Tag: history

Existing for the Dead

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

This town exists for the dead, not the living

-Rebecca Yarros, Great and Precious Things

Have you ever been somewhere that seems somehow completely frozen in time? I feel as if this sensation is a bit harder to come by in Canada, at least in the more developed areas. I’m not sure if this is because of Canada’s late entrance onto the scene as a nation, or at least the Nation of Canada as we know it. Or, perhaps, I just haven’t seen enough of the country as a whole which is likely true. As Hank from Corner Gas emphasizes, “It’s a VAST country, VAST.”

At any rate, this is a sensation I’ve more consistently felt when travelling through Europe and I imagine it would be even more profound in some places in Africa and the Middle East where remnants of impossibly ancient civilizations remain.

Devastatingly, where I felt this sense of frozen time most viscerally in France was not amongst any venerable old buildings, though there were many of those, but rather in the depths of The Somme. And despite how raw we still were from attempting to comprehend the horrors of Dieppe…This is where we were headed next.

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Forged in Steel

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

As an Irish author, born and raised, the researching and writing of this book dredged up generational trauma that we as people have not truly dealt with. Therefore, I suggest any native Irish readers to approach with a steady heart, and the heady knowledge that our great-great grandparents were forged in steel, and you are the freedom and legacy they dreamt of.

– Maria Tureaud, This House Will Feed

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, then you will know I am not what you would call a native Irishwoman. I am born and raised Canadian, though of settler rather than Indigenous heritage.

However, a good number of my ancestors came from Ireland, on my mother’s side. My grandfather’s last name was Walsh, a surname with a long history on the Emerald Isle. It’s no coincidence that I was given the name Erin.

Considering my ancestors made the journey across the Atlantic in the mid-19th century, you’d be forgiven for thinking my ‘heritage’ was at this point tenuous at best (except on St. Patty’s Day, of course, when I’m obviously a green-blooded Irishwoman). But I disagree. What’s my proof? The fact that I merely have to set foot on Irish soil and my very blood knows it’s home.

To be fair…I haven’t given either Poland or Ukraine the same chance to stake their claim on my person…but I digress.

I’m also lucky in that family members in previous generations have done an incredible amount of research on the history of our family (the Walsh clan). I know they last called the town of New Ross home. And I know they emigrated to this land here in the mid-1800s. Which means they survived the Great Famine. Over one million people died. And they survived.

Despite this incredibly heart-wrenching connection to the devastation of the so-called “potato famine” of 1845-1852, I admit I didn’t know much about it besides the fact that it decimated Ireland’s population on two fronts: death and emigration. And it was the reason my ancestors chose the latter after somehow escaping the former.

And this is where Maria Tursaud’s This House Will Feed comes in. I was generously gifted an advance reader’s copy through Netgalley and it’s high time I review it on here.

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Cold Water on a Roaring Flame

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

There was immediate silence as though cold water had been poured on a roaring flame.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

After having devoured our gratefully-received evening meal and enjoying a good night’s sleep at the strangest accommodation of our trip, Dad and I headed out bright and early for the third-and-final leg of our France At War tour.

If I think back, I’m pretty sure we spent most of the 4 hour drive attempting some semblance of conversation while mentally preparing ourselves for what we knew was to come.

Having seen our fair share of military memorials and graves by this point, we were fairly certain this last stretch was destined to be the most emotional of all. I mean, we were culminating the whole thing with a Remembrance Day ceremony at Vimy Ridge. As far as World War history goes, as a Canadian, it doesn’t get much more emotionally poignant than that.

I think I was putting so much mental effort into preparing myself for the wave of despair I knew to expect at Vimy that I neglected to spare a thought for our next step: Dieppe.

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Remnants of Life

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

And now that they were long gone, these intriguing remnants of the lives they’d led were all the proof that remained that they had ever been here.

Mike Gayle, The Museum of Ordinary People

I came across the quote above while reading Mike Gayle’s wonderful novel and it struck me once again when I started to think about this long-overdue chapter of my France travelogue.

It seems a lot of the novels I’ve been reading lately have been focused in some way on what we leave behind when we exit this plane. I guess it’s something I myself have been thinking about a lot since I had children. It’s both nice and heartbreaking to think that my two beautiful daughters will be the majority of my legacy. Discussions about instinctual procreation aside, I love the idea that once (many, many, many years from now) I’ve moved on from this life, a part of me will live on in them.

Cue “He Lives in You” from The Lion King.

That miracle being acknowledged, I hate the thought of ever leaving them. Even if they too have already lived long and full lives once my time comes.

Wow. That got dark. Moving on.

Something else I thought about in preparation for this post is that even people as famous as Richard the First of England and Joan of Arc of France did not leave significantly more stuff behind when their time on earth ended. Sure, the Lionheart has left castles and jewels and progeny but…as far as material evidence of who he really was at his core? Not much.

The ultimate equalizer, death.

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A Knowledgeable Imagination

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

Now, I’ll admit, this is where things get a little dicey in terms of this particular travelogue. It appears that at this point in the trip I abandoned my travel journal – unsurprisingly perhaps since the next and final chapter took place in the Somme and I am still processing my emotions from that part of the visit (stay tuned).

What does that mean, you ask? Well, it means my tale will continue on with the huge caveat that from here on out I am working from memory sparked by a skeletal itinerary and phone photos alone so…bear with me. From here on out, I know not what bits of my tale come from knowledge and which from imagination.

Regardless, I can say for certain that the emotions I impart will be real as I’ll be reliving them right along with you.

So…with that rather imposing disclaimer out of the way…let’s get to it, shall we?

