`This is travel writing at its best.'
Katherine Norbury, Observer
An Observer Book of the Year
His father Brian taught Rory Stewart how to walk, and walked with him on journeys from Iran to Malaysia. Now they have chosen to do their final walk together along `the Marches' - the frontier that divides their two countries, Scotland and England. Brian, a ninety-year-old former colonial official and intelligence officer, arrives in Newcastle from Scotland dressed in tartan and carrying a draft of his new book You Know More Chinese Than You Think. Rory comes from his home in the Lake District, carrying a Punjabi fighting stick which he used when walking across Afghanistan.
On their six-hundred-mile, thirty-day journey - with Rory on foot, and his father `ambushing' him by car - the pair relive Scottish dances, reflect on Burmese honey-bears, and on the loss of human presence in the British landscape. On mountain ridges and in housing estates they uncover a forgotten country crushed between England and Scotland: the Middleland. They cross upland valleys which once held forgotten peoples and languages - still preserved in sixth-century lullabies and sixteenth-century ballads. The surreal tragedy of Hadrian's Wall forces them to re-evaluate their own experiences in the Iraq and Vietnam wars. The wild places of the uplands reveal abandoned monasteries, border castles, secret military test sites and newly created wetlands. They discover unsettling modern lives, lodged in an ancient land. Their odyssey develops into a history of nationhood, an anatomy of the landscape, a chronicle of contemporary Britain and an exuberant encounter between a father and a son.
And as the journey deepens, and the end approaches, Brian and Rory fight to match, step by step, modern voices, nationalisms and contemporary settlements to the natural beauty of the Marches, and a fierce absorption in tradition in their own unconventional lives.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"I thought at first Rory's book was about the French political party, but blow me it is all about our native heath, plus his dad, and is one of the most original books we have had in 33 years of the prize" -- Hunter Davies, Lakeland Book of the Year, 2017 "Engaging, intelligent, and ultimately moving." -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman * "Suggests an open-mindedness in Stewart, a tolerance and flexibility that could make him an exceptional politician while it also continues to define him as a writer." -- Andrew Motion * New York Review of Books * "[A] bewitching book... The entrancing bond between Stewart and his father brings the book alive." -- Tristram Hunt * Sunday Times * "Engaging, intelligent and ultimately moving...in some ways, Rory Stewart resembles a Robert MacFarlane who has chosen geopolitics over metaphysics." * Scotland on Sunday * "This is travel writing at its best." -- Katherine Norbury * Observer * "Stewart is the nearest person I have identified in real life to Rudyard Kipling's Kim, the all-seeing, all-knowing man-child of Empire... The heart of the book is about love... He is observant, gently mocking and he writes beautifully." -- Melanie Reid * The Times * "He is a gift to literature." -- Sarah Sands * Evening Standard * "[Stewart] has a roving, enquiring mind, which makes him on the page...most agreeable company... This roving, discursive book is a delight to read." -- Allan Massie * Literary Review * "The Marches is a memoir full of depth and beguiling humour... His prose is captivating and I hugely admired his dedication in getting to know closely the landscape and people he serves in Parliament." -- Charlotte Runice * Prospect * "[A] substantial and very impressive book... [a] profoundly moving portrait of Stewart's father." -- Philip Marsden * Spectator * "As a collective portrait of both father and homeland, The Marches is a deeply moving, honest and loving portrait, even if Britain and Brian are seldom what they seem." -- Barnaby Rogerson * Country Life. * "The book is held together by Mr Stewart's writing, with his short chapters moving skilfully from history to personal encounter." -- Andrew Lownie * Wall Street Journal * "Stewart's descriptions are moving... This writer refreshes the parts that other writers cannot reach: he has the stamina and interest to investigate the hidden `glamour' behind regions and peoples with unpromising veneers." -- Mary Killen * Lady * "The delight of it lies in his encounters with the specific rather than in ruminations about the general. He has an alert eye for the awkward detail - the things that don't quite fit with the tone of a scene. It makes him an enjoyable and persuasive writer." -- Ian Jack * Guardian * "[An] elegantly written account." -- Tom Chessyhre * The Times * "Like father, like son, for both come across as hugely talented, hugely driven misfits." -- National "The Marches marks him [Stewart] out not only as a writer but as a political force rooted in geographies so different to London as to shed new light on politics itself... [A] serious politician, social critic, and practical ethnographer at work. As such The Marches is a book for walkers, for those who love the Borders, and for fathers seeking inspiration in their family responsibilities... If this is the polymath as politician, then we need more of them." -- Frances Davis * Conservative Home * "This is so much more than the story of their journey - it's a superbly written, endlessly fascinating book encompassing history, geology, landscape, family memories, wars experienced and lives well lived." * Choice Magazine * "One of the most unexpected and enjoyable reads of 2016... The book fizzes erudition and is delightfully leavened by the companionship of his aged and doughty father." * Guardian, Readers' Book of the Year * "A very funny book - not jovial in the post-Wodehouse Boris mode but something more taught and Caledonian... The politician in Stewart never had a chance against the writer, a reliable adversary of consensus and cant." -- Minoo Dinshaw * Oldie * "Beautiful, evocative, and wise." -- Malcolm Forbes * Star Tribune * "The Marches is a transporting work from a powerful and original writer." * Harvard Press * "This beautifully written account is a moving memoir of tales from along the route but also reflections on life and relationships - father and son on this their last journey together." * Prospect * "Rory Stewart is one of the most talented men of our era. The Marches takes us from Rory's constituency to his family house is an attempt to understand the bloody history of the Scottish borders... The quest is fascinating even if the answers are elusive." -- Bruce Anderson * Spectator * "As the book unfurls, the march along the marches turns into a eulogy to his father, part memoir, part biography, always a love story. It also contains one of the most unflinching, moving descriptions of death I have read." -- Melanie Reid * The Times * "This beautifully written book is a haunting reflection of identity and our relationships with the people and places we love." -- Jane Shilling * Daily Mail * "Stewart provides much food for thought about how we value our past history" -- Susannah Law * Scottish Field *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Für Beruf und Forschung
Maße
Höhe: 240 mm
Breite: 162 mm
Dicke: 35 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-224-09768-0 (9780224097680)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Rory Stewart was born in Hong Kong in 1973. After a brief period in the Army, he joined the Foreign Office, serving in Indonesia and the Balkans. His account of the last section of his 6,000 mile walk across Afghanistan is described in The Places In Between; and his time as a deputy-governor of two provinces in Southern Iraq in Occupational Hazards. His books have sold over half a million copies, been translated into nine languages, and been awarded several prizes including the Ondaatje Prize of the Royal Society of Literature. He is now the Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border. He lives with his wife and young son in Cumbria and London.
