The Literary Travel Blog

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:50:24 GMT

On Sylvia Townsend Warner at Chaldon and Frome Vauchurch in Dorset

Venice, Hemingway and Pound

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:54:18 GMT

Venice, Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound

Literary Festivals in the UK

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:31:00 GMT

A guide to literary festivals in the UK, with link details

Bridport Literary Festival

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:13:08 GMT

What's on at this year's Bridport Literary Festival in Dorset

Is the Amazon Kindle for you?

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:04:44 GMT

A beginner’s guide to enjoying the Amazon Kindle

A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:22:32 GMT

‘A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms’ Thomas Hardy, from The Hand of Ethelberta Reminds me of Notting Hill, the Richard Curtis film starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. I’m channelling Hardy today in preparation for guiding the cameraman and producer from an indie production company tomorrow, scouting the landscapes that inspired Hardy. Hoping for some good cloud formations in a clear(ish) sky so that the views from the high hills - for example at Bulbarrow, on the exposed slopes of which Tess laboured in the freezing winter digging turnips on ‘Flintcombe Farm’ – are at their magnificent best.

St James's

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:03:01 GMT

London Tours and Literary Trails: St James's Park and 18th century London

Henry Fielding in Lyme Regis (and in love)

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:55:19 GMT

The adventures of Henry Fielding at Lyme Regis, Dorset, for the purpose of carrying off an heiress

Mozart in London

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 09:05:54 GMT

London Tours and Literary Trails: A guide to Mozart in London, including private and group tours

For Inspiring Literary Travel, Tours & Adventures

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:19:04 GMT

Discover inspiring literary travel, trails and literary tours to explore great books and places, literary festivals and film locations

A literary tour of Salisbury

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:10:59 GMT

A literary tour of the city of Salisbury and surrounding areas, including Stonehenge

Translation, travel and the books we read

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:33:43 GMT

How translation changes books and travel can change the traveler

London: City of Words

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 08:34:16 GMT

A literary companion to London, exploring the lives, works and relationships of the writers who have lived in this city, from Chaucer to Zadie Smith

London Literary Trails and Tours

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:15:29 GMT

Explore London's rich literary history and geography with literary trails and tours including Shakespeare, Dickens, Johnson and Boswell ...

The Virginia Woolf Trail

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:03:01 GMT

The Virginia Woolf Trail explores the life and work of Virginia Woolf and members of the Bloomsbury Group

Thomas Hardy and Dorset

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:00:55 GMT

Thomas Hardy and Dorset: A Guide and Literary tour of Hardy's Wessex

Iris Murdoch

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:46:44 GMT

A series of walks in London relating to the novels of Iris Murdoch

A guide to Venice and writers drawn to this beautiful and mesmerizing city

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:23:46 GMT

Exploring Venice and writers drawn to this beautiful and mesmerizing city

Death in Venice - Don't Look Now

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:06:00 GMT

Explore Death in Venice, Don't Look Now and other stories of passion and intrigue

Venice, Caffe Florian and Casanova

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:37:21 GMT

Venice, Caffe Florian and Casanova, a history of glamour, intrigue and the pursuit of pleasure

Venice and Proust

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:16:15 GMT

Explore Marcel Proust in Venice, and Venice in Proust

Hampstead & Highgate Literary Festival

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:39:24 GMT

This, the third Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival, will be taking place once again at Ivy House, former home of prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, from 11-13th September 2011. Guests scheduled to appear include: Raymond Blanc, Esther Freud, Peter Snow, Edna O’Brien, Diana Athill, Fatima Bhutto, Nicholas Parsons, Andrew Morton and Stephanie Flanders. Jane Rusbridge will lead a series of creative writing and publishing workshops. More authors are being added to the line-up. Bookings open online on 1st July at www.hamhighlitfest.com The Festival is organised by the London Jewish Cultural Centre in partnership with the Ham&High newspaper. Venue: Ivy House, 94-96 North End Road, London NW11 7SX Close to Golders Green tube station. 268 and 210 buses stop outside.

