Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage (Paperback)

Tim Robinson

ISBN 10: 1590172779 / ISBN 13: 9781590172773

Editore: New York Review Books, New York, 2008

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Paperback. The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. After a visit with his wife in 1972, Tim Robinson moved to the islands, where he started making maps and gathering stories, eventually developing the idea for a cosmic history of Arainn, the largest of the three islands. Pilgrimage is the first of two volumes that make up Stones of Aran, in which Robinson maps the length and breadth of Arainn. Here he circles the entire island, following a clockwise, sunwise path in quest of the good step, in which walking itself becomes a form of attention and contemplation.Like Annie Dillards Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Bruce Chatwins In Patagonia, Stones of Aran is not only a meticulous and mesmerizing study of place but an entrancing and altogether unclassiable work of literature. Robinson explores Aran in both its elemental and mythical dimensions, taking us deep into the islands folklore, wildlife, names, habitations, and natural and human histories. Bringing to life the ongoing, forever unpredictable encounter between one man and a given landscape, Stones of Aran discovers worlds.Robinsons voyage continues in Stones of Aran: Labyrinth The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants' traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. After a visit with his wife in 1972, Tim Robinson moved to the islands, where he started making maps and gathering stories, and eventually developed the idea for this cosmic history of Arainn, the largest of the three islands. In "Pilgrimage," the first of two extraordinary volumes in which he maps the length and breadth of the island, he circles the entire shore of Arainn, a clockwise, sunwise circumambulation in quest for the "good step"-a true way of walking-which opens up onto everything that can be seen and known about a place. Like Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek "and Bruce Chatwin's "In Patagonia," Robinson's "Stones of Aran "is a book about a particular place that takes in worlds. As Robinson walks, drawing on his own personal history with the people and places of the island, he attends to folklore, wildflowers, immigration and emigration, natural history, and the Irish language. On every page is a breathtaking hymn to the cliff men, the shorebirds, the place-names, the scarred limestone of the land or the evocative stone ruins of an ancient fortress. But the book's real subject, as Robinson says, is the "unsummable totality of human perspectives." Robinson's exploration of Arainn continues when he turns inland from the shore in "Stones of Aran: Labyrinth,"" "which is forthcoming from NYRB Classics. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Codice articolo 9781590172773

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage (Paperback)
• Editore: New York Review Books, New York
• Data di pubblicazione: 2008
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1590172779
• ISBN 13: 9781590172773
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: new

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants’ traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants’ traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. After a visit with his wife in 1972, Tim Robinson moved to the islands, where he started making maps and gathering stories, eventually developing the idea for a cosmic history of Árainn, the largest of the three islands. Pilgrimage is the first of two volumes that make up Stones of Aran, in which Robinson maps the length and breadth of Árainn. Here he circles the entire island, following a clockwise, sunwise path in quest of the “good step,” in which walking itself becomes a form of attention and contemplation.

Like Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia, Stones of Aran is not only a meticulous and mesmerizing study of place but an entrancing and altogether unclassifiable work of literature. Robinson explores Aran in both its elemental and mythical dimensions, taking us deep into the island’s folklore, wildlife, names, habitations, and natural and human histories. Bringing to life the ongoing, forever unpredictable encounter between one man and a given landscape, Stones of Aran discovers worlds.

Robinson’s voyage continues in Stones of Aran: Labyrinth

Informazioni sull'autore

Tim Robinson was brought up in Yorkshire. He studied at Cambridge University and worked as a teacher and artist in Istanbul, Vienna, and London. In 1972 he moved to the Aran Islands, where he gained fame as a mapmaker. He learned Gaelic and began preserving Irish place-names, winning respect as an environmentalist and a Ford European Conversation Award. Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage, published in 1985, won the Irish Book Award Literature Medal and a Rooney Prize Special Award for Literature in 1987. His other books include Stones of Aran: Labyrinth, Setting Foot on the Shores of Connemara, and My Time in Space.

Robert Macfarlane's Mountains of the Mind (2003), about wilderness and the Western imagination, won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Guardian First Book Award, among other prizes.