To the river: a journey beneath the surface
- Edinburgh Canongate Books 2011
- ix, 281 p.: ill. Include bibliography
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations I. Clearing Out II. At the Source III. Going Under IV. Wake V. In the Flood VI. The Lady Vanishes VII. Bede's Sparrow VIII. Salvage Bibliography Acknowledgements.
“A river passing through a landscape catches the world and gives it back redoubled: a shifting, glinting world more mysterious than the one we customarily inhabit. Rivers run through our civilisations like strings through beads”. An odyssey along the banks of the River Ouse, from source to sea; a profound and haunting reflection on history and landscape by one of the most important writers of modern non-fiction. Over sixty years after Virginia Woolf drowned in the River Ouse, Olivia Laing set out one midsummer morning to walk its banks, from source to sea. Along the way, she explores the roles that rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through literature, mythology and folklore. Lyrical and stirring, To the River is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape - and how ghosts never quite leave the places they love.