Кельтологика

Интервью с Джоном Кэри

По поводу его новой книги "Ирландия и Грааль"

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© М.С. Фомин Контакт->
Ведет интервью – М.С. Фомин.( Дубровник, 19 сентября 2008 г.)

 

М.Ф.

Almost a year has passed since your book was officially launched. As a rule, this is a high time to re-coup on its achievements and short falls. What would be your view on the book now? Which of its parts received major criticism so far? Which of them are the jewels from your point of view? Which of the parts requested most of your time and effort to prepare?

 

Дж. К.

I only received kind, but not very specific feedback as yet, so I do not really feel in a position to answer the first part of your question. I think that my own sense of both what the book does and of what it does not do at this point would be that it is really a historical study, and as such, it provides a narrative, a tentative narrative, of how certain motifs, names, and, in some cases, ideas travelled between cultures over some centuries in the Middle Ages. What it does not do is really to talk about the specific significances which those motifs and ideas were assigned in the various tales in which they were presented and then recast and re-interpreted. And I am not sure that I would in fact be the best person to explore that aspect of this truth of Grail, but it seems to me to be a logical next step to take and my hope would be that by underlining the particular significance and in some cases, perhaps, the unsuspected background of important aspects of the Grail legend. This may actually provide a stimulus for further work for other scholars to return to the material perhaps with a fresh point of view.

 

М.Ф.

Thank you. In the foreword to the book you say that the book “represents the first attempt” since 1975, or even this date can be pushed back to 1955, if one recalls Dillon’s work, that tries to assess the data based on your thorough knowledge of Celtic sources and actually propose new insights. Which of those insights have stood the test of this short period of time? But, again, you probably cannot answer this question. And then the second one would be what would you re-visit and, probably, reverse the argument proposed there if you were given this opportunity now? 

 

Дж. К.

Again, it would be too soon to say that. Bearing in mind the limitations which I set myself in the project, I still feel reasonably confident of the views that I there proposed. I think that one of the aspects of my findings which most surprised me and which most continues to excite my curiosity is the theme of mystery which I discussed towards the closing of the book. Obviously, in its reception in Europe and in views and speculations about the Grail right down to our own times, and, surely, on beyond our own times, the Grail has been seen as the prototypically mysterious object. And the enquiry for the Grail for the search for the Grail has been symbolic of the human search for the inaccessible and the mysterious more generally. What intrigued me is that the sources of the legend both at the Welsh level and at the Irish level were also pre-occupied with mystery. In other words, not only that motifs and names and aspects of stories whose movement from one story or one literature to another can be charted fairly objectively using the standard methodology of literary historical scholarship, but the way in which one feels about the material – or more intangible association of which the material has – that that too for whatever reasons or perhaps for no particular reason should recur again and again or perhaps should continuously be attached to this cluster of material is a remarkable state of affairs.

 

М.Ф.

Table of contents. The book contains twenty one chapters. Did you have a detailed plan when you started the book? If there was an original one, how much was it abridged or extended? Did the book grow from its original plan or did the publishers shrink the version you presented them with down to what we have now?

 

Дж. К.

I was … was and am, tremendously fortunate in having an excellent publisher who certainly gave me the benefit of his own expert scholarly knowledge, but did not limit or shape what I was trying to do with a book in any other respect than that of giving me invaluable advice. I never intended to write a book about the Grail. I came to the subject very much via back door; that of studying what seemed to me close and striking resemblances which I took to reflect underlying relationships between the stories of the Mabinogi and few other Welsh texts, and the group of Irish texts which are held – correctly in my view – to step from the early manuscript of the Book of Druimm Snechta. And it was really only in the course of setting out in a preliminary way my view of all of the elements shared between these two bodies of material, therefore by demonstrating the relationship which I believed to exist between them, that it suddenly struck me that this same body of resemblances also served as the dossier, really, of significant elements found in the earliest Grail narratives. And it was out of reaction to this surprise that I proceeded to work on the book. The structure of the book to a great extent, really, simply attempts with certain amount of occasional toing-and-froing to follow the material from Ireland through to France, and then there are a few chapters towards the conclusion where I found myself reflecting on certain issues with a relevance to the study as a whole. It is those chapters I had not anticipated when I began writing the book, but they seemed desirable by the time I was willing to add to it.

 

М.Ф. So, the publisher has given you complete freedom.

Дж. К. Yes.

М.Ф. Well, that’s a perfect situation for a writer.

Дж. К. Well, he is an old and valued friend and a very fine Celticist in his own right. 

 

М.Ф.

Certainly so… Some people are very reluctant to give their opus magnus to be read and possibly checked by other scholars. How do you assess the contribution of all those Celticists whom you list in the acknowledgement section of the introduction? Did they really have much to say and much to suggest? Were their suggestions taken on board and incorporated?

 

Дж. К.

Inevitably! I adopted some of their suggestions and adhered to my own view in other cases. I should say that besides the Celticists, to whom I submitted the book for their comments, there was also one Arthurian who also had done work on Celtic side but is primarily specialist in Arthurian literature generally – Linda Gowans. All of them were tremendously generous of their time, their expertise, and in the attention that they gave to it. In each case, I knew when I submitted the manuscript to them that there were significant respects in which we already disagreed about different aspects of the subject and this was part of why I was particularly keen to have their views. It is also why I am particularly grateful to them for the collegiality and the professionalism, but most importantly the friendship which led them to give me such a detailed and valuable responses. Again, we do continue to differ on our views on important aspects of the subject and for this reason I have not adopted all the bulk of the suggestions which I received – I’ve certainly carefully considered all of them and I am abidingly grateful for all of them.

 

М.Ф.

And the final couple of questions. The more you write about some literary characters, the more you become engaged with them, the more you feel sympathy for them, the more you become attached to them. Who is your favourite character throughout the book?  The Irish Bran? The French Perceval? The Fisher King?

 

Дж. К.

Well, I think I indicated at the end of the introduction that I feel considerable and rather sheepish sense of identification with Perceval. I hope I may eventually learn and grow up to the extent that he certainly did. Whether I’ll ever find the answer to the last question as he did is perhaps doubtful. I think, actually, that the individuals whom I found myself wondering most about were not the characters within the stories, but the figures responsible for transmitting the stories – the Irish scholars, travelling through Wales. In particular, Pompus, but, clearly, genius scholar Dubhthach – we obviously will never know what Irish person or persons brought the Druimm Snechta stories to Wales, but I like to think that it could have been Dubhthach or someone like Dubhthach. The pseudo-Taliesinic poets, perhaps, in fact, the specific poet, who composed the only poems which contained the phrase ‘Kaer Sidi’, somebody who seems therefore to have been particularly close to the material which is most relevant to the study and someone who produced poetry which however successfully we are being interpreting certain aspects of it I think will always hold secrets for us. And, of course, the figure of Bleddri, someone who has been such a controversial figure for so long; many people choose to believe that he even did not exist, but, obviously, he, or again, somebody like him was an individual of absolutely pivotal importance for the growth of the Romance tradition in France and in consequence in Europe as a whole.

 

М.Ф. O-oh! Thank you very much for your answers, John, we look forward to seeing the Russian translation of your book in the future…

 

Дж. К. Thank you for your questions and thank you more than I can say for undertaking this exciting, but very demanding project. 

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