Colin Falconer

I’m reading Colin Falconer’s Silk Road. It’s a brilliant adventure historical fiction.  It pairs a Templar with a Dominic papal priest travelling from to the ‘centre of the universe’, Karakoram, capital of the Mongol Empire,  near the centre of modern day Mongolia.  They are on a mission to speak to the Khan but what is so enjoyable are their meeting with people along the silk route, their conversations, the great adventures, the incredible Tatar Princess, and the comparison of her with the Chin Dynastiy women. All the while there is discussion of Buddhism, Mohammedism, Christian Nestorianism and the most rigid Catholicism as opposed to the liberal faith based Templar tradition. Great wars and romance and visual delights woven by the greatest of story tellers.I am so glad I’ve found this new author.

He’s right up there with previous authors of historical fiction like American writer, James Michener’s whose books were a wealth of history, geography and philosophy. Michener’s characters and plot are not  as well developed as Falconer’s whose more comparable to the great African writer Wilbur Smith.  His writing certainly captures conflict well like Tolstoy, but equally the sensual like D.H. Lawrence  His passion in not at all salacious as George Macdonald Frazer, creator of that greatest that great historical fiction character, Flashman. I was excited to find Falconer as I was to find Peter Rimmer whose writer is as ‘full’ and ‘absorbing’.  This Silk Road captured me as Flight of the Fish Eagle did.  Colin Falconer is simply brilliant though in his ability to take the most erudite subject, a discussion of the nature of being, and turn it into a dialogue as good as Franny and Zoey of Salinger or Steppenwolf of Herman Hesse. 

I’ve downloaded several more of his books as happy as I was when I found Baldacci, Daniel Kallas, Ian Rankin, Anthony Melville-Ross,Phillip McCurtchan, Hiiansen, Harlan Coban, Manda Scott, Bernard Cornwall,  Griff Hosker,  Louis L’Amour, Tom Clancy, Asimov.  Each of so many writers has been just that good that I haven’t been able to stop at one.  Like ice cream they cry for more.  I’m an inveterate reader of every genre except perhaps horror though Steven King is the exception.  I can remember young when I ‘found’  Robert Heinlein and later Douglas Adams.  True treasures.  But historical fiction has always had it’s appeal for me a student of history.  I’ve often read a text of ‘non fiction’ history alongside an historical fiction enchanted by the tale woven by the writer who not only is a story teller but a researcher.  

Finding Colin Falconer has awakened that delight I’ve known again and again though less with age. I sometimes feel jaded and a bit ‘bored’ by modern writers, like the too predictable detective story.  I liked reading Tannis Laidlaw recently who adds to the Agatha Christie genre.  As a psychologist her insights into humans are so engaging. Colin Falconer though does all of this and more with his intimate grasp of ideas ,brilliant caracterization and the truly epic adventure tale.  

Thank you.  I now have quite a few books to read when the books shelves were less well stocked than those of the young man. That young man simply soared to meet Dostoyevsky,  William Somerset Maugham , Winston Churchill and H.G. Wells. Now it takes an Abraham Verghese , Cutting the Stone to lift me out of older age and that ennui so well written of in the Bonfire of the Vanities.

Thank you, Colin Falconer for being a truly inspirational  author that keeps me up late at night, glad to be alive, looking forward to the next page like a child enthralled by the campfire tale. . 

Capadocia - Fairy Chimneys, Pigeons Roosts and Christian Cave Churches

My guide, Mehmet Buyukata (buyukata_mehmet@hotmail.com) at the Kayseri Airport which about an hours drive from Capaodocia. It’s the closest airport.  He was a delightful man with excellent engllish who in addition to guiding taught History and Comparative Religions at the Univeristy. His knowledge of the local area was superb with all manner of detail about the migrations and churches and the people who had passed through or stayed in the area. He’s also a very safe driver and responsible father of three children.
“This is the Silk Road.  The trade in spices, silk, gold and silver travelled along this road.  Because of the fear of bandits they built cavaraseries along the route where people could stop for the night. The caravans could only cover about 40 miles a day. "
.










Mehmet pointed out that snow  fell through a hole in the roof to a pool beneath. It was used for water in the winter but in summer the area was covered over and long into the summer they had  ice and cold water.
The terrain of cappadoecia was exciting. A volcano had formed much of it.  Most significantly the yellow rock which was light made for excellent building material. The  rock was also soft so that caves could be dug easily.  The area is rich in potatoes and when there’s a bumper harvest the price goes down. Farmers then load them into the cool caves and wait till the price rises with scarcity to make a profit.
Nature made the fairy chimneys and people had superstitions around them. They had a mushroom shape.  In the hills up high, people built their cave homes and had cave churches because this was safer from enemies. Also it was above the mosquitoes and others bugs, cool in the summer and warm in winter.  Today there are cave hotels where tourists can stay.
















Mehmet told me that the country has always been goo
d for farming but that the best fertilizer is pigeon quano.  So people kept pigeons and men even got wives based on the number of pigeons they kept and the amount of quano they could produce. The pigeons were kept in the holes in the hills. Today they’re bred more for beauty. They're kept in little caves still and the guano is still important as fertilizer. The area is famous for its potatoes but increasingly tourism is becoming the big industry,.







Those two holes are the church I was in.

.

View from inside the church, looking out.








Another church.