The Half Known Life: Finding Paradise in a Divided World by Pico Iyer

I’d previously read and enjoyed ‘A beginners guide to Japan’ by Pico Iyer, listening to it on audiobook whilst on my trip through that country. He also contributes a series on the Waking up App, on how travel can be a practice of stillness, focus and self-discovery.

So this immediately appealed to me - a journey through places such as Iran and North Korea, India and Kashmir, the Australian outback and Belfast. He’s chosen these particular locations because they have claimed or imagined to be paradise, but have also been scarred by conflict.

Belfast

I was particularly eager to hear what he had to say about Belfast, a city I have lived and spent a fair bit of time in. I know enough about it’s history, so it didn’t bother me that he only gave a brief mention to the recent past, with reference to peace walls and black taxi tours.

He was on his own personal quest here - as a student who’d loved Van Morrison, he was on the trail of the Belfast cowboy and the places that inspired ‘Astral Weeks’. (By sheer coincidence, as I write this ‘And the healing has begun’ plays on Lyric FM - the always excellent ‘Mystery Train’ with John Kelly).

He views the city as a paradise transformed by Morrisons lyrics. East Belfast is grey and industrial, but when he stumbles onto Cypress Avenue something awakens within, and ‘He’d made of the unpromising landscape a world as magically illuminated as Avalon'.’

Kashmir and Iran

I found these sections interesting - in Iran he often finds himself under surveillance, and relies on a couple of local guides. What becomes apparent is that the deep piety of the people coexists with modern fashions and secular desires. There’s a poetic quality to his meetings with people, especially when he goes to Shiraz, and you get the sense that the inner life can flourish despite the external constraints.

There’s something haunting about Kashmir- a beautiful paradise, but deeply troubled. His mother was born there, so there’s a personal element to his journey there which added depth to his experience. This becomes a sort of ancestral pilgrimage, and I got the sense that it’s difficult to trust the stillness of this particular Eden when it’s so volatile.

Japan, North Korea and Sri Lanka

I enjoyed his thoughts on Kyoto, where the traditional and the modern collide - on my recent visit I did see the incongruence with visiting some beautiful shrines with hordes of other tourists. A stunning city, but you have to work hard to find stillness and silence there.

His visit to North Korea allows him to look beyond the propaganda and see the portrayal of the people as not accurate - but this particular paradise on earth seems far from that description.

Sri Lanka is a natural paradise ‘soaked in blood’ and torn asunder by conflict. Looking for peace here is more difficult, and the ‘calmest place in the land was a city of the dead’. 

Audiobook

I really wish I had read rather than listened to this book. Pico is a lovely narrator, with a natural warmth to his voice, but too often I wanted to slow down and take in some of his observations. I just find that hard to do with audiobooks, so that’s my fault rather than an issue with the format.

Summary

Pico Iyer doesn’t go to the picture postcard places to find paradise - instead he asks what it means to find peace and stillness in a fractured world. Scattered amongst his travels he weaves in personal and philosophical insights from Zen, Sufism and Christian mysticism, to name a few. He’s a perfect travel companion.

By the end of the book, it seemed to me that the greatest journey of all that we undertake is that which goes inward. Someone else once said that the Kingdom of God is within us, and I’m happy to go along with that.

"I would just let life come to me in all its happy confusion and find the holiness in that. I sat where I was, along the river, and watched the carnival play out."

I no longer include Amazon links in my reviews. Please support your local library and bookshops. Libby is also great.

If you do wish to purchase online, feel free to support independent bookshops and contribute to the hosting of this website by purchasing via Bookshop.org