One of the loveliest evocations of a country childhood ever written is Laurie Lee's 1959 memoir, Cider With Rosie. The book begins with this brilliant description of lostness and aliveness:
First Light
I was set down from the carrier's cart at the age of three; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life in the village began.
The June grass, amongst which I stood, was taller than I was, and I wept. I had never been so close to grass before. It towered above me and all around me, each blade tattooed with tiger-skins of sunlight. It was knife-edged, dark, and a wicked green, thick as a forest and alive with grasshoppers that chirped and chattered and leapt through the air like monkeys.
I was lost and didn't know where to move. A tropic heat oozed up from the ground, rank with sharp odours of roots and nettles. Snow-clouds of elder-blossom banked in the sky, showering upon me the fumes and flakes of their sweet and giddy suffocation. High overhead ran frenzied larks, screaming, as though the sky were tearing apart.
For the first time in my life I was out of sight of humans. For the first time in my life I was alone in a world whose behaviour I could neither predict nor fathom: a world of birds that squealed, of plants that stank, of insects that sprang about without warning. I was lost and I did not expect to be found again. I put back my head and howled, and the sun hit me smartly on the face, like a bully.
My mate had an English country childhood; her father, for a time, was groundskeeper for Lydiard Park, in Swindon. She was his helper, and had possession of her first ax when she was five. I write all this because it is she who introduced me to Cider with Rosie. Although I thought the language beautiful, I didn't truly understand until we visited Lydiard Park. There is a language that landscape speaks like no other, and Laurie Lee has got it down.
ReplyDelete"The June grass, amongst which I stood, was taller than I was, and I wept. I had never been so close to grass before."
What a memory!
ReplyDeleteWe're watching "Lark Rise to Candleford" and getting a taste of that rural life in English. I can't help but smile at the fact that in each of the 3 one-hour episodes so far, not a single drop of rain has fallen, nor has a single day been dreary. Surely there was mud!
Thanks for your wonderful reminiscence, Susan. And Ruth — if you read Flora Thompson's original book, I'm sure you may encounter some welcome depressions (both climatological and psychological) there! Or perhaps my memory's playing tricks...
ReplyDeleteThat is what it is like to be three years old. Amazing description!
ReplyDeleteLaurie Lee's a lovely writer, am; he writes poetry too.
ReplyDeleteI agree: that's a brilliant opening passage. Love the description of the grass as well. We had to read it in high school in Brisbane. Can't wait to give it another shot. I'm sure I'll get a lot more out of it now that I'm not reading it "at gunpoint"!
ReplyDeleteReally like the way this "offshoot" blog of yours is going at the moment. I confess I find some of the more metaphysical stuff tough going, but the current thread of reminiscence (got that bugger of a word first time this time) and pondering the making of ones self intriguing and enjoyable.
Thanks so much for your comment, Goat. Reminiscence may be big-time on this new blog. Then again, it may go in a completely different direction! I have absolutely no idea. I'm relying on intuition, surrealism, my inner voice and 'what feels right'! No idea at all what I'm going to post next, but I have faith everything will come out alright in the wash. And add up to a unified whole.
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