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I Can't Stay Long
Reading this book is like a holiday - an interlude of pure pleasure.In it Laurie Lee has collected all of his occasional writing that he cares to preserve, and proves himself to be as much a magician in essay form as he is in his full-length prose works. Some of these pieces come from a world which is now well known and loved by almost that of the Gloucestershire childhood celebrated in Cider with Rosie . One is tragic and deeply moving, inspired by a visit to Aberfan a year after the disaster there. Many were brought home by Laurie Lee the traveller, from Holland, Tuscany, Mexico, Ireland, the West Indies, a film festival in Cannes. In all of them he displays the gifts that make him one of the best-loved writers now at work in Britain. This is a collection to buy in pairs - one for the bedside, and one to give to a friend.Cover design and illustration by John Gorham.
352 pages
First published January 1, 1975
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About the author
Laurie Lee
81 books273 followersLaurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE, was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie (1959), As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991). While the first volume famously recounts his childhood in the idyllic Slad Valley, the second deals with his leaving home for London and his first visit to Spain in 1934, and the third with his return in December 1937 to join the Republican International Brigade.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
November 27, 2021
An uneven and slightly frustrating read. I Can't Stay Long is a collection of Laurie Lee's shorter pieces. Many were newspaper articles. The book is split into three sections: early years; some general articles covering subjects like love, charm and appetite; and a final section on travel writing.
The first section shares the lyricism of Cider With Rosie and the rest of the autobiographical trilogy. Three of my favourite books. This is by far and away the best section.
The second section felt inconsequential and hurried.
The travel writing, in the third and final section, is sporadically interesting. The world has changed so much since the time these articles were written and this gives these pieces an added poignancy.
One of the most frustrating aspects of this book is that there is no indication when each piece was written.
A variable, slightly frustrating and inessential collection.
3/5
The first section shares the lyricism of Cider With Rosie and the rest of the autobiographical trilogy. Three of my favourite books. This is by far and away the best section.
The second section felt inconsequential and hurried.
The travel writing, in the third and final section, is sporadically interesting. The world has changed so much since the time these articles were written and this gives these pieces an added poignancy.
One of the most frustrating aspects of this book is that there is no indication when each piece was written.
A variable, slightly frustrating and inessential collection.
3/5
'They are memorials to times and countries whose best is probably past and gone . . . I was lucky to have known them when I did, before darkness began to fall from the air.'
In this much-loved volume, a mature Laurie Lee returns to the Gloucestershire childhood familiar to readers of Cider with Rosie, a world lost even at the time of writing to the march of twentieth-century technology. Lee also explores the post-war travels that took him to, amongst others, the Netherlands, Tuscany, Mexico and the West Indies. With pieces dating from the 1940s and 50s, Lee captures a world now for ever changed by war and mass tourism, 'when to be a traveller was not yet to be just a labelled unit'.
February 5, 2023
I’m a big fan of Laurie Lee’s descriptive language. Not for you if you want action or characters, but evokes a proper feeling of ‘place’ in my mind. Only reason not 5 stars is the way he writes about women, which I guess is a generational thing....
August 14, 2020
Finished this the other day and enjoyed it. The book is a collection of essays by Laurie Lee, from various periods, I'd assume, but there are no dates on them, so it is unclear exactly from which time period each one was written, but anyway. The book is split into three parts- the first part is about childhood and his home village life and general nostalgia, the second part is quite vaguely put together, consisting of abstract topics such as love, appetite, charm etc. and also contains a very sad piece about the Aberfan disaster in Wales, and the third part is a collection of travel essays...
The first part is very short and you've finished it before you know it- I liked most of the essays here, particularly the one about the 'witch' and the general Cotswolds nostalgia is comforting and also interesting to read about, as it will be all different nowadays.