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The Realm of Spirit

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

Chief Druids were those who, from childhood, had demonstrated an intimate awareness of the Otherworld. Its mysteries were not mysteries to them; its patterns were carved into their bones. They could move in and out of the realm of spirit, seeing that to which others were blind.

Morgan Llywelyn, Brendan

If there’s anything I love as much as graveyards, it’s cathedrals. Or any site of worship really. The two are almost always inextricably entwined and the older the better. Though regardless of their age, they are always filled with stories.

These places seem to inhabit the veil between this world and another. As if…if you just listened hard enough, stayed still enough, you could hear and see a glimpse of the other side.

Though I could wax poetically on this forever, I thought that today I would return to my France travelogue with the tale of one cathedral in particular: Bayeux.

I know it has been a while since my last entry from my travels. So, grab a hot (or cold) drink of your choice and come away with me, just for a few moments, to Bayeux, France.

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The Beaches: Part Four

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

Stephen felt, as he had done before at moments of extreme tension, a dislocation in his sense of time. It seemed to stutter, then freeze.

Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong

The mind truly is a fascinating bit of machinery – I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before.

When the mind is at peace, bathing in a sense of calm, moments somehow fly by and before we know it, the peace is gone and we have encountered a new problem to solve or responsibility to take care of.

I know this from the little meditation I have done in my life. When I am truly able to calm my mind and focus on my breath, 5-10-15 minutes go by in a snap and suddenly the meditation is over and it’s time to get going on my To-Do list again.

And yet, in moments of stress or tension, time seems to slow down or even freeze completely. It’s almost as if our mind wants us to savour every single second of intense anguish so as to ensure that we keep ourselves as far away as possible from similar situations in the future.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the opposite to be true? For happiness and peace to drag on forever while sadness and strife are over in the blink of an eye?

If you know a trick to make the mind’s mechanics flip like this, please let me know. Because in today’s blog, I’m going to talk about a painful experience which seemed to last for ages. An experience which cemented my firm belief that all life is immensely precious – a belief I hold sacred especially in today’s day and age with the Covid-19 pandemic still ravaging the world and mass graves of Indigenous children being found throughout the country.

But, I digress….

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Book Review: Things Fall Apart

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

This one has been on my to read list for an embarrassingly long time. I’m talking a decade or so…I’m very pleased to have finally checked it off as read!

This is another book I read quickly (for me) – it brought me right back to my African Lit classes in University.

I am a huge advocate for expanding one’s shelf and reading works by authors from different cultures, countries, mother-tongues, etc… even if it means some of these reads will be more difficult to fully grasp. I definitely caught myself frowning at some of the villager’s practices as a white-middle-class-Canadian and I tried to take these moments to delve deeper into why these practices were in place instead of judging these people as backwards or “un-civilized” as the colonizers described them.

Regardless of bias, however, there are certainly some very disturbing scenes in the book – for those who have been relatively safe from witnessing violence first-hand – so be warned.

My one criticism is that the ending seemed to be rushed, with the coming of the colonizing forces only happening in the last quarter of the book or so but perhaps this was intentional in that it left the majority of the book free to devote itself to the people central to the novel. Perhaps I am just not used to reading books that don’t drive relentlessly towards some kind of climax. Looks like I need to read yet more widely!

Overall, would recommend approaching this book with an open mind and an understanding that some of the cultural practices may shock or upset you. Don’t give up on it, I think the message is worth it.

final rating

have you read this book? What did you think? Do you have any similar books to recommend? Let me know in the comments below!

Reading Roundup: June 2021

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

He laid his hand on the cover of the book, gently, as though reluctant to disturb the rest of the sleeping lives interred there.

Diana Gabaldon, Voyager

I have a complicated relationship with reading these days. It used to be that I would spend hours curled up on the couch with a good read, often finishing several books a week without even sparing a thought for how much I could have accomplished in that time I devoted to losing myself in the written word.

Lately, however, this seems to be a harder practice to justify. Whether this is because I’m now a mother with a very busy and curious little one to raise or simply because adulthood comes with a million tiny yet important responsibilities that seem to need attention with alarming consistency, I’m not entirely sure.

The result, regardless of the reason, is that I spend so much of my time gazing longingly at my to be read pile without picking a single one up, or feverishly adding tantalizing new books to my Goodreads “Want To Read” designation at a pace that defies the possibility of ever getting through them all.

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Book Review: The Search for God and Guinness

Posted on by Erin of the Hills

While an interesting premise, the writing was not great.

I should have heeded my gut-feeling when the very beginning of the book started with an unlikely tale of the author being surrounded by adoring teenagers removing their headphones to listen to him wax poetically about the history of the brewery nearby.

And yet, I kept on reading.

The back cover describes it as “frothy and delicious, intoxicating and nutritious” and though I would agree that these words are accurate to describe Guinness as a beer (I’m a fan!) I’m not sure they apply to the book they ostensibly describe. The writing was certainly frothy, sure, but there was not much that was either intoxicating or nutritious in this book.

As someone who has studied history for over a decade, I realize I have a certain preference when it comes to non-fiction books about history. I recognize that there are many different ways to weave history in prose, and not everyone likes to wade through thousands of footnotes, but I found that in this book, the treatment of history was overly superficial.

It seemed to be that a lot of presumptions were declared as “likely” facts, and much of what was written seemed to be a re-hashing of what has already been explored in the books Mansfield praises glowingly in his bibliography.

I wanted to like this book much more than I did. Still, I did learn a few things!

Looks like I’ll have to pick up all the books he mentioned for a deeper dive into the history of Guinness and the family that created it.

FINAL RATING

Three out of a possible five quills