‘A conscious Englishman’ by Margaret Keeping
This blog used to be about making stuff… now it seems to have transformed itself into a more of a reading review… oh well, such is life, eh?
This was the first finish of this year. A gentle, tender, soft book about the last years of the English poet Edward Thomas, the relationship with his wife, his great friend Robert Frost but most of all the love for his country which eventually brings him to enlist and die in 1917 in the battle of Arras during the IWW. The facts are all true, but it’s not a dry biography.
I stumbled, literally, onto this book whilst researching material for a College assignment otherwise I doubt our paths would have crossed, but I’m really glad it did. The story is not new and has been told before but the tone and the language suit it perfectly and are a fitting tribute.
The fact that if often talks about local places did obviously add another layer of kinship for the story for e – like the image of May Hill on the cover, for example, so visible around here!
Do read it if you want something calming amongst the chaos of life and you’ll see, you too will be yearning for long walks in the countryside and afterward to sit by a fire with a book of Edward’s poetry on your lap.
“… but words were all-important to him, and his walking, the places and the thoughts they brought to him, and half-thoughts…”
More books to come… get yourself ready.
while you're ahead... 