An Evil Cradling

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This is the book Keenan has written. An imaginative exploration of the man. Another kind of cradling, you could say, though this time benevolent. Keenan visits Turlough on his deathbed, comes into the room where he is dying, much as Turlough came to him in his room when he was in despair. And through Keenan's book Turlough is reborn not as a musician, not as a historical character, but as a man. "Fleshy, honest, frail, complex." And if this sounds like a self-portrait, it may be that, too. There are echoes here, too, of Eliot's lines in his great poem Journey Of The Magi: "I had seen birth and death/ But had thought they were different; this birth was/ Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death." And ... "I should be glad of another death." Patiently the Balrog lifted the skin to him once more, and gratefully he drained it. Somewhat refreshed then he shifted himself slightly, the heels of his boots crunched as they slid across the gravel, and he pushed himself a little more upright against the wooden post that crushed between his shoulder-blades. Gothmog watched his motions neutrally, but as a wince crossed Maedhros’ face as he settled himself, the Valarauka reached for the gag once more. Frenzied hands clutched to him; shrill panic trembled in Maedhros’ throat, anger and terror waged their devastating war within him but through filth-stained lips he screamed, “Stop! Stop, let me go! Let me go!”

Keenan's parents are both dead – his father's death was pivotal in his decision to go to Beirut. It was as he carried his father's coffin that he made the decision to leave Belfast, and to seek a new life overseas as a teacher at the American University in Beirut. At the time of the kidnap he was wearing one of his father's shirts, and that connection was a crumb of comfort to him – in An Evil Cradling, he writes movingly about how his dad became "not simply a memory but … a real presence … a presence I could feel more than see, a comforting reassurance that eased the hurt into a deeply filled sadness, yet that same sadness as it became reflective, lifted me". His mother died in 2004 having survived his captivity – something she rarely spoke about, Keenan says. "It was her way," he explains. "When I came home she didn't ask, and I didn't tell much at all. My sisters told me that when I was away she didn't speak much about what was happening. When there were rumours that I might be coming home, though, she knitted me a sweater."And so it began. His re-emergence into a world he thought he knew, the world he had left behind, but different now. Not so much because the world had changed, or even because he himself had changed. But because his place in the world had changed. He went into the cell Brian Keenan, an unknown university teacher from Belfast. He then became Brian Keenan, the disappeared. Fury swelled in Maedhros’ heart as he saw their lines break into a sprint, the outrage of betrayal squalled in his veins but tightly he gripped to it, he mastered it, and as Fëanor’s son revealed in the fey glory of his wrath he drew his sword, and aloud he cried: “Hold fast! Ortaerë, mehtarnya! Ortaerë!” His brothers fretted as he had armed himself: Caranthir rumbled out his worries as a squire garbed Maedhros in a magnificent breastplate of burnished steel, Curufin scowled down at Huan flopped by his feet as Maedhros tightened the gleaming bracers upon his arms and rolled out his shoulders within his newly smelted pauldrons. Amras held tightly to little Celebrimbor curled up and dozing in his lap, and Celegorm stood tightly at his side, worrying at the cuticle of his nail until Maedhros was sure that he must have torn it beyond all repair. Finally Maglor ceased his worrisome pacing, the rhythmic tread of his steps had sent a faint tinge of nausea rolling through Maedhros’ stomach; he passed Maedhros his sword sheathed within its ornate scabbard, and with every ounce of willpower in him Maedhros forced himself to ignore just how hard his brother’s fingers were shaking. But inevitably there are reminders, some of them funny. "We were in a taxi together in London, and the driver kept looking at us in his mirror," says Keenan. "And then he came through on his intercom and he said: 'Sorry to interrupt you gentlemen, but I couldn't help asking … wouldn't you be more comfortable travelling in the boot?'"

That survival is mutual. Everyone there had to put a part of themselves on the table for everyone else to take what they needed." So, until the debt was clear, he would not be free to act. He is a very unusual man, in many ways no doubt. But in one way in particular. He is not prepared to be cynical. Unmodern, you could say, in that way. When he was finally released, Keenan famously told journalists that he intended to "make love to every woman in the world", before realising that imprisonment had left him horribly vulnerable and that he should steer clear of a big love affair. Then, having decided after all not to leap into the arms of the first woman who crossed his newly liberated path, he ended up doing precisely that: Audrey Doyle, who became his wife in 1993, was the physiotherapist charged with helping to build up his muscles again. Celegorm’s words turned in his mind, but Maedhros would not allow them to daunt him. For as the ranks of his retinue formed up behind him, as Gaelor loosed his banner and Orellë sounded a triumphant horn to the skies above, as the drum of galloping hooves filled his ears, grim, unyielding resolve settled in Maedhros’ stomach, and it would not be undone. Bind him tightly, now,” a Valarauka boomed, and the orcs seemed set aflame to hear their commander’s encouragement. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ To your posts, now!” the captain thundered; a blast of heat shimmered through the air as it roared: “Else I will have you flayed for insubordination, you and your miserable company alike!”

