Diana Athill
A Grand Theme
Blue Remembered Hills: a Recollection
By Rosemary Sutcliff
The Bodley Head 141pp £6.50
People write about their childhoods for pleasure: not (if they are interesting writers) a simple ‘wasn’t it fun!’ pleasure, but the poignant one of catching and keeping something which otherwise would be gone for ever. It is a tactic for defying time. Someone interviewing Rosemary Sutcliff about this book remarked that she ‘might have been forgiven’ for not employing this tactic – the implication being that her childhood must have been so painful that only exceptional fortitude could have enabled her to recall it. Miss Sutcliff once won a Girl Guide medal for fortitude, but nevertheless she said in reply that her childhood had been happy; and indeed she persuades us that it was, which makes her story very moving.
Rosemary Sutcliff, before she was three years old, fell victim to infantile arthritis, a dreadful disease which cripples and distorts the body. Most of the activities of childhood became impossible for her, and much of her time had to be spent in hospitals, undergoing operations and other forms of treatment,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk