water or food with her (which she does from time to time ). Tremayne visits Olympia and Delphi, though finds the latter too chthonic and feminine , although spiritual . She is impressed by Greek fisher folk discussing whether or not Protestants or Catholics can be considered Christians, believing that people in Cornwall wouldn't have such discussions . But she finds in unexpected places Marxism - the worm in the apple. She seems to be a Jane Austen conservative, in an ideal society it is the moral duty of the rich to provide for the poor and of the poor to be grateful for this, any desire on the part of the poor not to be poor and to be able to provide sufficiently for themselves is either irrelevant or shows ingratitude or both. This naturally led me to day dream about Polybius and his discussion of the ideal state
Anyroad, she travels to Crete and walks down a dangerous gorge. While standing on some scree she feels the hand of God on her shoulder, steadying her and later has a golden vision of God as bearded Shepherd in a wayside chapel. Then in Sri Lanka, when she believes that her kidnappers have reached a point where their only course of action is to shoot her she has the sense of the Virgin Mary, not that she will save her from harm, simply that she is there with her keeping her company. After this she is released.
Although the Virgin Mary did not find the time to contribute an afterward to the book explaining the centrality of her role in saving the author, the reader is left with few doubts.
Anyway, I found this volume on one of my Mother's book shelves, I was drawn in by the title which seemed familar to me, even though I don't recall knowing the poem from which it was drawn, no book in any case is safe from my groping depredations, though at least I don't transfer my behaviours unto others and accuse them of the indiscriminate exercise of literacy.
Tremayne was seized on the grounds of being a suspected spy, while she has many amusing comments making clear her opinion that people who choose to become kidnappers tend not to command profound intellectual capacities, she leaves the impression that the only reason that she was driving about on her own in a rented Fiat in a conflict zone with letters of safe conduct from Sri Lankan military command, without having shared her travel plans in (gasp) pre-mobile phone days with anyone, was righteous indignation that newspapers were taking the side of the Tamil Tigers, when she knew that a Marxist movement was by definition not a genuine folk insurrection and that she believed that by driving around , seeing things and talking to people herself she could some how support the case of the Sri Lankan government despite having no press or diplomatic contacts, and having no knowledge of any local languages (save English), this leads one to the feeling that stupidity is not divisible, and naivety not unknown even among well travelled older women, either that or there was something in the youths of EROS' suspicions, or perhaps this was a case of arrogance.
Anyhow, the gun carrying youngsters despite limited command of the English language do their best to quiz her about her presumed membership of MOSSAD and the SAS, about which she knows far less than they do. She invents nicknames for them including 'Kenyatta, Fuzzy, and Sambo', after which she writes, more or less ' I am not a racist, but...'. They also give her exercise books to write down her reflections which she does in between washing her clothes and watching a pair of geckos eat mosquitoes. Chiefly she writes about her travels in Greece, she had a few words of Greek and describes that the paterfamilias in one house she stayed in, succeed in conveying through mime his opinion that if the Bulgarians invaded they would rape every man, woman, and child in the country, which reminded me of Jerome K. Jerome pointing out how difficult it was to get an omelette in a foreign country compared with how easily ballet dancers conveyed entire stories by simply spinning on one leg and hold an arm out. In Greece she meet Freya Stark of whom she initially had a poor opinion since from her own Father she had internalised that the only reason why women do anything is to get attention from men, plainly a hell of a burden to drag about with you. But eventually she realises that Stark is simply sensible and adventurous, persuading the young Tremayne to travel by rented horse rather than trying to walk everywhere while not having water or food with her (which she does from time to time ). Tremayne visits Olympia and Delphi, though finds the latter too chthonic and feminine , although spiritual . She is impressed by Greek fisher folk discussing whether or not Protestants or Catholics can be considered Christians, believing that people in Cornwall wouldn't have such discussions . But she finds in unexpected places Marxism - the worm in the apple. She seems to be a Jane Austen conservative, in an ideal society it is the moral duty of the rich to provide for the poor and of the poor to be grateful for this, any desire on the part of the poor not to be poor and to be able to provide sufficiently for themselves is either irrelevant or shows ingratitude or both. This naturally led me to day dream about Polybius and his discussion of the ideal state
Anyroad, she travels to Crete and walks down a dangerous gorge. While standing on some scree she feels the hand of God on her shoulder, steadying her and later has a golden vision of God as bearded Shepherd in a wayside chapel. Then in Sri Lanka, when she believes that her kidnappers have reached a point where their only course of action is to shoot her she has the sense of the Virgin Mary, not that she will save her from harm, simply that she is there with her keeping her company. After this she is released.
Although the Virgin Mary did not find the time to contribute an afterward to the book explaining the centrality of her role in saving the author, the reader is left with few doubts.
Anyway, I found this volume on one of my Mother's book shelves, I was drawn in by the title which seemed familar to me, even though I don't recall knowing the poem from which it was drawn, no book in any case is safe from my groping depredations, though at least I don't transfer my behaviours unto others and accuse them of the indiscriminate exercise of literacy.
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