'Falling For Icarus: A Journey among the Cretans', by
Rory Maclean. Hardback; pp 334; Published by Penguin/Viking, 2004;
Price £15.95 (approx €24.00) Special offer: Post-free
within the UK .
Mythologies are made of such happenings.
This is what happened: A long, long time ago - shortly after his
mother had passed away, and shortly before, to him, a son was born
- a great hero - of a somewhat pallid, northern complexion, and four
eyes - descended upon a small Cretan village, hell-bent on becoming
heaven-sent, in one way or other; determined to build a monster;
one, whom - given a gentle tweak or two - would have the power to
send our hero to the stars...or at least to lift him from the earth.
The good folk of Anissari - for that was the village's name - gathered
around to help him in this quest. They set our hero Heraklean tasks
and send him on wild-goose chases (or flights of the even more fanciful
variety). Why? For this is what Cretan villagers do, of course! Anissari
was a great village built of three levels: Pano Anissari was the
highest of these villages; Kato Anissari, the lowest, and somewhere
in-between, lay Messa Anissari, within which lay a veritable labyrinth
of back-streets; within one of which lay a garage; within which lived
the fearsome 'Woodhopper'; a beast of such enormity and power, that
one could almost believe it capable of flight... if only one had
a vivid imagination...and the 'Woodhopper', an engine... 'Falling for Icarus', is the moving story of Rory MacLean's attempt
to come to terms with the loss of his mother, by propelling himself
into a place where no-one has been before. At least not in their
own hand-built aeroplane At least not on Crete. At least not since
before 1935. And that, only according to Yioryios! Mr MacLean is
an experienced pilot, isn't he? "You have flown many times,
of course", asks the multi-untalented Polystelios. Of course
he has, hasn't he? "Only in economy", replies the author.
Fair enough, but, surely..."So you've built a flying-machine
before?" asks Socrates. "I've made a bookcase". Oh
dear! "Did it fly?" As Cretophiles - and I assume you are Cretophiles if you are visiting
Jean's magnifique website, and reading this review - you may be wondering
exactly where Anissari is. Yioryios, one of the village's residents,
points you in its vague, general direction: "All of Europe is
the Greece. All of Greece is the Crete. All of Crete is Anissari,
so Anissari is the centre of Europe". And there you have it.
Then again, according to Yioryios, Crete is a "continent" and
Alexander the Great visited the island, "to fight the communists".
So let's be a tad more specific, and say that Anissari is in the
Apokoronas district of Crete; not a two minute biplane hop from Gavalohori. Truth is stranger than fiction. Of that, there is little doubt,
and this treasure of a book is stranger than most of the strange
truths you may have encountered. Like a well-oiled machine, Mr MacLean
effortlessly takes the reader on a voyage of discovery. Like a well
written novel, most chapters end with the reader begging for more,
only for the subject to change completely at the advent of a new
beginning. In-between the villagers' lives and the building of the
machine, one is drawn in to the life that was Rory MacLean's Cretan
adventure, so absolutely, that one is not only left rooting for him;
one is him. I had no great interest in the building of the plane;
not to begin with at least, but the way the author explains his aspirations,
his hopes, his fears; makes one immediately realise that the lost
art of travel writing is alive and flying. Do beware, Mr MacLean
brings the colourful characters of Anissari to life, in such a way,
that you may well find them leaping from the pages of the book and
dancing the 'Pentozali' in your living room. Along with the loveable
Yioryios, plenty of other villagers get a cameo role to play, in
this extraordinary story. I suspect that a few names may have been
changed to protect the innocent and, in some cases - "...Once.
a dinner plate, thrown in anger by Aphrodite, had sailed clear across
the road...to strike Iannis as he masturbated over a puckish copy
of Shagman" - the not so innocent! The relationship between Polystelios and Aphrodite isn't just all
about the latter throwing plates at the former and inadvertently
hitting barbers. It's a touching look at a relationship that has
lasted for years, despite their love affairs; real or imagined. People
come and go. Our hero comes and goes. The plateaux of Nida and Lassithi
are visited; weddings - and funerals - are frequented; possible places
for take-off are scrutinised. Throughout the book, Rory Maclean's
wife, Katrin, helps in the building of the aircraft and provides
essential succour for her husband. Her importance in this story cannot
be understated, but she does tend to drift in and out of its pages.
