The Plot by Madeleine Bunting

The Plot by Madeleine Bunting

On a remote edge of the North York moors, where a grassy hillside overlooks the Vale of York, there is a secluded acre of land, edged by woods, called Scotch Corner. A mysterious war memorial chapel stands there, a simple stone building, decorated with bold carvings. Madeleine Bunting's father - an artist and visionary, but also a fiercely conservative man, with romantic, old-fashioned views about England - erected the chapel in his youth. He was a difficult, distant parent, and Bunting fled her home life in Yorkshire as a teenager. But after her father's death, Bunting wanted to understand him and his passionate, lifelong attachment to this plot of land, and she wanted to explore how we find a sense of belonging. Bunting discovered that this quiet spot has a rich history. It had been home to Neolithic forts and earthworks, farmed by the monks from nearby Byland Abbey and fought over by medieval Scots. Many have passed through the Plot. Thousands of cattle walked its drovers' road for centuries, and Wordsworth and other romantics searched for beauty and the picturesque in its views and valleys. Others have been more permanent inhabitants: the sheep that patiently crop the moorland, the grouse slaughtered there every autumn, the farmers struggling to make a living from the land. And Bunting's father, who tied his life so closely to this acre. In learning about the Plot, Bunting comes to see how 'wisdom rests in places', how important it is for us to understand the places that shape our lives, and she reaches an understanding of her father and his ideals. "The Plot" is an original and heartfelt book which deftly balances the emotional and the political, and shows what a contested, layered place we inhabit.

'This is a seriously good book: a borehole history of both an acre of England and Bunting's complicated fatherAs it proceeds, its patterns bind tighter and tighter, landscape and memory begin to inter-react, and plot thickens plot. This is a wonderful excavation of what a sense of placeA" might mean - and of the delusions and fulfilments that landscape can inspire' Robert Macfarlane, author of Mountains of the Mind and The Wild Places 'Madeleine Bunting's book is full of engaging stories, imaginatively researched and written with great tenderness. It evokes the Plot wonderfully well, but beyond that it is also a statement of the value of a sense of place more generally. I gobbled it up in a weekend' Edward Stourton

Madeleine Bunting is a leading columnist for the Guardian. Born in North Yorkshire, Bunting read History at Cambridge. She joined the Guardian in 1990. She is the author of The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands under German Rule, 1940-45 and Willing Slaves: How the Overwork Culture is Ruling Our Lives (both HarperCollins). She lives in London with her husband and three children

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781847080851
ISBN 10	1847080855
Titel	The Plot
Autor	Madeleine Bunting
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	Granta Books
Erscheinungsjahr	2009-10-05
Seitenanzahl	304
Preise	Short-listed for Ondaatje Prize 2010
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar