Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place [Lingua Inglese] - Rilegato

Philip Marsden

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1847086284 ISBN 13: 9781847086280

Casa editrice: Granta, 2014

Riassunto

Why do we react so strongly to certain places? Why do layers of mythology build up around particular features in the landscape? When Philip Marsden moved to a remote creekside farmhouse in Cornwall, the intensity of his response took him aback. It led him to begin exploring these questions, prompting a journey westwards to Land's End through one of the most fascinating regions of Europe. From the Neolithic ritual landscape of Bodmin Moor to the Arthurian traditions of Tintagel, from the mysterious china-clay country to the granite tors and tombs of the far south-west, Marsden assembles a chronology of our shifting attitudes to place. In archives, he uncovers the life and work of other 'topophiles' before him - medieval chroniclers and Tudor topographers, eighteenth-century antiquarians, post-industrial poets and abstract painters. Drawing also on his own travels overseas, Marsden reveals that the shape of the land lies not just at the heart of our history but of man's perennial struggle to belong on this earth.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

'Fascinating and hauntingly evocative... Philip Marsden has written a truly wonderful and enjoyable book' --Jan Morris, Literary Review

'Equally entertaining and enlightening... Marsden's references are glittering. This is a timely volume, describing in beautiful prose the opulence of our natural and human fabric. Guaranteed to fill the windows of Cornish bookshops, it is a superb and educative work which should be read everywhere' --Horatio Clare, Independent

'With an astonishingly keen eye for detail and a beguiling gift for the description of landscape... This is an extraordinary, complex and fascinating book. It is not just about Cornwall; it is also about the human endeavour to make meaning of life' --Justin Cartwright, Spectator

'Marsden is a born writer. Elegance seems as natural to his prose as the breeze from the west to his adopted homeland. He wears his learning lightly, and his curiosity is boundless' --Sunday Telegraph

'It is Marsden's close attention to the immediacy of his experience - the shape of the particular hill, the sound of the curlew's cry in the early hours, the feel of heather crunching beneath his feet - that keeps him, and us, interested in this journey' --Financial Times

'His writing weaves cultural and natural history in a book which is both memoir and travelogue. Every rock, hill and cliff holds a tale or a legend and Rising Ground shows that such landscapes are not just close to our hearts but are a crucial part of our culture too' --Geographical Magazine

'Marsden has a gift, not only for language and metaphor, but also for imagining places as they have felt to others. Marsden recreates their works - and in the process, finds a Cornwall of his own' --Economist

'Marsden's often solo walk is described in such evocative detail readers can envisage the rough Cornish landscape without previous knowledge of it. His probing yet conversational writing style includes an excellent command of simile. Both informative and entertaining' --Irish Examiner

'His writing is just so good. Short, pacey chapters and an intimate and aphoristic style complement his powerful evocation of different terrains' --Guardian

'Pitch-perfect prose' --'Book of the year' in the Scotsman

'Marsden writes with charm and passion... Its conclusions come in vivid epiphanies scattered throughout the text. Rising Ground... wears its philosophy lightly and informs as it entertains. It is beautifully written, and a labour of love' --Times Literary Supplement

'The beauty of Marsden's book is that, although it is thoroughly researched and rigorously argued, it comes across as the result of experience, the close frequenting of that characterful region....The extraordinary richness of daily perceptions and antiquarian knowledge assembled in Rising Ground never feels like a tray of specimens laid out for inspection' --London Review of Books

'The most incredible book'

'From one of the most celebrated non-fiction writers working today, Rising Ground takes the reader on a powerfully evocative walk through Cornwall's ritual sites and explores the profound relationship between man and landscape'-- Western Morning News

'Marsden's beautiful search for the spirit of a place, [in] Rising Ground, [makes it] a book that is genuinely essential for all of us, from whom place is being stolen on a daily basis.' -- John Burnside, the Independent --Clare Balding, BBC Radio Ramblings

'The beauty of Marsden's book is that, although it is thoroughly researched and rigorously argued, it comes across as the result of experience, the close frequenting of that characterful region....The extraordinary richness of daily perceptions and antiquarian knowledge assembled in Rising Ground never feels like a tray of specimens laid out for inspection' --London Review of Books

L'autore:

PHILIP MARSDEN is the award-winning author of a number of works of travel, fiction and non-fiction, including The Bronski House, The Spirit-Wrestlers, and The Levelling Sea. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and his work has been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Cornwall.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Granta
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1847086284
• ISBN 13: 9781847086280
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 368