I felt for Katrin. She too would have been trying to come to terms
with her loss; that of her mother-in-law; now, here she is, aiding
and abetting, her husband's apparent - and elaborate - suicide attempt.
The story of the building of the 'Woodhopper' (based upon the Santos-Dumont
design, know as 'Demoiselle', and harking back to 1907) , runs nicely
in tandem with the personal histories of the good people of Anissari.
Mr MacLean, is a superb story teller and we are treated into glimpses
of the villagers' lives, both past and present. When Iannis is not
poring over his magazines, he is the village barber. He shows great
dexterity - and determination - for a man with one arm! The money-grabbing "winged
priest", Nikos, used to be an air-steward and is mercilessly
- and joyfully - ridiculed by the author, at every possible juncture.
I can state, as a practising Greek Orthodox, that I loved these asides;
maybe I should practice more! Maybe the priest should practise what
he preaches! If the author is the hero of this book, then Ariadne,
the Souda Bay engineer, is the heroine. "Ariadne?", I hear
you cry. Yes, I am afraid so. You couldn't make it up! Or perhaps
you could! She and her son Apostolis - an Adonis who's vanity is
only matched by the size of his ears! - bring a certain calmness
to events. Ariadne, because she actually knows what she is talking
about. Apostolis, because he's usually far too tired from the excesses
of the previous night to even turn up at the garage where the plane
is being built. Ariadne, I could fall in love with. In fact, I think
I may already have done so. Hers is the voice of sense throughout.
Hers and Katrin's. What had happened to poor, fractured Ulysses? He is variably described,
within, as "mad", "crazy", "lunatic", "babbling"...
There is no malice in the author's chosen words - in fact they could
almost be taken as terms of endearment - and the character is a constant
source of amusement - at one stage we find him walking backwards
through the village - but, I felt there may have been too much mocking
of the afflicted. A chapter explaining precisely what did happen
to Ulysses, is preceded with a one word explanation from the mouth
of young Lefteris. "Bees"! However, one suspects that the
poor chap's affliction may have been brought about, upon discovering
that he is the only Greek, ever to have had the moniker "Ulysses" (other
than his grandfather, whom he is named after!); besides, if he were
truly mad, surely he'd be doing such things as attempting to build
his own aeroplane, with intent to fly it! Wouldn't he? If you thought
that the author was on a collision-course-to-nothing, with one of
Crete's "15 mountain ranges" (Yioryios!), or one of its "jungles
or deserts" (Yioryios!) then you ain't read anything yet. Not
only is he in a battle to create the instrument of his dreams, but
he needs an engine to power it. Whilst building the plane, frantic
'phone calls are made, world-wide, to necessitate this. Thrill, as
he finally gets through to people that may be able to help him. Groan,
as his requests are met with responses such as "nutter" (quite!).
So, here we have a man who has never built an aircraft. Has never
flown one. Even if he'd had either -or both - of these qualifications
in his armoury, he has no engine to power the plane! On top of this,
he needs to find a runway from which to take-off ; and hopefully
land. None are forthcoming! The Greek civil aviation authority and
their airforce are not about to let one man and his less-than-magnificent
flying-machine, take off from one of their landing strips, oh no!
Daedalus and Icarus had it easy compared with our hero! This should
be the point where the author decides that he has had enough, and
packs the whole idea in. Does he? Does he heck! Excuse me myth, I have a cold! If I were allowed just one word to describe 'Falling For Icarus',
that word would be "magnificent"; if my word allowance
were doubled, that superlative would be prefixed by the word "mostly".
