The Perfect Golden Circle: Selected for BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club 2022
Autor Benjamin Myersen Limba Engleză Paperback – 18 mai 2023
Ce formă capătă vindecarea atunci când traumele războiului și marginalizarea socială se ciocnesc de frumusețea fragilă a naturii? În The Perfect Golden Circle, observăm cum Benjamin Myers construiește o narațiune subversivă și profund poetică, plasată în canicula verii anului 1989. Într-o Anglie marcată de șomaj și conflicte de clasă, doi bărbați proveniți din lumi diferite — Calvert, un fost soldat marcat de ororile din Falklands, și Redbone, un spirit liber și boem — devin arhitecții nocturni ai unor modele geometrice hipnotizante în lanurile de grâu. Apreciem modul în care Myers transformă actul de a crea „crop circles” dintr-o simplă farsă într-o formă de rezistență politică și terapie personală. Pe același raft cu A Month in the Country de J. L. Carr, unde un veteran caută liniștea restaurând o pictură medievală, The Perfect Golden Circle se distinge prin contextul său social mai tăios și prin celebrarea unei prietenii masculine neconvenționale. Dacă în The Offing autorul explora idila pastorală postbelică, iar în Cuddy sau The Gallows Pole se apleca asupra mitologiilor și istoriei brutale a Nordului, aici el aduce în prim-plan o ecologie a spiritului. Stilul este senzorial, aproape tactil, făcându-ne să simțim asprimea grâului copt și răcoarea nopților de vară, într-un roman care refuză cinismul în favoarea magiei create de mâna omului.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 1526631423
Pagini: 241
Dimensiuni: 128 x 196 x 22 mm
Greutate: 0.19 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Bloomsbury Publishing
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm această carte celor care caută o proză contemplativă despre legătura dintre om și pământ. Veți descoperi o poveste emoționantă despre cum arta, chiar și cea efemeră, poate oferi un sens în mijlocul haosului politic. Este o lectură esențială pentru fanii literaturii britanice contemporane care apreciază personajele complexe și descrierile de natură care devin ele însele personaje, oferind o perspectivă unică asupra prieteniei și a nevoii de a lăsa ceva frumos în urmă.
Despre autor
Benjamin Myers, născut în Durham în 1976, este una dintre cele mai puternice voci ale literaturii britanice actuale. Recunoscut pentru capacitatea sa de a îmbina realismul social cu lirismul peisajului, el a câștigat premiul Walter Scott pentru ficțiune istorică cu The Gallows Pole și premiul Goldsmiths pentru inovatorul Cuddy. Opera sa diversă include poezie, jurnalism și romane care explorează adesea identitatea rurală și marginalii societății. Locuiește în Upper Calder Valley, un decor care îi influențează constant scriitura profund ancorată în spiritul locului.
Descriere
'The pleasures of this bountiful novel are like a glass of cool water on a parched summer day' THE TIMES
England, 1989. Over the course of a burning hot summer, two very different men - traumatized Falklands veteran Calvert, and affable, chaotic Redbone - set out nightly in a clapped-out camper van to undertake an extraordinary project.
Under cover of darkness, the two men traverse the fields of rural England in secret, forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns. As the summer wears on, and their designs grow ever more ambitious, the two men find that their work has become a cult international sensation - and that an unlikely and beautiful friendship has taken root as the wheat ripens from green to gold.
