Shamrock Tea [Hardcover]

Ciaran Carson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2001

Shamrock Tea is an Irish drug that enables its users to see things not given to ordinary mortals. They can sense colours and sounds more vividly; they can penetrate the surface of paintings; they can cross time. The narrator, his cousin and a strange Belgian friend know that their lives are ruled mysteriously by the great van Eyck painting, The Arnolfini Portrait, and they have travelled in dream like moments through the painting into other times. They discover that each moment is connected to every other. But in the strange world of Shamrock Tea, no story can be straightforward. With a cast of characters that includes the gardener Ludwig Wittgenstein, this book will blow your mind.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Imagine an Irish Borges constructing a Chinese puzzle of a text, describing his characters with Nabokovian relish and concocting a plot reminiscent of Dickens, H.G. Wells and The X-Files and you'll have an idea what Carson's fourth book of prose is like. In lapidary sentences, this fiction proceeds jigsaw-like through 101 brief chapters, each titled for a color from Paris Green to Bible Black. (Cataloguing more shades than anyone might imagine, the table of contents alone is worth the price of the book.) Although the narrator is introduced in the novel's first lines, he reveals surprisingly little about himself, not even his first name. (His surname turns out to be Carson.) Instead, he tells us about Napoleon dying on St. Helena from the fumes of Paris Green and proceeds to discuss Jan van Eyck's double portrait of Arnolfini and his bride, a painting whose importance grows as the novel progresses. Wending his way through the lives of the saints, the lives of Lambert and Jan van Eyck, the lives of Wittgenstein, Conan Doyle and Wilde, Carson craftily unfolds his story about young Carson; his cousin, Berenice; his schoolmate Maeterlinck; and a mission they can fulfill only by sipping Shamrock Tea and slipping into the world of Jan van Eyck's double portrait. This meander through fact and fiction is not new to Carson, a prize-winning Belfast poet, who in past works has turned his peripatetic mind from Ovid's Metamorphoses to Irish fairy tales to etymology and traditional Irish music. This mode clearly suits him, but because the disparate tales do not coalesce until late in this work, readers may lose patience, especially as the characters are "allowed no inner thoughts." But as a meditation on time and art, Carson's book sets its own benchmark.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This fantasy, long-listed for the Booker Prize, introduces a well-known Irish poet and novelist to a North American audience. Imagine shamrock tea as a strong hallucinogenic drug like LSD: users' senses are expanded, allowing them to experience colors, sounds, and events more fully. Three teenagers--the narrator, Carson; his cousin, Celestine; and a Belgian friend, Maeterlinck--discover that the tea also allows them to penetrate a work of art, in this case, van Eyck's great painting known as The Arnolfini Wedding (although Carson prefers the title The Arnolfini Portrait). In their explorations within and without the painting, they encounter a cast of characters that includes the philosopher (and gardener) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Carson weaves a web as shimmery and strong as a spider's, entrapping readers in a story that is maddening, entrancing, and mysterious. Definitely not for every taste, but those readers who are willing to let themselves be seduced by the series of interlocking tales will find much to enjoy. Nancy Pearl
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Granta Books (November 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862073988
• ISBN-13: 978-1862073982
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,548,300 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars QUITE A MIND-BOGGLING BREW..., September 30, 2002

By 

Larry L. Looney (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shamrock Tea (Hardcover)

...SHAMROCK TEA, the novel, is almost as hallucinogenic as the concoction itself. The book is a wonderful swirl of fiction, art/political/social history, philosophy, religion and Irish culture.

Carson takes the reader on quite a trip, with 1959 as a jumping-off place, centering around three children. As the story unfolds, connections are made between systems of thought as well as points in space and time -- and the idea of parallel universes is not left out, either. In the book, points in the space-time continuum is described as being similar to pages of a book -- separate, but lying very close to each other, distant and adjoined at the same time.

The cast of characters is immense -- besides the children mentioned above, and their guardians and teachers, appearances are made by Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the artist Jan Van Eyck (whose amazing painting THE ARNOLFINI PORTRAIT plays a huge role of its own in the story), and innumerable saints from throughout the history of the Catholic Church. Everything -- and everyone -- is inter-connected, which is one of the messages of the story itself.

The novel is constructed in 100 chapters, each of only about 3 pages in length, and each named for a color. The boy who narrates the story begins by describing the wallpaper in his room, along with his general sensitivity to colors in his surroundings -- and from this seemingly ordinary starting point, the reader is off on a journey that is by turns frightening and wonderful, but always fascinating.

I'm looking forward to reading Carson's FISHING FOR AMBER -- and, being a fan of Irish traditional music, his LAST NIGHT'S FUN as well.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling!, January 25, 2002

By 

Susan Shedd (South Woodbury, VT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shamrock Tea (Hardcover)

I am a reader who demands a good story, so novels that play with structure often bore me. "Shamrock Tea," however, is just fascinating to read. I have to give credit to the author here, because I can't think of any good reason to be gripped by discussions of pigment and what seems like an infinitude of hagiography. The reason is: just plain superlative writing. This is not a book without a plot; it has an extremely well-structured plot that is not immediately evident to the reader. The sense that something, and something major, is happening even though one can't perceive it creates an almost addictive tension. Moreover, even after the primary "missing piece" of the plot is supplied near the end of the book, the author has the plot taking another dizzying turn. It's really exciting to read writing of this caliber!

If you read this book, you will understand why I'm hoping that Carson has plans, not for a sequel, but a companion novel (think of the structure of the "Norman Conquest" trilogy of plays, here -- characters offstage in one play are onstage in another, co-occurring play about the same characters). I'd trust him to make it work brilliantly.

I see that I have not mentioned what is actually the major theme of the novel, and find that I'm reluctant to do so because it's so much fun when the pieces come together and enlighten (rather than surprise) you. I will say that although this book is not written like a fantasy, people who read complex, cerebral fantasies are likely to enjoy it very much even thought it's not quite in that genre.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the intellectually faint-hearted but fascinating!, December 12, 2001

By 

D. Murphy "Donnie" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shamrock Tea (Hardcover)

I was not sure what to expect when I picked up this book. I was attracted by the cover, the title and inside blurbs which seemed to promise a story of history and magic but I was more than surprised. I was amazed.

This book is a journey. You start down the path thinking that it is a treatise on colors, and then that it is a treatise on saints and colors and you just keep going. Written in 3-4 page chapters, it is the type of book that lures you in and that while it seems like it should be an easy read....it most definitely is not. It is, however, a wonderful read.

The prose is mesmerizing and the wealth of information can be overwhelming. Slowly, you are introduced to the story of the narrator and it is near the end of the book that it all begins to come together. Only then do magic, art, history and religion meld together and the circle begins again.

I recommend that you keep a copy of Van Eyck's "Arnolfini Wedding Painting" and an excellent dictionary at your side. Be prepared to read every word, this book is not a "skimmer".