Within the stirrups he rose, he touched his spurs once more to his horse’s flanks and gave the beast its head, and he let the tender night wash over him as they sped away across the plains. It was as a hostage in Beirut, facing the possibility that he might be executed at any moment, that Brian Keenan realised how much being a father would mean to him. "I remember thinking, if I'm going to die here, my biggest regret is that I haven't had any kids," he says. "The feeling quite overwhelmed me." lbrandtr, DateDate, LiliBhd, labazow01, terreetsang, stabby24601, BelladoraManonAnnan1926, Zelasto, Seliel_Lapis07, Atmahatia, AroaceMoron, saurenil, Huorinde, cma_szpiegowska, A_freind, SinisterAugust, DeerGoBonk, TheReddestOfRoses, Moriel, Poppet_on_a_string, Overwatchful, Ethereia, czlowiekpomidor, Feanor_in_leather_pants, Littlecupofmocha, ofmindelans, Ekalita, Ennys, starillion, NevillesGran, dark_poet, ThirteenMagpies, Kyokou, am_fae, Ruiniel, localfrogcryptid, LandBelowTheWind, Maunakea, Thelien, Melkors_big_Tits, nulienna, linesofreturninggeese, The_crimson_angel_asha, Siana, somnia_vana, Pixelatedrabbit, Lucifer1412, kalytera, sea_hag_dominion, Nakht , and 143 more users The clamour of battle dwindled to the mournful keens of the dying, but in his fear Maedhros scarcely heard them. Before three monstrous Valaraukar he was dragged, and four burly uruks held him fast as their flame-filled eyes appraised him.Y’hear that, snaga,” a deep voice growled, and an iron-shod boot clipped into the side of Maedhros’ thigh an instant later. “My boys should ‘ave their fun with you. Such troubles we took with you, you might give us a little pleasure in return…” A tangle of voices jeered, and rigidly Maedhros held himself still as their scorn crashed down upon him.

In his book he writes. "It is memory that ages us not time." The mind forgets nothing, he says. "I may forget things, but the mind doesn't." In captivity he found himself remembering details from his childhood, things that he didn't even know he knew. "I could smell the linoleum in the house I grew up in. I could feel, twirl in my hand, the earrings that my mother wore when I was a child and she'd carry me in her arms." So he knows, however much he says, what happened in Beirut is the past. "It's like a book I can take down from a shelf and read it and replace." We were just friends for a long time, before it led to anything else," says Audrey. "All the same, some people thought I'd just emerged from nowhere and predicted it would never last." Stubbornly - it is stubbornness that he considers his principal trait - he has resisted having an identity foisted on him. And this has served him well. But intransigence, as he points out, can carry its own terrible consequences. "If I believe something, I believe it passionately and no one will change it. It's awful. I am old enough to know better, old enough to rationalise things. But, with me, belief has to be a hundred per cent." So he can understand, he says, what happened in Beirut. "The ramifications of that sort of belief. Why they took hostages. How they came to murder six people. I don't approve. But I can understand it." Much as Turlough was able to reconcile his two worlds - Ireland the physical place with all its history, "which, though he couldn't see what was going on around him, he could sense", and his own inner life, through music - this book becomes Keenan's reconciliation, the means finally by which he can take control again of his own destiny. You could also say that it signals Ireland's destiny - which is not English control. "I do believe that this island should be one land." All of which makes it a bold book. Keenan is nervous, he says. "It hasn't gone out to the public yet. I think that maybe the people who have read my books before will find this a strange departure." But then this is, of course, its point.All that effort for this miserable pig?” A sneering voice whined before him, and Maedhros started as amid the slurred intonations of misshapen lips, he recognised the corrupt, basal form of archaic Quenya, and the orc’s crude words seared through him. “Nar, should’ve gutted him in the hollow, left him red and gasping with the rest of them.”