LitNetIsGreat
02-06-2011, 12:04 PM
“It has got a marvellous morning freshness – there is hardly a sentence in it that does not set the senses of touch and smell, as well as sight and hearing, tingling.”
Daily Mail.
“It sings in the memory.” Sunday Times.
I’ve got to admit I came to this little book wanting a bit of nostalgic, rural escapism (don’t ask) and I wasn’t at all disappointed. It does all of that brilliantly, but what I wasn’t at all expecting was the realistic harshness of village life as well – the frankness and humour in which Laurie Lee details his memoir of 1920s village life. It was soon clear that this was not just going to be a poetic, rose-tinted piece of nostalgia at all, but actually something much more rounded.
You get a progression of Laurie growing up, his school life, his home life, brothers and sisters – his mad mother etc, but it at no time tries to be a novel if you know what I mean? Not that it loses anything for that mind. What you have here is a collection of sketches of rural life which I found simply absorbing. Yes it is southern England, Cotswolds, but it could just about be anywhere:
Through the dead hours of the morning, though the long afternoons, we chanted away at our tables. Passers-by could hear our rising voices in our bottle-up room on the bank; “Twelve-inches-one-foot. Three-feet-make-a-yard. Fourteen-pounds-make-a-stone. Eight-stone-a-hundred-weight.” We absorbed these figures as primal truths declared by some ultimate power. Unhearing, unquestioning, we rocked to our chanting, hammering the gold nails home. “Twice-two-are-four. One-God-is-Love. One-Lord-is-King. One-King-is-George. One-George-is-Fifth…”So it was always; had been, would be for ever; we asked no questions; we didn’t hear what we said; yet neither did we ever forget it.
There’s no wastage in this book either. It’s littered with vivid scenes of life on just about every page, drawn in a loving prose style that’s quite attractive indeed.
They hitched up their stockings, patted their hats, and went running up the bank. This was the hour when walkers and bicyclists flowed down the long hills to Stroud, when the hooters called through the morning dews and factories puffed out their plumes. From each crooked corner of Stroud’s five valleys girls were running to shops and looms, with sleep in their eyes, and eggy cheeks, and in their ears night voices fading.
As I say though don’t be fooled into thinking this book is just a light-hearted piece. There’s plenty of harsh reality in there too, often spiced with black humour.
The wet winter days seemed at times unending, and quite often they led to self-slaughter. Girls jumped down wells, young men cut their veins, spinsters locked themselves up and starved. There was something spendthrift about such gestures, a scorn of life and complaining, and those who took to them where never censured, but were spoken about in a special voice as though their actions raised them above the living and defeated the misery of the world. Even so such outbursts were often contagious and could lead to waves of throat-cutting; indeed, during one particularly gloomy season even the coroner did himself in.
If I had to rate the book on a scale of one to five cider apples, I would probably put it somewhere between four and five. It just lacks a little something to be a truly great piece (maybe the prose is forced just a little in places if I am being really harsh, and I would have wanted more of the Rosie affair) but overall, it is a very solid work and I will be reading it again for sure, sooner rather than later. Definitely recommended. :thumbsup:
Daily Mail.
“It sings in the memory.” Sunday Times.
I’ve got to admit I came to this little book wanting a bit of nostalgic, rural escapism (don’t ask) and I wasn’t at all disappointed. It does all of that brilliantly, but what I wasn’t at all expecting was the realistic harshness of village life as well – the frankness and humour in which Laurie Lee details his memoir of 1920s village life. It was soon clear that this was not just going to be a poetic, rose-tinted piece of nostalgia at all, but actually something much more rounded.
You get a progression of Laurie growing up, his school life, his home life, brothers and sisters – his mad mother etc, but it at no time tries to be a novel if you know what I mean? Not that it loses anything for that mind. What you have here is a collection of sketches of rural life which I found simply absorbing. Yes it is southern England, Cotswolds, but it could just about be anywhere:
Through the dead hours of the morning, though the long afternoons, we chanted away at our tables. Passers-by could hear our rising voices in our bottle-up room on the bank; “Twelve-inches-one-foot. Three-feet-make-a-yard. Fourteen-pounds-make-a-stone. Eight-stone-a-hundred-weight.” We absorbed these figures as primal truths declared by some ultimate power. Unhearing, unquestioning, we rocked to our chanting, hammering the gold nails home. “Twice-two-are-four. One-God-is-Love. One-Lord-is-King. One-King-is-George. One-George-is-Fifth…”So it was always; had been, would be for ever; we asked no questions; we didn’t hear what we said; yet neither did we ever forget it.
There’s no wastage in this book either. It’s littered with vivid scenes of life on just about every page, drawn in a loving prose style that’s quite attractive indeed.
They hitched up their stockings, patted their hats, and went running up the bank. This was the hour when walkers and bicyclists flowed down the long hills to Stroud, when the hooters called through the morning dews and factories puffed out their plumes. From each crooked corner of Stroud’s five valleys girls were running to shops and looms, with sleep in their eyes, and eggy cheeks, and in their ears night voices fading.
As I say though don’t be fooled into thinking this book is just a light-hearted piece. There’s plenty of harsh reality in there too, often spiced with black humour.
The wet winter days seemed at times unending, and quite often they led to self-slaughter. Girls jumped down wells, young men cut their veins, spinsters locked themselves up and starved. There was something spendthrift about such gestures, a scorn of life and complaining, and those who took to them where never censured, but were spoken about in a special voice as though their actions raised them above the living and defeated the misery of the world. Even so such outbursts were often contagious and could lead to waves of throat-cutting; indeed, during one particularly gloomy season even the coroner did himself in.
If I had to rate the book on a scale of one to five cider apples, I would probably put it somewhere between four and five. It just lacks a little something to be a truly great piece (maybe the prose is forced just a little in places if I am being really harsh, and I would have wanted more of the Rosie affair) but overall, it is a very solid work and I will be reading it again for sure, sooner rather than later. Definitely recommended. :thumbsup: