Next to nature, art

     Here's another book whose cover is simply wrong and potentially misleading, so ignore that and look instead at the part-title illustrations by wood engraver Simon Brett which are very much in keeping with the spirit and the letter of the work.

   Design apart, the book itself is undoubtedly worth giving your full time and attention to because it is superb. Sue Gee's Earth and Heaven reads much as does The Mysteries of Glass (you may remember that the Book Group read that one last year- the post is here) in that it's a long, slow, beautifully sustained story, perfectly balanced, and one to be savoured, not rushed. For some readers the pace may be too steady, too unchanging for the book to keep them engaged, but for me its very stillness was its charm.

    It's the story of an artist, Walter Cox - entirely fictitious, it must be said, because the research Sue Gee has done is such that he is set so perfectly in his time and place you believe him to be real and you're tempted to look him up and discover his paintings. Entering London's Slade School of Art just after the First World War, Walter meets his fellow students Sarah Lewis, an engraver and printmaker, and Euan Harrison, a sculptor. Their close relationships endure through many years and difficult times, but it is their life and work in rural Kent - and a twist that shifts the balance of things - which is at the book's heart.

    I can't say more about the plot than that, other than that I guessed what would happen and then took much satisfaction in waiting to see if I was right - or if in fact an equally plausible alternative course would prove to be the one the author had designed for her characters. Either way, it matters little because I was  happy to observe and see events unfold, much as someone visiting Sue Gee's delicately but powerfully rendered Kent landscape might watch the country change with the seasons. In lesser hands this book's plot, its premise, its treatment even would not work; for this most accomplished writer it all comes together perfectly, and I was so sorry to turn the final page and have to leave it.

   

Comments

[Fran H-B]

I have yet to read a book by Sue Gee, at present The Hours of the Night is in the TBR pile. Your description of this book brings to mind Penelope Lively's Consequences which I enjoyed earlier this year. The start of that story concerns a young engraver working just before the ourbreak of the second world war.
When I came across a copy of Natures' Engraver by Jenny Uglow I learnt a great deal more about the processes involved in wood engraving, as well as the life of the best know engraver of all Thomas Berwick. As a child the walls of my home were covered with C Tunnicliffe's woodcuts, beloved by my parents.
Knowing this book is set in Kent adds to my interest, it was where I was brought up.

[Dark Puss]

Interesting that you mention a sculptor as this was (I think) only re-introduced as a subject to the Slade sometime in the 1920's. I guess the engraving link stems from the very important influence that Legros (a professor at UCL from 1876 to 1894) had upon the Slade for many years after his retirement. I am sure, of course, that your comment about the exemplary nature of Ms Gee's research is completely justified.