Format:
225 Seiten :
,
Illustrationen.
ISBN:
978-0-224-09835-9
,
0224098357
Content:
Graveyards are oases- places of escape, of peace and reflection. Each is a garden or nature reserve, but also a site of commemoration, where the past is close enough to touch- a liminal place, at the border of the living world. Jean Sprackland's prize-winning book, Strands, brought to life the histories of objects found on a beach. These Silent Mansions is also an uncovering of individual stories- vivid, touching and intimately told. Sprackland travels back through her own life, revisiting graveyards in the ordinary towns and cities she has called home, seeking out others who lived, died and are remembered or forgotten there. With her poet's eye, she makes chance discoveries among the stones and inscriptions- a notorious smuggler tucked up in a sleepy churchyard; ancient coins unearthed on a secret burial ground; a slow-worm basking in the sun. These Silent Mansions is an elegant, exhilarating meditation on the relationship between the living and the dead, the nature of time and loss, and how - in this restless, accelerated world - we can connect the here with the elsewhere, the present with the past
Note:
Preface: old haunts -- The graveyard in spring; Taxus baccata; By flaming tortures tried; Momento mori -- The graveyard at dawn; A small resurrection; The Harkirk -- The drowned graveyard; Forever; Rapparee; A wing and a prayer -- The graveyard at dusk; Miasma; Oh lovely child; Blue -- The graveyard in winter; Proof; The rosary; Ruin -- The graveyard in autumn; St Agnes of Blean; Private view; Desires -- The graveyard in summer; Bright and sad; Reaper; Square 6 -- Graveyard charms and tributes; Dust; Green; Anguis fragilis
Additional Edition:
ebook version ISBN 9781448182442
Language:
English
Subjects:
English Studies