The insoluble pancake

Ringberg castle — do you know it? “Schloss Ringberg” to those who speak German. A castle in the forests of Bavaria. I’ve just spent five days there, from the Sunday before last, to Friday morning. An easy journey to make, a one hour flight from Paris CDG to Munich, then a one-hour bus journey. Heading south, to the mountains. The alps. Forests and trees. A flat level plain, then suddenly steep hills, mountains. The castle gate, the heavy wooden door: we had arrived. I say we: I was there for a meeting, there were perhaps forty of us lodged in the castle for the week. A strange and incomplete place. Incomplete seems to be the best word I can think of to describe it. Of course, now, it is completed, but not to the original design. Not what the makers had intended. The architect and the archduke, hopelessly separate from each other who could only be together whilst they worked on this project which would never be finished.

Over the course of the five days I was there, I filled in the details of the construction of the castle, how it got to be the way it was. My understanding deepened. But I was surprised, constantly, by at least one or two ghosts peering over my shoulder, by figures appearing two steps ahead of me, by a long look that I wasn’t expecting in place where there was no one. Crossing the castle garden at midnight, past the swimming pool empty of water for decades, I would be be surprised by a sudden shadow in the bushes — then I would realise, again, for the tenth time, that it was a nothing more than a silent static statute which had unnerved me. Opening the door of the tower where I was sleeping I would be greeted by the architect, peering back at me from his canvas, one of the many self portraits he had painted which were hung throughout the castle.

The paintings, yes, I knew I would have to talk about the paintings. An early period, a late period. The early period carries heavy echoes of all that happened here in Paris, that play of light and colour seen for the first time in canvases at the start of the century. After that, it is man and nature, together. Heavy-handed obtuse attempts to convey the elemental nature of the world, spring, virility, the seasons, life. A great theme. But in this man’s hands it becomes a figure in lederhosen happily pole-vaulting over a half-sleeping cow. Or a man in the forest with dog at his heel, surrounded by abundant forest life, hands clasped in prayer, radiant light streaming from him to the animals around him.

On the castle’s main staircase hangs the central work, the dead heart of the castle. An enormous tableau which had been hidden for years, but now is visible to all. Two men stand side by side on hilltop. They are looking towards their castle, which either has not yet been built or is finished, completed. It is the archduke and his architect. Behind them far below are the blue waters of the Tergensee, the tiny houses of the village. A dog sits attentively at the Archduke’s feet. There is a tense air in the space between the two figures. An attraction, but too many lines to be completed, paths to be found which do not exist. In the painting, the colours, shades, gradation of light and dark are horribly off, terribly wrong, incorrect. It is enough, really, indicate that these figures exist, and not to make them real.

The Archduke would never live in his castle, preferring the luxury of a hotel in Munich; and the architect would die alone there, in 1947, the depths of winter I suppose, his project unfinished. Do I really need a castle like this, the Archduke asked himself at the end, a man like myself, with no family, no retinue? A deal is made, eventually, the castle is given to the Max Planck society, and money is found for its upkeep, refurbishement. Scholars now arrive from remote corners of the globe to discuss pressing issues concerning the distant Universe. Or any field of human endeavour. But when I think of that place now I think of that canvas hanging over the castle’s staircase, of these two figures, the Archduke and his architect. Lines not drawn to their point of completion.

More time has passed – but I’ve not been completely idle. Here, in a spirit of shameless self-promotion, are two articles I’ve written in the last month:

My article in ‘Spiked’

– This one was inspired by things I’d heard during my stay in Hawaii during the summer.

My article for the ‘Battle of Ideas’ conference

– And this one was actually written during my two weeks in Waikiki, mostly from the terrace of my hotel room. Usually after a hard day’s working on data reductions….

In my next entry, normal service will be resumed.