The second part is also pretty short and is quite unusual in a way, as he's discussing pretty vague topics like love, and what he thinks is important regarding appetite, in all its forms in life, and the magical nature of charm, and why it is such a rare and beautiful quality for a person to possess. He then talks about his idea of paradise, which seems quite random, and then ends with the school disaster at Aberfan, where so many children died, which is very affecting and well written.
The third and final part of the book is all about travel, and is by far the longest and best part, taking up more than half the book. He talks about walking through the hills of Tuscany in Italy, his love of Spain, visiting various areas, all rich in culture and quite different from modern day Spain, in many ways. He visits Mexico for the first time, finding much interest in its history and temples, festivals and fairs, all of which are probably quite different nowadays. He visits snowy Poland for the celebration of a poet, Ibiza, before it was full of clubs and noise, and even the Cannes Film Festival. He tells of a trip to Holland, with its waterways and bars and rich history, a sun-drenched trip to the Caribbean, some time spent in Ireland in it's old-time pubs, drinking stout with the locals and singing and playing violin with them, a gastronomic tour of Beirut, sampling their rich culinary offerings, before ending the book with a flight on a Concorde plane, breaking the speed of sound and getting to listen in to the cock pit with headphones on, sat in the back, as they attempt to land it during stormy weather...
It's quite a slim book, but is almost all narrative, and richly poetic narrative at that, and is great for slowing things down a bit, the pace being nice and gentle, and the writing quality high as it always is with Laurie Lee. This is a diverse and always interesting read, and a great accompaniment to his autobiographical trilogy- Cider with Rosie, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, and A Moment of War. The back cover calls it 'an interlude of pure pleasure' and for the most part, it certainly is, and is one to watch out for, if still available anywhere.
March 16, 2009
A religious fucking experience.
September 1, 2017
A true master at work. Not a word out of place, brilliantly capturing mood, landscape and soul. You could read his short essays on his childhood, on places he's visited and more ephemeral subjects like love for ever and never tire of them. All holding interest and discovery.
August 4, 2021
This book was an incredible find that I saw when going through a bookshop that has a lot of older books filled in it. I thought that the cover looked interesting (it was obviously not the same as the one on here...) so I picked it up, not expecting it to be a collection of works/essays (at first I thought it was an autobiography with an interesting writing style). Although I normally don't read books like that, I really enjoyed reading I Can't Stay Long by Laurie Lee.
It's divided in three sections - part one was mainly about childhood, part two was mainly about abstract ideas, and part three was mainly about travel writing and the different countries Lee had visited. I really liked the style of writing Lee had, especially when it came to part three. It was really beautiful, and it was almost like a journey. The different abstract ideas he explored was really fun to read about too!
Even though this book took me a while to finish it for various reasons, I really enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone.
It's divided in three sections - part one was mainly about childhood, part two was mainly about abstract ideas, and part three was mainly about travel writing and the different countries Lee had visited. I really liked the style of writing Lee had, especially when it came to part three. It was really beautiful, and it was almost like a journey. The different abstract ideas he explored was really fun to read about too!
Even though this book took me a while to finish it for various reasons, I really enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone.
Read
August 21, 2023Sergito gifted this as a farewell present last summer and it has been battered and bruised as I took it to various places over the months that followed. As I Can’t Stay Long is a collection of short essays, it’s quite good for dipping in and out. Laurie Lee essentially reflects on different places he travels to and also on emotions. I don’t really read travel writing often but he had a real gift for describing places in quite enthralling ways. It feeds the travel bug quite well.
May 21, 2017
Some very interesting (The Village that Lost its Children, Ibiza High Fifties, Eight-Year-Old World) and some less so, as you would expect in a book of previously published essays and journalism.