Chiswick Book Festival

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:50:26 GMT

There's an interesting range of authors lined up for the second Chiswick Book Festival which is taking place the weekend of 17 – 19th September at the picturesque Norman Shaw Church of St Michaels and All Angels, Bath Road, London W4 1TX and the Tabard Theatre in Turnham Green, W4. Authors attending this year include Terry Pratchett who will be opening the Festival with his only talk to promote his new book ‘ ‘I Shall Wear Midnight’, followed by BBC Presenter, Michael Wood who will be doing his first talk on his new book ‘The Story of England' as a main event on Friday 17th September in advance of his new television series coming up in October. Charlie Higson will be leading the Children’s Festival on Saturday morning, Allison Pearson will be taking the stand to talk about ‘I Think I Love You’ on Saturday at 12.15 and Mavis Cheek and Prue Leith will be leading a women’s fiction panel on Saturday afternoon interviewed by Fanny Blake, books editor at Woman & Home. Andrew Motion will be speaking on the evening of Saturday 18th September about Larkin and his new selection of poetry from Faber. On Sunday there's Adele Parks on ‘Men I’ve Loved Before’ and Val McDermid doing the main crime event on Sunday afternoon…. For tickets and information, see: www.chiswickbookfestival.org.

Malik vs Sardar - The UK/Asia Debate

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:34:14 GMT

As part of the Asia Literature Festival in London, Kenan Malik and Ziauddin Sardar go head to head in a war of ideas as they debate contentious issues that affect Britain today: the Rushdie affair and its repercussions, contemporary Islam, terrorism, free speech and Western values. Malik's 'From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy' tells the full story of the Rushdie affair and considers its resonance in modern Britain. In 'Balti Britain: Journey through the British Asian Experience' Sardar explores the main Asian communities in the UK in a quest to understand his own diasporic experience. These two authors are guaranteed to provide a thought-provoking, revealing debate and a lively evening. Moderated by Boyd Tonkin Tuesday 12 May, 6.45pm Tickets: £8 Asia House Friends/Concessions (students/60+): £5

Laurence Sterne and Shandy Hall

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:51:06 GMT

I was just updating some information on Yorkshire and the Brontes, and saw that there's an interesting series of exhibitions at Shandy Hall this year: An exhibition of County Maps celebrating the work of J L Carr, author of 'A Month in the Country', opens the weekend of 16/17 May with a sermon in Coxwold church by lay-canon Ronald Blythe (author of Akenfield) and the publication of a Pocket Book of the Quotations of Sterne. In July/August there is an exhibition of the original drawings for The Illustrated Tristram Shandy by Martin Rowson - Guardian political cartoonist. The exhibition will include new work by Rowson entitled Yoricks Progress. In September/October there is an exhibition for the 250th anniversary of the Black Page in Tristram Shandy. Also, for those who like to plan ahead, put 15-18 July 2013 in your diary: Plans are underway for The Tercentenary Conference, Laurence Sterne 1713 – 2013, to be held in York.

Tailor-Made Tours

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:40:07 GMT

Tailor-made literary and cultural tours in the UK and Europe

The Asia House Festival of Asian Literature

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:55:54 GMT

The only Festival in the UK dedicated to writing about Asia, The Asia House Festival of Asian Literature celebrates the newest and best of writing across a broad spectrum of Asian countries in a series of talks, debates and discussions. With over 25 authors covering ten Asian countries, The 2009 Asia House Festival of Asian Literature provides a unique, accessible way to interact with and understand these diverse cultures. The 2009 programme, running from May 11 - 22, offers a unique opportunity to engage with both prominent writers and emerging voices in the intimate and beautiful atmosphere of Asia House in Marylebone, central London. Among the authors speaking are: Aravind Adiga, Amit Chaudhuri, Tash Aw, Kenan Malik, Ziauddin Sardar, Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Alice Albinia, Martin Jacques, John Man and Christina Lamb. For booking call 020 7307 5454 or email enquiries@asiahouse.co.uk Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7LP www.asiahouse.org