It is difficult to criticise this book, especially as I enjoyed it
so much. Criticism always takes up a disproportionate amount of space,
because the reviewer has to qualify his or her views. Please do not
take this as an overall reflection of the book, but, at times, the
history of the island is not as accurate as it could have been. Not
that there are glaring errors. Far from it; but there are the occasional
blips: Athens appears to have disinvented itself between the times when
- that greatest of all Athenians - Theseus, met his very own Ariadne
(along with Minos and the minotaur etc) to the time - two generations
later - when Minos' grandson, Ideomenus, takes part in the Trojan
war, when: "Athens, if it existed at all, at the time was a
village". This is a touch anachronistic, but we are talking
mythology here. The eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera, was, for many
years, believed to have been the cause of the collapse of the Minoan
civilisation. Thera is a mere 96 Kilometres from Crete and this was
the second largest eruption in history. Something had to give, didn't
it? Nowadays, however, this belief has all but been extinguished.
I have every sympathy with Mr MacLean's beliefs, but it just isn't
current archaeological theory, and maybe this should have been explained. The expulsion, in 1923, of the 30,000 Muslims of Crete (comprising
approximately 9% and not "15 per cent of the population")
was an awful episode, not only in the history of that island, but,
more generally, in those of the newly formed Republic of Turkey and
that of Greece. Whilst I have every sympathy for the Muslim minority,
forced to leave the island - which, as the author quite rightly points
out, had been the land of their forefathers, perhaps for millennia
- what, I feel, isn't properly explained, is the background for this
forced exodus. The previous year had seen "The Greek Catastrophe",
wherein 30,000 ethnic Greeks were killed, and as many as 600,000
expelled from the city of Smyrna (now Izmir), on the western coast
of Turkey. Close to 30,000 of these refugees made their way to -
and settled on - Crete. The following year, the treaty of Lausanne
- signed by both Greece and Turkey - stipulated new boundaries for
the two nations and, what today, we would call "ethnic cleansing" (then
it was "population exchange"!) between the respective Muslim
and Christian minorities of the two countries. Only two places escaped
this enforced expulsion: Western Thrace (approximately 150,000 Muslims
still live in this corner of Greece) and Constantinople (Istanbul;
where fewer than 2,000, of the quarter of a million Orthodox Christians
permitted to remain after the Lausanne treaty, live today). Greece's
population during this crisis, rose by an astonishing one third (from
c.4.5 million to c.six million). Turkey's, meanwhile, fell by around
8% (from c.15 million to c.13.8 million). This, according to the
Lausanne treaty, brought to an end "the state of war, which
has existed in the East, since 1914" The affect on both countries
was devastating, but, at the time, it was deemed necessary to avoid
a repetition of what had happened in Smyrna. I need to point this
out, as the broader canvas of political life during that period,
was immeasurably larger than the 30,000 Muslim deportees from the
island; one which cost thousands of lives and led to millions being
deported from their homelands. But, of course, this book is about
Crete. That diabolical monstrosity, the 'Cretan flag', is also mentioned,
though the less said about this thoughtless invention of foreign
bureaucratic intervention, the better. And, another thing; "Judah",
is not Chania's only Jew. This I can assure you. The Nazis, of course,
ensured that there are far fewer Jews than there should be, but thankfully,
there are still enough to allow for an occasional "Havurah" at
the city's amazing Etz Hayyim synagogue. Tour guide, Tony Fennymore,
enthusiastically recommends the place, on his walking tours. As do
I. We need pictures. Yes we do. There are some on the Mr MacLean's website,
but these should have been in the book. Do not read this book, if you are supposed to be writing your own.