Recenzii
A joy
The understated, plangent loveliness of Myers's storytelling is reminiscent of Mackenzie Crook's brilliant TV series Detectorists. Here is a strong, spiritual writer who sees and loves every dewdrop, old oak, soft little animal and buried sword, and offers them up to us like the precious treasures they are. The Perfect Golden Circle deserves top ranking in any list of the best books about rural England
In this folksy, magnetic tale, two outsiders seek healing and enlightenment by creating crop formations in a Wiltshire field ... combining lyricism with comedy and themes that range from warfare and environmental calamity to hope and healing ... A memorable hymn to beauty
Clever, angry, poignant and beautifully constructed ... A work of love, and a work about works of love, and a work that evokes a sense of love in the reader
The beauty of Myers' language alone is reward enough to read this superb novel, but The Perfect Golden Circle offers so much more: an all-too-rare literary depiction of rural England, the depths of the two central characters, the class and ecological concerns; but most of all the human need for what the Welsh poet Bobi Jones called "the boundless mystery that comforts being." A truly remarkable novel
The Perfect Golden Circle is a triumph of a book, showcasing a writer at his very best. There is a huge heart beating in this magical story. A heartfelt story that is transformative and transportive ... Moving and exhilarating, tender and slyly witty, The Perfect Golden Circle is a captivating novel about the futility of war, the destruction of the English countryside, class inequality - and the power of beauty to heal trauma and fight power
An odd and winsome pleasure: a novel of friendship, collaboration, and environmental guerrilla art
No one writes about the atmosphere, beauty and brutality of the English countryside better than Ben Myers. And it's hard to think of many people who can write with with such attentiveness, tenderness and force about the importance of human connection and the redemptive power of art. Quite simply, this is a magnificent book
A strange, magical extraordinary book. It's so atmospheric, so strange and affecting. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it before, and I'm not sure how Myers has made it work, but he has - I was totally gripped by this
I've been loving reading aloud The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers to my mother. It's a delightfully descriptive book, telling the story of two men in the south of England who create crop circles in the dead of night. Myers interweaves modernity and myth, UFOs and ancient rites. At the heart of the book is the main character's mantra. "Fuel the myth, strive for beauty"
Benjamin Myers is a writer of extraordinary and incandescent talent. Like J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country, this is a book about beauty and warfare, about how to heal a wrecked heart. I loved it
I felt that The Offing was a beautiful counter to the boundaries of age, class, gender and nationality, and Ben pulls it off again here, this time writing a tender exploration of how men deal with trauma as he evokes a long hot summer in which two ordinary men unconsciously deal with their demons by creating magic in sun-kissed Wiltshire fields. I often find the best stories are those most simply told as here in this invocation of the ancient human need to create, away from the shackles of art education and academic theory
Benjamin Myers is fast making the contested boundary between history and folklore his own. The ballad of Redbone and Calvert somehow combines the ease and warmth of The Offing with the sinew and menace of The Gallows Pole
The Perfect Golden Circle staggers the reader with its wit and beauty and the power of its charged poetry. Myers offers both a soulful portrait of a friendship between two damaged, resilient men and a series of striking glimpses into war, mythology, politics, history, the natural world and art. Like the creations of its protagonists, the impressions this novel leaves are majestic, mysterious and lasting
Benjamin Myers is one of my favorite British novelists working today. The Perfect Golden Circle is brilliant and breathtaking. It's a novel about the quest for beauty and mystery in a world that's falling apart around us
An investigation of trauma, class, healing and male friendship
A number of titans and titans-in-the-making are looking backwards, from Anne Tyler. to Benjamin Myers in The Perfect Golden Circle
An exhilarating, outdoor song of hope and vision, The Perfect Golden Circle taps into something charged, ancient and elemental in England and its people
Praise for The Offing: 'What a radical thing, these days, to have written a book so full of warmth and kindness ... Gorgeous
This quiet, lyrical novel confirms a powerful new voice
It's a poignant story, and Myers' descriptions of the countryside are wonderful
One of the most interesting, restless writers of his generation . Unfurling at the unhurried pace of a fern, it's an evocatively lyrical paean to the countryside - deeply felt and closely observed
A draft of cool, clear water, it feels like a cleansing book ... He's such a good and brave writer . there's a lot of heart in this book ... I was comparing it to some Ted Hughes poetry and it's so much more hopeful than that . there's light in this landscape ... A very original writer and has pushed the form in all kinds of ways
Every page is studded with descriptive jewels . Deeply attuned to the natural world . Poetic . This book is a sensual pleasure . It's about the forever things: good food, and art, and friendship, and how those pleasures can redeem us, even during the harshest of times
Quietly gripping . Written with Myers's customary grit and brio . A welcome advance, one that sees Myers effortlessly extending his range
The ever-versatile Myers channels the gently uplifting dynamics of The Offing for this richly atmospheric account of male friendship, the fragility of the countryside and the archaic allure of crop circles