Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Shamrock Tea is an Irish drug that enables its users to see things not given to ordinary mortals. They can sense colours and sounds more vividly; they can penetrate the surface of paintings; they can cross time. The narrator, his cousin and a strange Belgian friend know that their lives are ruled mysteriously by the great van Eyck painting, The Arnolfini Portrait, and they have travelled in dream like moments through the painting into other times. They discover that each moment is connected to every other. But in the strange world of Shamrock Tea, no story can be straightforward. With a cast of characters that includes the gardener Ludwig Wittgenstein, this book will blow your mind.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Paris Green (p. 1)
• 2 Dragon's Blood (p. 4)
• 3 Flesh (p. 7)
• 4 Scarlet (p. 10)
• 5 Gallaher's Blue (p. 13)
• 6 Lavender (p. 16)
• 7 Pearl (p. 19)
• 8 Tobacco (p. 22)
• 9 Rust (p. 25)
• 10 Serpentine (p. 28)
• 11 Blood Green (p. 31)
• 12 Blue Rocket (p. 34)
• 13 Orange (p. 37)
• 14 Raven (p. 40)
• 15 Irish Rose (p. 43)
• 16 Snow White (p. 46)
• 17 Oxblood (p. 49)
• 18 Milk (p. 52)
• 19 Hyacinth (p. 55)
• 20 Lapis Lazuli (p. 58)
• 21 Permanent Black (p. 61)
• 22 Delft Blue (p. 64)
• 23 Belladonna (p. 67)
• 24 Beryl (p. 70)
• 25 Smoke (p. 73)
• 26 Venetian Red (p. 76)
• 27 Forget-me-not (p. 79)
• 28 Vermilion (p. 82)
• 29 Firmament (p. 85)
• 30 Coffee (p. 88)
• 31 Shamrock (p. 91)
• 32 Carnelian (p. 94)
• 33 Redcoat Red (p. 97)
• 34 Emerald (p. 100)
• 35 Virgin Black (p. 103)
• 36 Beguine Blue (p. 106)
• 37 Gilt (p. 109)
• 38 Passionflower (p. 112)
• 39 Parrot Green (p. 115)
• 40 Flanders Blue (p. 118)
• 41 Carbon Black (p. 121)
• 42 Moss Rose (p. 124)
• 43 Honey (p. 127)
• 44 Ultra-violet (p. 130)
• 45 Beeswax (p. 133)
• 46 Camel (p. 136)
• 47 Gold (p. 139)
• 48 Pencil Blue (p. 142)
• 49 Jaffa Orange (p. 145)
• 50 Wittgenstein Blue (p. 148)
• 51 Rhinoceros Black (p. 151)
• 52 Unicorn White (p. 154)
• 53 Panel-Lamp Red (p. 157)
• 54 Danube Blue (p. 160)
• 55 Bourne Brown (p. 163)
• 56 Sardonyx (p. 166)
• 57 Parchment (p. 169)
• 58 Indian White (p. 172)
• 59 Yellow Pages Yellow (p. 175)
• 60 Dorian Gray (p. 178)
• 61 Gallaher's Green (p. 181)
• 62 Powder Pink (p. 184)
• 63 Hooker's Green (p. 187)
• 64 Clerical Purple (p. 190)
• 65 Hyde Green (p. 193)
• 66 Lilac Haze (p. 196)
• 67 Bee Green (p. 199)
• 68 Doll's Eye Blue (p. 202)
• 69 Primrose (p. 205)
• 70 Verdigris (p. 208)
• 71 Green Rose (p. 211)
• 72 Thorn Pink (p. 214)
• 73 Cinnamon (p. 217)
• 74 Carnation (p. 220)
• 75 Honeydew (p. 223)
• 76 Brick Red (p. 226)
• 77 Silk Black (p. 229)
• 78 Poppy (p. 232)
• 79 Whiskey (p. 235)
• 80 Saffron (p. 238)
• 81 Red Hen (p. 241)
• 82 Pawnbroker's Gold (p. 244)
• 83 Amber (p. 247)
• 84 Uniform Green (p. 250)
• 85 Burgundy (p. 253)
• 86 Seasick Green (p. 256)
• 87 Pyrenean Blue (p. 259)
• 88 Claret (p. 262)
• 89 Oak (p. 265)
• 90 Dragon Green (p. 268)
• 91 Orange Tea (p. 271)
• 92 Madder (p. 274)
• 93 Heliotrope (p. 277)
• 94 Imperial Blue (p. 280)
• 95 Red Silk (p. 283)
• 96 Bordeaux Red (p. 286)
• 97 White Linen (p. 289)
• 98 Myrrh (p. 292)
• 99 Chameleon (p. 295)
• 100 Bible Black (p. 298)
• 101 Blank (p. 301)

