So much of our travels can be enjoyed through the prism of literature. Some writers are intrinsically connected to a destination--e.g., Gabriel García Márquez with northern Colombia; Thomas Hardy with Dorset; R.K. Narayan with Madras; James Joyce with Dublin. The literary travel possibilities are nearly endless - have a read!
The writing of 'In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide'
Old Parish Church Cemetery in Whitby, England My obsession to travel to every site related to either the fictional Count Dracula or his real historical counterpart, Prince Vlad Dracula the Impaler, grew out of a visit to Whitby, England, where part of the novel Dracula takes place. I stood on the cemetery hill (top) where, in Bram Stoker's Dracula Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray spent hour after hour sitting on their "favourite seat" (a bench placed over a suicide's grave near the edge of the…
Read more…
Comments
Reading the poet Simon Armitage's "Walking Home: Travels with a Troubadour on the Pennine Way," his walk along the 296-mile Pennine Way from the Scottish border to Edale, Derbyshire. He put together 20 poetry readings along the route to fund the trip, to which the attendance to some was heartening, to others paltry amid the usual British weather. A very nice read that mixes real literature -- poetry no less -- with a good ol' walk through some of the most beautiful, often forlorn and empty, countryside of Europe.
The entire British footpath system -- one of our pride and joys -- was started in 1936 in Edale when a group of ramblers purposely trespassed on land in order to force the reopening of what was always a public right of way, and their actions resulted in the opening of 10,000s of such miles and footpaths.
I have not read the Sherry books. Thank you for the recommendation of England Made Me. You are the first person I've "known" who has actually read it, and now I hope to read it.
Just finished a novel by the superlative Graham Greene that I did not know existed, a very early novel called England Made Me set in Stockholm, Sweden. We know of Greene living and writing (and he always got to these places before the proverbial s**t hit the fan) in Vietnam, Cuba, Haiti, Liberia, Mexico, etc., but not pedestrian Sweden. It's a wonderful read, published three years before his breakthrough Brighton Rock, and full of Greene's brilliant summations of character. How about this for one: "...their faces old and unlined and pencilled in brilliant colours, like the illumination of an ancient missal carefully preserved under glass with the same page always turned to visitors." The novel also sometimes goes by the name The Shipwrecked. The novel is dedicated "To Vivien with Ten Years' Love 1925-1935"...and if anyone has read Norman Sherry's first two volumes of his Life of Graham Greene they will know of the pain behind those few words. I cannot bring myself to finish the third volume as it was universally panned for being more about Sherry than it was about Greene. Anyone read that particular volume?
Aha. That's key.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 5 Next