ARARAT, BY FRANK WESTERMAN TRANS. SAM GARRETT
Reviewed by Peter Stanford

Independent.co.uk
Friday, 12 September 2008

Up the mystic mountain in a flight from faith

In their unceasing efforts to convince the rest of us that every single
line of the Good Book is literally true, Bible fundamentalists have
long been fond of undertaking treks to "prove" that some landmark
events of the Old Testament did take place. So Mount Ararat, in
present-day Turkey, has been trawled for signs that Noah’s Ark did
end up, as Genesis 8:4 claims, beached on its peak once the flood
receded. Fragments of old wood have been claimed as sections of the
rudder of the ark, and rock formations highlighted as evidence of
the skid marks where the prow of the zoo ship came to rest.

Frank Westerman touches briefly on several such escapades in Ararat,
but his approach to scaling this iconic mountain is altogether
different – and more intriguing. His climb is an assault on his own
loss of belief in God and an exploration of the current abyss that
exists between religion and science. As he circles the foothills of
Ararat, Westerman also travels back to his high school and university
teachers in search of ballast as the rational explanations of science
that seemed so watertight to him begin to spring leaks.

His questioning throws him back on childhood memories – not just
of being spoon-fed a tradi tional Christianity, but of a brush,
through his father’s involvement with the oil industry in his native
Netherlands, with the destruction of a drilling rig in Drenthe in
1965. Unexplained events ultimately caused the earth to erupt and
swallow the rig whole. Nature apparently defeated scientific progress.

Part memoir, part philosophical tome, part travelogue, Ararat is
an ambitious and attractive book. Its tone is learned, thoughtful
and usually intimate, for which part of the credit must go to the
translator, Sam Garrett.

Fundamentalists are fond of finding answers to every earthly
dilemma, but those expecting either trite platitudes or the dodgy
archaeological theories that make for headline-grabbing bestsellers
will be disappointed.

Westerman’s pilgrimage doesn’t have a happy or neat ending.

Once he has negotiated the politics that surround Ararat – standing
on disputed land between Armenia, Turkey and Iran – his climb becomes
an ordeal. Cold, sore and forced to make his ascent with less than
congenial Czech companions, he finds himself wondering if he has set
out with the wrong idea.

At one point he describes his whole project as "Job in reverse". Just
as Job is made to test his faith by Satan, acting as the chief
prosecutor in God’s heavenly court, Westerman is testing his own
unbelief. It is a finely balanced and well-told experiment that will
echo with many readers.

Peter Stanford’s latest book is ‘Teach Yourself Catholicism’