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| | | We're Back We're back from a memorable TWS cruise. Not memorable just—or even mainly!—because the first night at sea was the roughest we've encountered in any of our 15 cruises. In fact, we've dispatched that experience down the memory hole of historical events that need not be recalled or spoken of again. We all endured it, and in doing so, to (sort of) paraphrase Faulkner, we prevailed. The only thing I choose to recall is Andrew Roberts's remark at the beginning of his talk the next day, that there is no shame in seasickness: Admiral Nelson, perhaps the greatest naval commander in history, often got seasick. We are all Admiral Nelsons now! Enough of that. What do we rather choose to look back on? The cruise departed from Dublin, and most of us got there a couple of days ahead of time to look around. Susan and I had never been in Ireland, and we very much enjoyed it. We asked the cab driver on the way in from the airport where we could get some good, authentic, Irish pub food, and he responded there wasn't really any such thing as good authentic Irish food. He recommended we should stick to the beer. We followed his advice to some degree, and developed a taste for Galway Hooker Irish Pale Ale, which sadly appears to be unavailable in the U.S. In fact, though, we also found good restaurants in Dublin, which has of course become a cosmopolitan city in terms of food and everything else—and had a particularly good and I think somewhat authentic Irish breakfast at Hatch & Sons, a place I recommend if you find yourself in Dublin. * * * ADVERTISEMENT
* * * Our memories of Dublin weren't of the meals, however. Our main memory isn't even the fine bookstore we visited on Chris Caldwell's recommendation, Hodges Figgis—though it was great to actually see a real, functioning bookstore these days. The highlight of Dublin was the exhibit of Vermeer and his contemporaries at the National Gallery of Ireland, which was spectacular—no fewer than ten Vermeers, as I recall, but also really terrific paintings by contemporaries I'd barely heard of. (I'm now a big Gerard ter Borch fan.) The theme of the show—how Vermeer and his contemporaries competed with and influenced one another—was well-illustrated and explained in the exhibit. More broadly, the show really brought home how central Holland was to the development of what we might call a liberal or bourgeois worldview in the 17th century, something we Anglophiles occasionally forget. In any case, the good news is that the show opens in Washington October 22 and will be up through January 21; it would certainly be worth a visit if you're in the area. We also saw a very interesting Yeats exhibit at the National Library, walked around beautiful St. Stephen's Green—and, on our last day in Dublin, strolled over to St. Patrick's Cathedral to see Jonathan Swift's grave. But there was a long-ish line to get into the Cathedral, and so, in the spirit of Swift, we left in righteous indignation. The Latin epitaph Swift composed for his grave, famously reads, translated, that he has gone where "savage indignation can lacerate his heart no more." Having expended our indignation, we joined our sociable cruisers on the ship, and we were off—to Cherbourg and Saint-Malo in Northern France, to Ferrol in Galicia, Spain, and then to Porto and Lisbon in Portugal. We liked them all. The highlight was probably the Bayeux tapestry, which I knew very little about and was really amazing. (Most people went from Cherbourg to the D-Day beaches, which we'd seen, so we went to Bayeux. But everyone who went to the D-Day beaches came back, as we had a few years ago, awed and moved). The next day we walked around Saint-Malo rather than going to Mont Saint-Michel (apologies to Henry Adams—we'll have to go back). Saint-Malo, by the way, is a quaint and lovely little town, without too much tourism, it seemed. At the urging of Chris Caldwell, he, Andy Ferguson, Susan and I walked out across a sandy causeway to see the tomb of the 19th-century French writer and public man Chateaubriand. This was striking and memorable. It's located on a kind of semi-island that's separated by the tide for certain hours each day from the mainland. Chateaubriand had asked to be buried, with no inscription on his grave, out there on the Île du Grand Bé, where "one hears only the wind and sea." We pondered the scene for a few minutes, reflected on the transience of human achievements—and then cheered ourselves up by having excellent crêpes (a specialty of the area) at the Crêperie chez Chantal, which we happily happened upon. Christopher Caldwell at Chateaubriand's grave. I won't go on about our subsequent strolls around Ferrol and Porto, where we ate and drank and walked around, lest you think the TWS cruise was all sightseeing and no discussion of public affairs! (I will note that we went to bookstores, used or new, at every stop, not deterred by the fact that we didn't know the languages well or at all. It's the principle of the thing. Also, as is well known, you learn things in bookstores by just handling and flipping through the books, by osmosis.) As to the panels, they were (if I may say so) lively and interesting, and I think our two guests, Gen. Jack Keane and the aforementioned Andrew Roberts, particularly distinguished themselves (no offense to my colleagues!). So: All in all, a great time was had by all. Meanwhile, our colleagues back in D.C. managed to put out a very fine issue of the magazine, with much worthwhile to peruse, including an excellent review-essay of a new translation of Virgil's Aeneid. And Alice Lloyd put the rest of us to shame by filing an online piece from the cruise ship on Betsy deVos's speech on the Department of Education's Title IX guidelines, which she seems to be planning to reform in a good way. And that leads us back to current events, which we're plunging right back into. It's good that the republic survived the absence of several of us for ten days, but we wouldn't want to push our luck, so...rest easy, we're back at our posts! * * * Onward. Bill Kristol * * * |
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