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Naar De Rivier (2011)

by Olivia Laing(Favorite Author)

3.77 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

9023466098 (ISBN13: 9789023466093)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

De Bezige Bij

review 1: Not a straightforward walking book, but a literary meditation on landscape, nature, water, and the different characters who've lived along the short course of the River Ouse in Sussex. The book mixes reflections on Virginia Woolf and Kenneth Grahame, with geology, hydrology, palaeontology and occasional thoughts on the author's unsuccessful love-life. It's a rather melancholy, or elegaic read (and a few two many flowers mentioned for this horticultural ignorant) but some lovely writing plus philosophical insights more than compensate. I enjoyed it, too, because I'm familiar with this landscape.Shades of W.G. Sebald (Rings of Saturn), though not quite as good for me. Still, that's pretty elevated company!The path she follows, from the source of the river to the sea near Sea... moreford also gives the book a useful structure. Spoiler alert: She makes it (not such an epic walk), seems to feel better, but not altogether healed by the journey.
review 2: Poetic, lyrical, philosophical, this book meanders and begs the reader to linger and ponder. That's why it's taken me so long to read it, although I have been dipping in to other things. It would be lovely to read alongside a river under a shady tree on a perfect summer day.And then there's the bibliography to peruse and savour for more books to read- just like a river flowing to a great ocean to explore. less

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