Ararat by Frank Westerman

[moogey]

ARARAT By Frank Westerman

 

I've nearly reached the point where Frank Westerman is about to climb Ararat, after having gone through all the hoops, difficulties and "formalities" that are necessary in this area. The book is a mixture of history, travelogue, people and philosophy, which is what I like. A slim, readable volume, it is also partly a memoir of his childhood. What I did not realize is that the philosophizing centres on the inconsistencies in religious belief that science has uncovered, and his feeling that science does not explain it all. By studying the myth of Noah and the deluge, the myth of the deluge in other religions and cultures, he hopes to solve some of his personal thinking on the subject, and by climbing Ararat which is central to the myth, he hopes that he will find enlightenment,for want of a better word, though that word is not exactly faithful to the tone of the book.

He travels back to memories of his family who were very religious (Dutch Reformed Church), his school, his teachers, his love of Maths. He has a lovely explanation of maths, which I grasp in a sort of poetic way.

The deluge is also personal, because as a boy he nearly drowned in a man-made flood in Holland. His parents did not even know it had happened;his life was miraculously saved. He’s Dutch, the book was originally written in his native language, translated by Sam Garrett. It's also been translated into Armenian.

A dramatic instance of nature asserting its ascendancy over science occurs in the book. Something which is topical too, even though it happened in 1965 in Holland.

 

He has also been to Armenia, and seen the other face of Ararat.