You may never recover from the feeling of inadequacy in the art of
penmanship. Also, before the book even starts, we learn that Mr MacLean
has written four other books (a sixth is in preperation) and I am
now going to have to read them all! A curse on his keyboard! We can finish off with a taste of the book. From the author's
website, I have copied the opening chapter. I am sure he won't
mind; I am equally sure that he'll never find out! Enjoy:
CHAPTER ONE: 'Without Wings'. (from 'Falling for Icarus:
A Journey Among the Cretans' © Rory MacLean 2004
This is what happened. It was after three
and I couldn't sleep. Another broken, black night. I went for a
walk in the ruins. A raw breeze blew up and I decided to climb
the rocks. I found a foothold, the mark of an ancient chisel, and
pulled myself up the old wall. In the dark I moved by touch, caught
hold of a root, searched for a second step. I felt rather than
saw the hand-cut limestones. The sheer blocks were cold against
my cheek. My hand reached for a crevice, dug into it and lifted
the weight of body and heart. A speck of mortar blew into my eye.
I worked up toward the glow of sky. I reached an arm over the parapet
and clambered to my feet. I stood at the edge suspended between heaven
and earth. At my feet spread the silhouettes of islands, mulberry
shadows in a moonlit sea. Behind me a twisted cord of cloud tethered
the peaks, separating them from the foothills, dividing silver
snow from green olive groves. The lower flanks of the mountains
were flecked with white light -- villages not yet asleep. Higher
up the slope the solitary warm pinpoint of a shepherd's fire flickered
and died. Above it the sky was crowded with stars, a thousand
sparks piercing the night. I turned into the quickening breeze. I took
a deep breath. I balanced on my heels and tucked my toes over the
precipice. Eyes shut. Head up. Arms out. A sudden gust pushed me
back and I leaned into it. I wanted to feel the lift. I was ready
for the lightness. The soles of my feet tingled. Legs together.
Palms angled into the wind. My stomach tightened in anticipation
of the rush of flight. I laughed for the first time in months. 'Got you!' 'I'm falling.' Eyes wide open. I spun round, scrabbling to
catch the wall. A stranger's hands gripped my ankles. Horny, earthy
hands which had knocked me off-balance. 'Hang on,' shouted the voice above the wind. 'What the hell are you doing?' I managed to
say. I'd thought I was alone. 'Saving your life, you bastard.' This is how I met Yioryio. I wasn't trying to kill myself. Really. I
was groping for a way forward. It had been six months since my
mother's death. A year since her cancer had been diagnosed. My
wife and I had taken her into our house. We had nursed her, bathed
her and held her hand as she passed away in the pale green English
bedroom. The loss numbed me. It splintered my confidence and crippled
my imagination. But her death had one surprise in store for me.
A sudden, starved passion that no one in their right mind could
have predicted.
When my mother had taken her last breath, and the swallows swept out from their
nests under the eaves, I wanted to fly. From that moment I needed to feel
white wings lift me into a warm spring sky. The compulsion was the single
clear certainty in my now dislocated life. Which is how there came to be
a stranger gripping my ankles, dangling me over a cliff face, in the chaotic
ruins.
'You can't jump,' 'said Yioryio, a truss of chicken lashed to his belt. 'You
don't have wings.'
Not yet,' I yelled back at him, as he pinned me down on the cold, black wall.
'Excuse me,' he said, tightening his grip, 'but I think you are a little crazy.'
I can't end this review with me cursing the author's keyboard, questioning
his history and plagiarising his work, so I shall sign-off thus:
This was a wholly unexpected treat, and has just entered my very
own 'top-ten essential-reading' list for the island, at Number One!
'Falling for Icarus' may have its faults, but these are dwarfed by
the positives. By the time you reach the conclusion of this amazing
story, you may not quite know what hit you, but I can assure you,
you will be smitten! "But what of the aeroplane?", I hear
you ask. "Did it fly? Like his bookcase?" Well, the answer
is something you can find out by reading the book. Whatever the outcome,
if you only get the chance to read one book this year, this should
be it; if 'Falling for Icarus' doesn't touch your heart, you may
need a transplant. Stelios Jackson 4/6/04
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