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Chapter One Paris Green Perhaps I will return one day to the world I first entered. For now, I wish to record something of it, if only to remind myself of what I am.     The first things I remember are the colours of my bedroom wallpaper, and their chalky taste under my fingernails. It would, of course, be years before I learned what the shades were called, which leads me to my first paint-box. Hooker's Green, Vermilion, Prussian Blue, Burnt Sienna: I knew stories must lie behind those names, and I resolved to discover them some day.     As I learned to speak, I understood that green was the colour of jealousy. But I did not know yet that Napoleon, on the isle of St Helena, was supposed to have died from breathing the fumes of his bedroom wallpaper, which was liberally tinted with the arsenic-laced pigment known as Emerald, or Paris Green; nor did I know that a green moon shone in the sky for weeks after Krakatoa disintegrated on 28 August 1883, the feast day of St Monica, mother of St Augustine.     In the Confessions , Augustine speaks with awe of the vast cloisters of his memory, which is an immeasurable sanctuary for countless images of all kinds. Perplexed by time -- since the present has no duration and past and future do not exist -- he concludes that the measure of time must be memory; hence a long past is a long remembrance of the past.     In Church liturgy, which is a measure of time, green is the colour of hope, and the priest wears green vestments on the Sundays between Whitsuntide and Advent. When Nero, in his savage persecution of the Christians, had them sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs, he is reputed to have peered at the spectacle through a prism of green beryl, which has magnifying properties. Otherwise, green is the colour of the planet Venus, and therefore of love and fertility.     The Greeks thought green to be associated with Hermaphroditus, son of blue Hermes and yellow Aphrodite. Green is ambiguous. It is the colour of aliens, or of creatures who dwell in the underworld, as illustrated by the following legend: On 20 July 1434, at the hour of tierce as told by the great Belfry of Bruges, in Flanders, two green-skinned twin children -- a boy and a girl of about thirteen -- materialized from a storm-grating in the town square, clothed in garments of what appeared to be frogskin. They were dripping wet. Crying bitterly, they were brought to the nearby house of Arnolfini, a respected Italian merchant. Questioning them in various languages and dialects, he found they responded well to Attic Greek. In their land, they said, it was always twilight. It was called St Martin's Land: that saint was much revered there, since he had descended from the upper world and made them Christians. Yesterday they had been tending their flocks of dragons and had followed them into a cave. They heard a sound of distant bells, in which they discerned the voices of angels calling to them. Led by the voices, they had climbed up a flight of steps roughly hewn in the rock, to emerge in a brilliant light.     The children were baptized. It was quickly established that they would eat no food save beans, and after several weeks of this diet their green hue noticeably diminished. Shortly afterwards, the boy died. The girl, who was somewhat wanton, lived long as a servant to the Arnolfini household. There is no further record of her fate; but it was noted, and remembered by the people of Bruges, that the day on which the green children had first come into this world was the feast of St Margaret of Antioch. Excerpted from SHAMROCK TEA by Ciaran Carson. Copyright © 2001 by Ciaran Carson. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Imagine an Irish Borges constructing a Chinese puzzle of a text, describing his characters with Nabokovian relish and concocting a plot reminiscent of Dickens, H.G. Wells and The X-Files and you'll have an idea what Carson's fourth book of prose is like. In lapidary sentences, this fiction proceeds jigsaw-like through 101 brief chapters, each titled for a color from Paris Green to Bible Black. (Cataloguing more shades than anyone might imagine, the table of contents alone is worth the price of the book.) Although the narrator is introduced in the novel's first lines, he reveals surprisingly little about himself, not even his first name. (His surname turns out to be Carson.) Instead, he tells us about Napoleon dying on St. Helena from the fumes of Paris Green and proceeds to discuss Jan van Eyck's double portrait of Arnolfini and his bride, a painting whose importance grows as the novel progresses. Wending his way through the lives of the saints, the lives of Lambert and Jan van Eyck, the lives of Wittgenstein, Conan Doyle and Wilde, Carson craftily unfolds his story about young Carson; his cousin, Berenice; his schoolmate Maeterlinck; and a mission they can fulfill only by sipping Shamrock Tea and slipping into the world of Jan van Eyck's double portrait. This meander through fact and fiction is not new to Carson, a prize-winning Belfast poet, who in past works has turned his peripatetic mind from Ovid's Metamorphoses to Irish fairy tales to etymology and traditional Irish music. This mode clearly suits him, but because the disparate tales do not coalesce until late in this work, readers may lose patience, especially as the characters are "allowed no inner thoughts." But as a meditation on time and art, Carson's book sets its own benchmark. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

This fantasy, long-listed for the Booker Prize, introduces a well-known Irish poet and novelist to a North American audience. Imagine shamrock tea as a strong hallucinogenic drug like LSD: users' senses are expanded, allowing them to experience colors, sounds, and events more fully. Three teenagers--the narrator, Carson; his cousin, Celestine; and a Belgian friend, Maeterlinck--discover that the tea also allows them to penetrate a work of art, in this case, van Eyck's great painting known as The Arnolfini Wedding (although Carson prefers the title The Arnolfini Portrait). In their explorations within and without the painting, they encounter a cast of characters that includes the philosopher (and gardener) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Carson weaves a web as shimmery and strong as a spider's, entrapping readers in a story that is maddening, entrancing, and mysterious. Definitely not for every taste, but those readers who are willing to let themselves be seduced by the series of interlocking tales will find much to enjoy. --Nancy Pearl

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Ciaran Carson was born in 1948 in Belfast. He has been awarded the Irish Times Literature Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Yorkshire Post Prize