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Literary Landscapes: Walking Tours in Great Britain and Ireland

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Author: Leonard N. Franco
Publisher: George Braziller
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$15.95~~
Buy Used: $0.95
You Save: $15.00 (94%)

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1440478

Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 192
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 0.5

ISBN: 0807614386
Dewey Decimal Number: 820.9
EAN: 9780807614389
ASIN: 0807614386

Publication Date: January 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Very good condition. Fast shipping.

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•	Paperback - Literary Landscapes: Walking Tours in Great Britain and Ireland

Editorial Reviews:

Book Description
Literary Landscapes is for readers, writers, romantics, and lovers of all things literary, but above all, it will be a source of special pleasure to the tourist of Great Britain and Ireland. Walk alongside Jane Austen or one of her characters on the streets of Bath, or wend your way along the River Liffey in Dublin with James Joyce's Leopold Bloom. Take a rowboat ride with Lewis Carroll on the Thames just as he and Alice Liddell once did, inspiring the much beloved Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In Wales, the poetry of Dylan Thomas will accompany you as you explore the Uplands of Swansea and see the places he knew as a boy and young man. The estimated length of the walks and their difficulty level are provided. Detailed maps for the country walks are also provided.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars

Literary Landscapes, by L.N. Franco July 12, 2006
Lisa J. Kirch (Chicago, IL)
In the mode of many engaging books, L.N. Franco's Literary Landscapes, Walking Tours in Great Britain and Ireland, unfolds with a humorous, casually written anecdote that demolishes any fear of dry, academic verbiage ruling the page. This sets the pace for a lively, analytical glimpse into how a diverse range of landscapes have helped sculpt the voices of long hallowed British and Irish authors. At the beginning of this unique and entertaining (if slightly whirl-wind paced) collection of easily accessible walking tours - spanning mountain terrain, city streets, wild moorland and village woods - we find ourselves seated beside the author in a legendary Dublin pub. As Franco becomes amusingly ensnared by a local barfly's literary yarns, (hinged on first hand knowledge of the area rather than James Joyce's novels), the concept of discovering one's own impressions when physically walking through contemporary Dublin and figuratively `walking' through historical Dublin, seems extremely alluring. Before I knew it, I was hooked into a vision. As I imagined myself caught up in the local's individual `amendments' to Ulysses, I found myself yearning to discover the places which breathed life into James Joyce's works and the works of numerous other literary masters; landscapes which have yet to loose their `yarn spinning,' as well as truly inspirational potential.

Franco is sharp to point out that many people who presently inhabit James Joyce's, Charlotte Bronte's, or William Wordsworth's landscapes mention literary figures regularly in everyday conversation, and that pub chats often involve serious literary discussions. Typically, heralded literary terrains have not altered drastically thanks to British land laws and the National Trust's efforts to preserve historic spaces, while commemoratory plaques serve as lucid reminders of significant moments and places. Therefore, when traveling through Wordsworth's flourishing Lake District or Charlotte Bronte's stark mores, it is illuminating to realize that the literature and landscapes that molded their perceptions are still an integral part of present life. Interestingly, so called historic moments and places, however, are often derived from an authors' imaginings or are altered remarkably within their texts; thus, the philosophical question of `what makes history: events, perceptions of events, mis-stories lodged in a culture's psyche?' is also implicitly addressed by Franco, to be pondered if the mood strikes you.

Although Franco stresses reading as an active process, both physically and mentally in this context, this compilation of treks can simply be enjoyed on a passive level-(while sitting the couch in Chicago, for instance)-due to fascinating, lesser known details which Franco has taken the time to include. I won't give away too many of his interesting morsels, but the opening scene in Ulysses, which depicts Stephen Dedalus grumbling about his temporary roommate who dreams of hunting a phantasmal panther, is actually based on real life, and Lewis Carroll's `Alice in Wonderland' rabbit has quantifiable roots on the banks of Oxford's Thames. Another of Franco's strong points is his ability to guide literary legends' chariots down from the heavens to well rounded, personally relatable heights; turns out Wordsworth was also an avid landscaper, Thomas Hardy an architect, and many of the discussed authors were also amateur guidebook writers, meticulous about charting the settings they embraced or disregarded, but rarely remained indifferent too.

One of the drawbacks in this book stems from what is also one of Franco's strongest assets - his desire to be `reader friendly' to a wide range of audiences. Unfortunately, in this vein he create seamless, easily digested juxtapositions between authors to a point where a handful of severe overgeneralizations are introduced at the expense of historical fact. For example, Charlotte Bronte is painted as an extreme extrovert who embraced London life and relative fame, in opposition to Emily Bronte, her introverted, quiet sister who shunned the mere shadow of society. Anyone who has read Rebecca Fraser's or Lyndall Gordon's popular life histories of Charlotte Bronte, knows that Charlotte was also afflicted with problems adjusting to her boarding school beyond the moors, and was torn between the desire to study life in motion and her disassociation and dissatisfaction with London. Thus, she and her sister Emily were far from clear-cut opposites.

Also, on a practical note, it would be helpful if Franco had jotted down precise distances within the body of each chapter, so readers could gauge approximately how far along each walk they had traveled. And periodically, the location of landmarks is not well defined. My fiance and I spent a half hour searching for the `plain wooden cross' in St. Martin's Churchyard where Dylan Thomas was buried. If Franco had indicated what corner of the churchyard it was hidden in, our search would have been swifter. I suppose the lack of specifics spurred us to discover elements of the graveyard we would not have noticed if able to immediately find the marker, though I doubt this was the author's motivation for dismissing certain details!

Minor issues aside, Literary Landscapes is a book worth reading, whether or not you are planning a trip across the pond. Quotes are integrated superbly into the text, for they ebb and flow to a point where the transitions between Franco's guiding hand and the authors' texts - illuminating the landscape at hand - are barely perceivable. This book is also helpful as an excellent bibliography of primary sources for studying the authors discussed. If you are hungry for a dazzling, and for the most part, accurate journey through famous literary geography, look no further, and prepare to find yourself gazing more carefully at your own, self-defining landscape.

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