George Herbert and Bemerton

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:25:03 GMT

The poet George Herbert spent his last years his life as rector of St Andrews Bemerton

Literary Tours

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:45:16 GMT

Literary tours in Britain and Europe

The guardian Hay Festival in Segovia

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 10:26:23 GMT

The guardian Hay Festival in Segovia takes place 27-30 September 2007 The programme includes: Edwin Williamson, Professor of Spanish Studies at Oxford University and a Fellow of Exeter College, speaking on: how do you write a biography of Borges? The Muslim Woman, Sufism and Literature
Elif Shafak in conversation with Maureen Freely Literary Creation and the Politically Incorrect
Samih al-Qasim talks to Ignacio Gutiérrez de Terán A Parrot in the Pepper Tree
Chris Stewart talks to Manuel Pimentel A. C. Grayling speaking on The Concept of Liberty Wole Soyinka in conversation with Landry-Wilfred Mampika and 'In Conversations' with Hanif Kureishi and Arnold Wesker

Gods, Heroes and Romantics

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:28:30 GMT

Gods, Heroes and Romantics is a unique adventure in the classical world. A journey into history, myth and legend

Ancient Greece and the Classical World

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:11:36 GMT

A literary travel guide to Ancient Greece and the Classical World

King's Sutton Literary Festival

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:57:41 GMT

This year's King's Sutton Festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday 10 and 11 March in this charming village just outside Banbury in Oxfordshire. Writers appearing include Salley Vickers, who on Saturday 10th will be talking to Winifred Robinson about her latest novel The Other Side of You, and Margaret Drabble, who will be talking about her life and work on the Sunday. Full details and booking at www.kslitfest.co.uk

The Journey

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:30:18 GMT

‘A vast platform appeared before us, lit up by reflectors. A little beyond it, a row of lorries. Then everything was silent again. Someone translated: we had to climb down with our luggage and deposit it alongside the train. In a moment the platform was swarming with shadows. But we were afraid to break the silence: everyone busied himself with his luggage, searched for someone else, called to somebody, but timidly, in a whisper.’ From If This Is A Man by Primo Levi, trans. Stuart Woolf
27 January : Holocaust Memorial Day

Throw away other people’s maps

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:56:34 GMT

The second part of Zadie Smith’s beautiful and challenging article on writers and readers was published in The Guardian on Saturday. In the article she re-connects style with morality and life lived, and with it reclaims the actual experience, as felt, of reading - and why writing fiction, and reading it, matters. A truly thrilling read. ‘What unites great novels is the individual manner in which they articulate experience and force us to be attentive, waking us from the sleepwalk of our lives. And the great joy of fiction is the variety of this process …’ ‘Both the writer and the reader must undergo an ethical expansion – allow me to call it an expansion of the heart – in order to comprehend the human otherness that fiction confronts them with; both fail in varied, fascinating ways to complete this action as ideally it might be completed. …’ Follow the permalink to read more about The Word Travels unique creative writing journey in Prague and Krakow.

T S Eliot and East Coker

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 21:09:09 GMT

T S Eliot died on 4th January 1965. We visited East Coker and the Eliot Corner of St. Michael's Church, East Coker, where his ashes are buried below the memorial plaque set in the wall. ‘Home is where one starts from’ he wrote in 'East Coker', one of the Four Quartets, and his burial here marks his return to the parish of his forefathers. The church is set on higher ground just above the village of East Coker, on the Dorset / Somerset border and provides magnificent views of the rolling countryside beyond. There is something moving in the simplicity of the plaque, and the omission of his honours in favour of the simple description, ‘Poet’, that is wholly fitting of the kind of man, and poet, that he was. The stone includes the first and last lines from ‘East Coker’ - ‘In my beginning is my end ... In my end is my beginning’ and the one simple request that the beholder, of his or her charity, might pray for the repose of his soul. As the wind blows through the trees skirting the graveyard, it is a perfect place to rediscover, as lines in ‘East Coker’ have it, ‘Love is most nearly itself / When here and now cease to matter.’