While I was in Honolulu of course I went to the bookshop. No hanging around beaches and surfing all day for me! I picked up a load of light beach lit — Hanna Arendt, Samuel Beckett and Czelaw Milosz. Appropriate enough, actually, Milosz has written enough poems about beauty of beaches and nature….and really whether or not one would be better off staying inside and thinking some more. Amongst the Milosz books I bought I was very happy to find “Second space”, which is the last book of poems he wrote before his death in 2004. There are many fine poems within, a particularly wonderful one is “Apprentice” which milosz writes about his relative, Oscar Milosz. It contains the following heart-stopping lines, written about the death and burial of Josef Brodsky in Venice:

“So Venice sets sail like a great ship of death,
On its deck a swarming crowd of people changed into ghosts.
I said my farewell at San Michele by Joseph’s grave and Ezra Pound’s.
The city was ready, of course, to receive the crowds of the unborn
For whom we will be just an enigmatic legend.”

And mr Milosz, you great and good man, you would be already gone from us before your poem reached the shores of the English language….and me, I spent the next few days driving around Kauai with my copy of “Second Space” lodged in the windscreen of my rental car. Every so often, when I stopped a particularly remote location, I would open the book at those lines and read them, just to make sure that they were still there.

I’ve just returned to Paris after spending the last three weeks, almost, in Hawaii. The world’s most remote island archipelago, you know. Under the light of the Pacific sun. One of the most bizzare aspects of being so close to the equator is that there is no long, extended Irish twilight. The sun disappears beneath the horizon, and it is dark only a few minutes later, it seems. Instantaneous darkness. The light switches off.

There is the journey there, and the journey back. Getting there, one takes a flight from Paris to San Francisco, an eleven hour journey which passes over the snowy wastes of Greenland and the far north of Canada. Traveling west, following the rotation of the Earth, essentially static with respect to the sun. After almost a twenty four hours of traveling, it is still only nightfall. Twelve hours of time have disappeared. At the end of all of this, Honolulu airport, which is a tasteful composition in fake wood-veneer and browns and concrete greys. Palm trees can be seen swaying in the distance through the plate glass windows, and every ten meters in the ceiling there is a loudspeaker through which oozes, without pause, an unremitting stream of Ukulele plinks and plonks. Audible everywhere in the airport, no respite. Leaving the terminal building, and the air-conditioning, somewhere after eleven in the evening, one notices first of all the warm, heavy heat, the humid ocean air. From here, there is at least five thousand kilometers of ocean in all directions.

Honolulu itself is an extended sprawl of tower blocks and freeways like most other American cities. The buildings are set far apart from each other, and no useful distances can be covered on foot, for the most part. The downtown area of Honolulu is mostly silent at night, though there are a few cafes and bars to visit. No, the real place where everything happens and where all the people are is Waikiki. Archive photographs show a long sandy beach with the irregular mound of Diamond Head volcano crater in the distance. In the foreground, of course, a man smiles for the camera. He is holding a wooden surfboard. In the near distance, perhaps, a wooden hut can be seen. Is this where he lives? Then bam! A hundred years pass and the horizon is filled with tower blocks.

I lived for two weeks in a hotel in Waikiki, about ten minutes from the beach. Waikiki is a strange place. Imagine living and working in a place where most of the population are on vacation! Or are working for people who are on vacation. My own motives for visiting Hawaii had nothing to do with surf, but rather distant galaxies. The usual no-good reasons that I have for visiting most places. From my room on the 39th floor I had a fine view over Waikiki, Honolulu, and could see even a thin square of the blue waters of the Pacific ocean. Despite all the work I was supposed to do over there, I did manage at least to immerse myself in the waters of the Pacific each morning at around 7AM: I swam for around twenty minutes at Waikiki beach. Much further out from the shore, under the long rays of the morning sun, beyond the shadows of the tower-blocks each morning I could see a long line of surfers lying in wait for the waves. It was fine, for a few moments at least, to be separated from thought, to be in these warm waters, to be in this city free from implication and meaning. But I will write more about that, hopefully, in the next few days.