Pleasure of Ruins

by Rose Macaulay

What is it that draws thousands of tourists every year to Mexico, to Egypt, to Greece and places all over the world just to look at ruined heaps of stone, the relics of some glamorous but fallen civilisation? In this fascinating book Rose Macaulay, the well known novelist (and traveller in her own right), sets out to explain that strange 'pleasure of ruins' which has drawn and driven travellers through the ages. Through her own eyes and through the commentary of great observers of the past, from Petrarch to Henry James, she takes the reader on a gigantic excursion across continents and down the centuries through the marvellous relics of dead cities and palaces, in Europe, in the gorgeous (but now jungle swamped) East, in sand- engulfed North Africa, in Mexico and the Peruvian forests. With them she speculates on life before the cities fell and recreates with sensitivity and wit the people who built and destroyed these glorious civilisations, and what their ruins have meant to others.
Her definitive work covers the archaeological and architectural aspects of the sites as well as their literary associations and the book is fully illustrated with both photographs and sketches by travellers of the past.

Genres: History, Travel, Nonfiction, Architecture, Art, Reference

466 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Emilie Rose Macaulay, whom Elizabeth Bowen called "one of the few writers of whom it may be said, she adorns our century," was born at Rugby, where her father was an assistant master. Descended on both sides from a long line of clerical ancestors, she felt Anglicanism was in her blood. Much of her childhood was spent in Varazze, near Genoa, and memories of Italy fill the early novels. The family returned to England in 1894 and settled in Oxford. She read history at Somerville, and on coming down lived with her family first in Wales, then near Cambridge, where her father had been appointed a lecturer in English. There she began a writing career which was to span fifty years with the publication of her first novel, Abbots Verney, in 1906. When her sixth novel, The Lee Shore (1912), won a literary prize, a gift from her uncle allowed her to rent a tiny flat in London, and she plunged happily into London literary life.

From BookRags: http://www.bookrags.com/biography/ros...

Reviews

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something wondrously nostalgic about Rose Macaulay’s “Pleasure of Ruins”. Perhaps it is her tremendous learning. The book just drips arcane knowledge about a past long lost to us, but extraordinary in its power. We all love ruins, though we don’t know why. Perhaps its because we like to think of the striving of people long dead, who like we also fought, who won and lost, who loved and hated, who yearned for peace or meaning, just like we do.

Meaninglessness is the greatest fear for those of us who love ruins. We don’t fear death, that will come to all of us. We don’t fear a fight, in fact we live for it – though it scares us. What we fear is that nobody will be able to tread the ruins of our lives, long spent and over. That there will be nothing there – a grass hut that was burned or trampled, long vanished; a mud and wattle construct washed away in the first storm; a cave bare and empty of personality, no witness to say “I WAS HERE!”. That is what we who love ruins fear.

Because ruins remind us of the tremendous fights of the past. They are deeply conservative entities, that we love because they are so and we hope they will always remain so. We don’t want our ancient castles rebuilt to become dens of modern iniquity. We don’t want the ancient medieval churches re-roofed and converted into a bar or a chic restaurant for the moderns. We want them old and rusting beneath the sun, we want their ghosts to still tell us of bygone times when people struggled, as we struggle today, and whose works of their hands and backs and minds have endured to tell the tale long after their names even have been washed away by the snows and the rains.

We don’t want ruins in the making either, because those are a sad affair, still smelling of blood and hair – before time has lent a sense of nostalgia and inevitability and swept them clean, sterile. Nor do we want ruins rebuilt – stripping that which once was of what it was supposed to be in order to fill it with something which it was never intended to represent. The usurpation of the work of another, mostly unknown hands. That is what we conservatives fear. But give us a broken down castle which still hums with untold stories of a glorious past – and we are at peace.

And that is, frankly, a little weird, isn’t it?? – but also infinitely satisfying.

Or as Rose Macaulay wrote “The intoxication, at once so heady and so devout, is not the romantic melancholy engendered by broken towers and moldered stones; it is the soaring of the imagination into the high empyrean where huge episodes are tangled with myths and dreams; it is the stunning impact of world history on its amazed heirs.”

Exactly.

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 4 out of 5]

An erudite meditation on ruins and their romantic and philosophical evocations. After some general observations in the initial pages, the book settles into a travelogue of famous sites with descriptions of their decaying state by the author, along with liberal quotations from earlier belletrists. Macaulay's love of ruins in their natural state, without restoration or sanitizing, captures the allure of these moldering structures.

The text rambles as one ruin blends with another and it lacks structure. This is a book for browsing and savoring rather than for reading from cover to cover.

[Vidar · Rating 5 out of 5]

It may be a bit dense in parts, no translation of greek quotes etc. But that was probably the way they did it in 1953. Read slowly and you will find a treasuretrove of information written in beautiful language! It's probably a requisite to be interested in ruins and classical history though!

I read the 1953 first edition btw.

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the title of this book. My whole life, my mother has fostered in me a love of ruins. The first thing we did when we moved to Germany was to travel to Naples to see the ruins there.

This book has beautiful pictures of ruins from all over the world interspersed with quotes from different poets and authors who also loved ruins. Macaulay also provides small history lessons on the ruins pictured.

I like that most of the photos are black and white as the texture of the ruins really shine and it makes for a more bleak atmosphere. I only wish that there were more; a truly greedy reader am I, since this is already a very large book!

[Jenny OH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting musing on the love of ruined palaces, castles, religious buildings, and more from ancient times to the mid-20th century. Given how much Macaulay quotes from original sources, be prepared to translate some French, Italian, German, Latin, and Greek to get the full sense of her writing. You'll also want to be prepared for some casual racism in the sections about ruins in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

[Bill Pritchard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this a challenging one to stay with - perhaps it is due to the time of the writing and the differences found today. Ms. Macaulay certainly pours herself into this book, as well as brings along many of histories great travelers. But it just wasn't all that for me... maybe it will be for you. :-)

[Polly Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Awash with racism, elitism and love for colonialism. I do appreciate that it borrows veryyy lightly from multiple fields to build essays that essentially just describe the vibes of a place.

[Diana Duncan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Part of the problem I had with book was that I was reading a poorly OCR'd e-book. Much of the text was incomprehensible. The content was boring--endless tales of various ancient and modern visitors to ruins

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

This is a bit dense and maybe even turgid. And sadly, not at all lively. Cool concept, maybe something I could really sink my teeth into when I'm in more of a read-slowly mood.

[Lisa]

Pleasure of Ruins by Rose Macaulay (1984)