New Year’s Eve, Clavell Tower

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:17:08 GMT

New Year’s Eve, and a visit to the Dorset coast in bracing wind where the dogs rushed into the churning waves before we climbed up to The Clavell Tower, which stands high on the cliff above Kimmeridge Bay. The Tower was built in 1820 as an observatory by the eccentric occupant of nearby Smedmore House, the Revd John Clavell. After many years standing empty and neglected, and in increasing danger of falling into the sea due to coastal erosion, it is now being painstakingly dismantled and re-erected 25 metres back from the cliff face. The Black Tower
The Clavell Tower is the inspiration for The Black Tower, as it becomes (refaced with blocks of dark bituminous shale) in P D James’ crime thriller of the same name. The author’s detective, Adam Dalgliesh, is in Dorset to convalesce, but is soon plunged into a murder enquiry. Dalgliesh approaches the black tower with a sense of impending doom: ‘The view, spectacular and frightening, made him catch his breath … below, the cliff tumbled into a broad fissured causeway of boulders, slabs and amorphous chunks of blue-black rock which littered the foreshore as if hurled in wild disorder by a giant hand ... As he looked down on the chaotic and awe-inspiring waste of rock and sea and tried to picture what the fall must have done to Holroyd, the sun moved fitfully from behind the clouds and a band of sunlight moved across the headland lying warm as a hand on the back of his neck, gilding the bracken, marbling the strewn rocks at the cliff edge. But it left the foreshore in shadow, sinister and unfriendly. For a moment Dalgliesh believed that he was looking down on a cursed and dreadful shore on which the sun could never shine.’ Much later, the tower is the setting for the novel's chilling climax as Dalgliesh, engulfed in a dense sea mist and with his face against the tower, hears ‘the spine-chilling scrape, unmistakable, of bone ends clawing against the stone ... ’ Today the bright morning brought strong winds and waves crashing onto the shore, not ‘cursed and dreadful’ but still awe-inspiring in its raw, elemental power. We wish all our readers and literary travellers (and travelers!) a very happy new year.

Creative Writing Breaks

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 13:04:13 GMT

Creative writing breaks that combine walks in some of the most spectacular landscapes in Britain with the time and space to respond creatively in poetry, prose, photography or drawing

More thoughts on Prague

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 13:10:35 GMT

It is perhaps only in a city so full of paradoxes that, within the space of several weeks, two vastly different but brilliant writers could have been born. One was a Jew who would write in German, a vegetarian, teetotal and self-absorbed ascetic, a man so obsessed with the knowledge of his own responsibility, his mission as a writer and his own shortcomings, that he dared not have most of his works published while he was alive. The other was a drunk, an anarchist, a bon vivant, and extrovert who ridiculed his profession and his responsibilities, who wrote in pubs and sold his work on the spot for a few beers. Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hašek, author of The Good Soldier Švejk, lived their brief lives (they both died prematurely, within a year of each other) separated by only a few streets. They each drew on the same period to create works of genius, but those works seem separated not just by ages, but by continents as well. Since then the people of Prague have used the word Kafkárna to describe the absurdities of their lives, and have called their own ability to make light of such absurdities, to confront violence with humour and utterly passive resistance, Švejkovina. Ivan Klíma The Spirit of Prague

