A Writer's House in Wales by Jan Morris
143 pages
Published 2002
Read from May 2 to May 3
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
This
may seem an odd, trifling place to start reading the works of Jan
Morris, but my library had it in its limited selection of "travel"
books, and it sounded kind of neat when I read the jacket flap. Compared
to the England-set sections of Roger Deakin's Wildwood (the closest book in tone I've read recently), A Writer's House
seems a bit insubstantial, brushing airily across history and geography
to sketch out Morris' titular home the way a casual vistor might see
it, going so far into the conceit that she pretends to offer the reader
tea and a guided tour. It's an eccentric work; taken together with Wildwood,
it would seem "British author describes their rustic home in great
detail" is a peculiar genre all its own. Perhaps one could
call it "domestic architectural memoir." Wildwood had larger ambitions that Deakin largely attained. A Writer's House
makes no pretense of being more than it is, a mildly diverting little work
that welcomes you in for an afternoon before seeing you on your day down
the path.
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