October 1, 2021
This little book of essays confirmed to me my growing suspicions that Laurie Lee is my favourite author of all time. In the very least he has best prose I have ever read. Poetic without being vague or postmodernist. Powerful and emotive without being pretentious (All right maybe a little bit pretentious). There are so many books in this world, and so little time to read, that I have felt burdened of late to read only the best. Laurie Lee is the best. There is a reason his books, especially "Cider With Rosie" who were studied heavily in the British public education system. They are not only good but they celebrate a world which doesn't seem to exist anymore. A world where simple pleasures like a book or a ripe fruit from the kitchen table satisfied. A world where if one travelled they did not see a reflection of the West but rather something different. It is rather fitting then that this book of essays finish with Lee telling the story of his first experience on a Concorde flight:
"There is no doubt that the Concorde is a magnificent contrivance- you can leave in daylight for New York and arrive to find it waiting for sunrise, go half round the globe and find you're friends aren't quire ready for you- and that it performs with triumphant élan. The device is fantastic; it could telescope the world. It could also diminish our sense of distance and wonder."
The book is split rather economically into three parts. The first part are a collection of memories of Laurie Lee's childhood. He talks about the books he read, the world through his own eyes as an eight year old and his topics such as his first love. In many ways this first part acts as almost an appendix to "Cider With Rosie" which was his memoirs growing up in the Cotswold's just after WW1. The second part of the book is made up on a series of more abstract essays based on topics such as Love, Charm, Paradise and a beautiful essay called "firstborn" about his experiences becoming a father for the first time. The last part, and the longest, are different travel essays detailing his trips to locations such as Spain, a rather amusing writer's trip to Poland, Ibiza pre-nightclubs, and a really entertaining essay on Beirut. Here is an extract from the Beirut essay:
"Beirut's many restaurants are not only places in which to eat, they are places in which to be seen eating expensively and well. Apart from a rash of wimpy and Hamburger joints, aimed at the Americanized young, the Beirut restaurant is a temple of unblushing hedonism. Here it is the thing to display publicly your gastronomic lusts, to exhibit an almost erotic self-indulgence for food. You don't eat alone, or snatch a snack, or gobble the cheap plat de jour behind a crumpled newspaper. Rather you book a large table and eat your way leisurely through the menu surrounded by your whole family and all their collateral tribes."
All in all, Laurie Lee is a big win.
"There is no doubt that the Concorde is a magnificent contrivance- you can leave in daylight for New York and arrive to find it waiting for sunrise, go half round the globe and find you're friends aren't quire ready for you- and that it performs with triumphant élan. The device is fantastic; it could telescope the world. It could also diminish our sense of distance and wonder."
The book is split rather economically into three parts. The first part are a collection of memories of Laurie Lee's childhood. He talks about the books he read, the world through his own eyes as an eight year old and his topics such as his first love. In many ways this first part acts as almost an appendix to "Cider With Rosie" which was his memoirs growing up in the Cotswold's just after WW1. The second part of the book is made up on a series of more abstract essays based on topics such as Love, Charm, Paradise and a beautiful essay called "firstborn" about his experiences becoming a father for the first time. The last part, and the longest, are different travel essays detailing his trips to locations such as Spain, a rather amusing writer's trip to Poland, Ibiza pre-nightclubs, and a really entertaining essay on Beirut. Here is an extract from the Beirut essay:
"Beirut's many restaurants are not only places in which to eat, they are places in which to be seen eating expensively and well. Apart from a rash of wimpy and Hamburger joints, aimed at the Americanized young, the Beirut restaurant is a temple of unblushing hedonism. Here it is the thing to display publicly your gastronomic lusts, to exhibit an almost erotic self-indulgence for food. You don't eat alone, or snatch a snack, or gobble the cheap plat de jour behind a crumpled newspaper. Rather you book a large table and eat your way leisurely through the menu surrounded by your whole family and all their collateral tribes."
All in all, Laurie Lee is a big win.
December 2, 2024
4.5 ⭐ “Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.”
- Bohumil Hrabal
This quote from Too Loud a Solitude describes how I felt reading some of my favorite parts of I Can’t Stay Long, like these:
.