Ian Fleming and James Bond

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 17:51:50 GMT

A guide to Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, in London

Ivan Klima and The Spirit of Prague

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:11:46 GMT

I'm just re-reading Ivan Klíma’s wonderful collection of essays The Spririt of Prague, returning to one of my favourite writers partly in preparation for our creative writing trip to Prague in May 2007 (follow link for details). Klima writes very simply, with a wonderful carity and quiet authority. In the first essay, entitiled with characteristic understated irony A Rather Unconventional Childhood, he writes of his childhood which coincided, in Eastern Europe, with the triumph of Nazism and his confinement (as a Jew) in the transit camp of Terezin. The wry, observational tone of the writing works to devastating effect: ‘I also experienced my first real friendships at this time which , as I later came to understand, were really only prefigurations of the adolescent infatuations that transform every encounter, every casual conversation into an experience of singular importance. All those friendships ended tragically; my friends, boys and girls, went to the gas chamber, all except one, the one I truly loved, Arieh, a son of the chairman of the camp prisoners’ self-management committee, who was shot at the age of twelve.’ His experiences in the camp, and later under the communist regimes of the post-war years, lead him to the conclusion that ‘fanaticism of any kind is a psychological precondition, a precursor, of violence and terror, and that there is no idea in the world good enough to justify a fanatical attempt to implement it.’ A thought that resonates today. The Spirit of Prague and other essays, by Ivan Klima, translated from the czech by Paul Wilson (Granta Books, London, 1994)

Faik Bey Konitza in London

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 17:05:24 GMT

November 28 2006 is the 94th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of Albania in 1912. In 1903-4 Faik Bey Konitza, one of Albania's greatest scholars and writers, was resident at 3 Oakley Crescent in Islington, London. Here he continued to edit and publish, under the pseudonym Thrank Spirobeg, the dual language (French/Albanian) periodical Albania that he had founded in Brussels in 1897. He contributed bitingly sarcastic articles on what he saw as the cultural backwardness and naivety of his compatriots. Albania helped to spread awareness of Albanian culture and the Albanian cause across Europe, and was highly influential in the development and refinement of Southern Albanian prose writing, which in turn would form the basis of modern Albanian literary language (gjuha letrare). In the words of the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, Konitza ‘turned a rough idiom of sailors’ inns into a beautiful, rich and supple language.’ Whilst in Brussels Konitza had corresponded with Apollinaire regarding an article published by the poet in L’Européen. When Apollinaire came to London seeking to regain the affections of Annie Pleyden, an English governess he had met and fallen in love with in Germany, he stayed with Konitza at Oakley Crescent. Apollinaire published a memoir of Konitza in the Mercure de France on 1 May 1912, which begins ‘Of the people I have met and whom I remember with the greatest pleasure, Faik Bey Konitza is one of the most unusual.’ He recalls that: ‘we would have lunch the Albanian way, which is to say, endlessly … The lunches were so long that I could not visit a single museum in London, as we would always arrive when the doors closed,’ and the attention and care with which Konitza edited his articles: ‘meant that the journal always came out very late. In 1904, only the issues for 1902 appeared; in 1907, the issues for 1904 came out at regular intervals. The French journal L’Occident is the only one that could compete with Albania in that respect.’ More on the literary history of London in London: City of Words. Follow the link for details.

B S Johnson

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:41:16 GMT

November 13. Today is the anniversary of the death of writer B.S. Johnson. On this day in 1973 he died by suicide at his home in Myddleston Square, Islington, North London. Deeply influenced by writers such as Sterne, Joyce and Beckett, he was dedicated to technical innovation and experimentation in the novel form. After the relatively conventional Travelling People (1963), his first novel, Johnson wrote Albert Angelo (1964), in which the fragmentary and episodic narrative concerning Albert, a frustrated architect who lives (as B.S. Johnson did at the time) in a rented room in an early Victorian square not far from the Angel, is interrupted by an authorial outburst, ‘an almighty aposiopesis’ in which Johnson revolts against the requirement of a novel to tell a story: -I’m trying to say something not tell a story telling stories is telling lies and I want to tell the truth about me about my experience about my truth to reality about sitting here writing looking out across Clarement Square trying to say something about the writing and nothing being an answer to the loneliness to the lack of loving … Bleak and exuberant by turns, in Albert Angelo Johnson also played with the physical form of the novel. The book was produced with a hole in page 149; this is later claimed to represent the knife-cut that killed Christopher Marlowe, and is also presented as a chance to read the future, through the past. For more about writers in London, see London: City of Words

