| |
Literary Quotes: The Flatlands
From
The Mores
by John Clare, 1822 |
 |
Far
spread the moorey ground a level scene
Bespread with rush and one eternal green
That never felt the rage of blundering plough
Though centurys wreathed spring's blossoms on its brow
Still meeting plains that stretched them far away
In uncheckt shadows of green, brown and grey
Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene
Nor fence of ownership crept in between
To hide the prospect of the following eye
Its only bondage was the circling sky
One mighty flat undwarfed by bush and tree
Spread its faint shadow of immensity
|
 |
From
Waterland
by Graham Swift, published by Picador, 1983 |
|
We
lived in a lock-keepers cottage by the river Leem, which flows
out of Norfolk into the Great Ouse. And no one needs telling that
the land in that part of the world is flat. Flat, with an unrelieved
and monotonous flatness, enough of itself, some might say, to
drive a man to unquiet and sleep-defeating thoughts. From the
raised banks of the Leem, it stretched away to the horizon, its
uniform colour, peat-black, varied only by the crops that grew
upon it - grey-green potato leaves, blue-green beet leaves, yellow-green
wheat; its uniform levelness broken only by the furrowed and dead-straight
lines of ditches and drains, which, depending on the state of
the sky and the angle of the sun, ran like silver, copper or golden
wires across the fields and which, when you stood and looked at
them, made you shut one eye and fall prey to fruitless meditations
on the laws of perspective. |
|
From
A Change of Climate
by Hilary Mantel, published by Viking, 1994 |
|
On
the outskirts of Swaffham today there is a goodly selection of
dinky bungalows. They have wrought-iron gates and birdbaths, trellises,
hanging baskets, shutters and dwarf walls. They have raw brickwork
and shining windows, and scarlet floribundas in well-weeded beds.
Their carriage lamps are the light of the twentieth century. In
the market-place Ralph hears the broad drawling accent in which
his grandfather spoke moderated to the foul contemporary tones
of middle England.
...
To the east, where Ralph and his children now live at the county's
heart, the great wheat fields roll on to the horizon, denatured,
over-fertile, factory fields. A farm that employed eighty-five
men now employs six; the descendants of the other seventy-nine
have delivered themselves from rural squalor, from midden and
rotting thatch, and live in the bungalows, or in red-brick council
houses with long gardens. In spring, primroses struggle in the
verges. In June, there are dog-roses in such hedgerows as remain.
|
|
|
back
to region