“Love, that slick fever, strange convulsion of nerves at the physical presence of another; that incautious involvement sparked off by a trick of the light, chance of propinquity, or a favourable arrangement of temperatures; that sudden release of tensions and sense of magical freewheeling through a world of new and unimaginable harmonies, set in motion by no more than a curve of a lip, posture, or tone of voice- such shaky beginnings are all that most of us need to say yes, to give ourselves up, to join another’s life, without measure or doubt, and start founding careers and families.”
.
.
“A woman with charm finds no man dull, doesn’t have to pretend to ignore his dullness; indeed, in her presence he becomes not just a different person but the person he most wants to be. Such a woman gives life to his deep-held fantasies and suddenly makes them possible, not so much by flattering him as adding the necessary conviction to his long suspicion that he is king.”
.
.
“We are full and weary now, the swings deserted, the flags have disappeared. Everything has been won and tasted and enjoyed. Blue twilight rolls like smoke down the valley, the musicians disperse, rubbing their sore lips, and we all start for home laden with trophies, and boasting.
Only the lovers remain among the bushes, their time just beginning.”
- Bohumil Hrabal
This quote from Too Loud a Solitude describes how I felt reading some of my favorite parts of I Can’t Stay Long, like these:
.
“Love, that slick fever, strange convulsion of nerves at the physical presence of another; that incautious involvement sparked off by a trick of the light, chance of propinquity, or a favourable arrangement of temperatures; that sudden release of tensions and sense of magical freewheeling through a world of new and unimaginable harmonies, set in motion by no more than a curve of a lip, posture, or tone of voice- such shaky beginnings are all that most of us need to say yes, to give ourselves up, to join another’s life, without measure or doubt, and start founding careers and families.”
.
.
“A woman with charm finds no man dull, doesn’t have to pretend to ignore his dullness; indeed, in her presence he becomes not just a different person but the person he most wants to be. Such a woman gives life to his deep-held fantasies and suddenly makes them possible, not so much by flattering him as adding the necessary conviction to his long suspicion that he is king.”
.
.
“We are full and weary now, the swings deserted, the flags have disappeared. Everything has been won and tasted and enjoyed. Blue twilight rolls like smoke down the valley, the musicians disperse, rubbing their sore lips, and we all start for home laden with trophies, and boasting.
Only the lovers remain among the bushes, their time just beginning.”
December 9, 2020
I loved Cider with Rosie as a kid, and looked forward to this. The first section recaptures that spirit and is a good read. The second section takes on grandiose themes and is frankly boring. The third section, on travel, is delightfully dated, almost colonial in its condescending characterizations. It probably wouldn't even get published today.
January 5, 2018
Gorgeous sumptuous prose, like gulping bumpers of dizzying rioja
June 12, 2021
Just can not beat Laurie Lee's writing. These are gorgeous stories of a time since lost to us. Travel stories and essays about growing up that are seeped in beautiful poetic prose.
November 2, 2021
Brilliant short stories and essays, particularly 'a drink with a witch' and 'love'. Timeless observations and thoughts.
June 15, 2022
Amazing writing style. Some pieces haven’t aged well, what with changing sensibilities, but the language is often lyrical.
August 25, 2025
Found it hard that there were no year markers but a lovely lovely read.
Some fave bits:
21 - She comes from a wild family of drunks and poachers, and she is my squaw, my secret. Elder-blossom hangs from her ears, and she holds a tall red flag in her hand and is smothering it with lilac. Thick swathes of scent curl up from the yard, and I forget the Banner and swear I will carry her flag or die.
23 - There is a three-legged race for fun, and I find Jenny, her hair loose and her face yellow with buttercups from rolling on the grass. We tie our legs together with a rag, we wind our arms about our waists and run together in a dream, bound as if we belonged to each other, a strange fleet animal which is both of us.
30 - I am armed now with a spaceman's eyes, with the nerve of a god and the hopefulness of angels. I have renounced all human associations. I am the Solitary, shining with light and power.