Blake, Jerusalem and Mayfair

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:07:40 GMT

203 years ago William Blake moved to 17 South Molton Street in Mayfair, central London, where he lived from from October 1803 until spring 1820. Here he wrote and etched Milton (1804-8), Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (1804-20) and revised and extended Vala (1797-1804) into the more sexually explicit The Four Zoas, rediscovered in 1889. Revised against a backdrop of war and bread riots, The Four Zoas offers a vision of renewal and restoration through a complex and private visionary system. Bad harvests, the Luddite protests of 1812 and 1813, and the intensification of the reform movement saw Blake more engrossed in Jerusalem. He saw the task of Jerusalem ‘To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes / Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity.’ An eternity he saw in the streets of London: In Felpham I heard and saw Visions of Albion.
I write in South Molton Street what I both see and hear
In regions of Humanity, in London’s opening streets.
Blake saw London as ‘a Human awful wonder of God!’ and called for London and Albion to awake, evoking the wandering dead souls of Oxford Street from Hyde Park to Tyburn (the bones of Tyburn victims had been dug up in 1811 during the construction of Regent Street). Jerusalem takes the form of journeys made by Los (Blake) through the darkness that is mythic London and Britain. Los essentially walks the boundaries of the city that Blake sees as ‘blind & age-bent begging thro the Streets / Of Babylon, led by a child’, coming to sit and listen to ‘Jerusalems voice’: My Streets are my Ideas of Imagination.
Awake Albion, awake! And let us awake up together.
Read more in London: City of Words.
Follow the link for details.

Cock Tavern, Bow Street

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:13:15 GMT

Today's destination: The Cock Tavern in Bow Street,Covent Garden, London. In June 1663 three court poets, Sir Charles Sedley, Sir Thomas Ogle and Sir Charles Sackville, later Lord Brockhurst, caused a riot by stripping naked and blaspheming from the balcony of the Cock Tavern. Fined, imprisoned for a week and bound over to the keep the peace for three years, they nevertheless continued to get drunk at Oxford Kate’s (the proprietess of the Tavern). In 1668 Pepys records them running naked through Covent Garden, fighting and getting locked up for the night. Sedley’s verse commemorated his all-night drinking and wenching: Yet we will have store of good Wenches,
Though we venture fluxing for’t,
Upon Couches, Chairs, and Benches,
To out-do them at the Sport.
Read more in London: City of Words. Follow the link for details.

Iris Murdoch Hyde Park Walk

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:29:43 GMT

A walk in Hyde Park inspired by the novels of Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch Anax's Walk

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 10:52:35 GMT

Anax's walk - one of a series of walks in London inspired by the novels of Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch Thames Walks

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:33:54 GMT

These Iris Murdoch Thames Walks trace the magnetic presence of the Thames in Iris Murdoch’s novels, from the Isle of Dogs to Cheyne Walk.

Walking the coast

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 21:26:24 GMT

At the weekend I was walking at Ringstead and White Nothe along the Dorset coast. The wind was billowing and the waves crashing against the cliffs far below. Llewellyn Powys, who lived in one of the coastguard cottages at White Nothe in the 1920s, created a resonant body of essays inspired by his close knowledge and experience of the local landscape. In this extract he captures the excitement of winter at White Nothe: On White Nose cliff after a November gale I have often picked up sea-weed, though the top of the headland stands 600 feet above the waves. The winds there would be so violent as to blow in the windows of the coast-guard cottages and to send slates from our roof flying over the ploughlands behind the houses as lightly as though they were sycamore leaves. And then, as soon as ever the wind went down, a sea mist would suddenly descend upon us enveloping us utterly … The Distracted Preacher, a short story by Thomas Hardy, is also set nearby.

Tragedy and comedy

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 11:13:38 GMT

A final extract from Journey by Moonlight which so perfectly captures the 'mixed genre' that is life: And he became quite serious. It all came home to him, and he saw the familiar ghastliness of the situation. In the middle of composing his suicide note they were pestering him to go to a christening. They burst in on him with their precious stupid business, the way people always burst in on him with their precious stupid business when life was sublime and terrible. And sublime and terrible things always happened to him when life was stupid and precious. Life was not an art-form, or rather, it was an extremely mixed genre. Read this book!!