The world is behind me. The garden path leads outward to the moon, and I have no idea when I'll be back.
51 - Ours is a period of writing particularly devoted to facts, to a fondness for data rather than divination, as though to possess the exact measurements of the Taj Mahal is somehow to possess its spirit. I read in a magazine recently a profile of Chicago whose every line was a froth of statistics. It gave me a vivid picture, not so much of the city, but of the author cramped in the archives.
57 - Love is also disquiet, the brooding pleasures of doubt, midnights wasted by peculation, the frantic dance round the significance of the last thing she said, the need to see her to have life confirmed.
At best, love is simply the slipping of a hand in another's, of knowing you are where you belong at last.
63 - taking some pleasure in the act of adoring, and in being content now and then to lie by one’s sleeping love and to shield her eyes from the sun.
65 - Fasting is an act of homage to the majesty of appetite. So I think we should arrange to give up our pleasures regularly - our food, our friends, our lovers - in order to preserve their intensity, and the moment of coming back to them.
112 - (on Madrid) There is at all times in the streets a palpable alegria, which all who come may share, arising from the warm, relaxed manners of a people who would rather make friends than money.
162 - with a book of free tickets stuffed into my pocket, and none to be seen till the morrow, I walked up the sunlit, windy front, thinking how lucky I was.
207 - A sad mechanic walked across the scrubby air-strip and waited as we re-fuelled. Then he said to the pilot: 'Bring me back a bride, will you?' and handed him a bunch of bananas through the open cockpit.
Some fave bits:
21 - She comes from a wild family of drunks and poachers, and she is my squaw, my secret. Elder-blossom hangs from her ears, and she holds a tall red flag in her hand and is smothering it with lilac. Thick swathes of scent curl up from the yard, and I forget the Banner and swear I will carry her flag or die.
23 - There is a three-legged race for fun, and I find Jenny, her hair loose and her face yellow with buttercups from rolling on the grass. We tie our legs together with a rag, we wind our arms about our waists and run together in a dream, bound as if we belonged to each other, a strange fleet animal which is both of us.
30 - I am armed now with a spaceman's eyes, with the nerve of a god and the hopefulness of angels. I have renounced all human associations. I am the Solitary, shining with light and power.
The world is behind me. The garden path leads outward to the moon, and I have no idea when I'll be back.
51 - Ours is a period of writing particularly devoted to facts, to a fondness for data rather than divination, as though to possess the exact measurements of the Taj Mahal is somehow to possess its spirit. I read in a magazine recently a profile of Chicago whose every line was a froth of statistics. It gave me a vivid picture, not so much of the city, but of the author cramped in the archives.
57 - Love is also disquiet, the brooding pleasures of doubt, midnights wasted by peculation, the frantic dance round the significance of the last thing she said, the need to see her to have life confirmed.
At best, love is simply the slipping of a hand in another's, of knowing you are where you belong at last.
63 - taking some pleasure in the act of adoring, and in being content now and then to lie by one’s sleeping love and to shield her eyes from the sun.
65 - Fasting is an act of homage to the majesty of appetite. So I think we should arrange to give up our pleasures regularly - our food, our friends, our lovers - in order to preserve their intensity, and the moment of coming back to them.
112 - (on Madrid) There is at all times in the streets a palpable alegria, which all who come may share, arising from the warm, relaxed manners of a people who would rather make friends than money.
162 - with a book of free tickets stuffed into my pocket, and none to be seen till the morrow, I walked up the sunlit, windy front, thinking how lucky I was.
207 - A sad mechanic walked across the scrubby air-strip and waited as we re-fuelled. Then he said to the pilot: 'Bring me back a bride, will you?' and handed him a bunch of bananas through the open cockpit.
August 26, 2023
”När vi hemma hos oss ville ha färsk potatis till middagen, gick vi ut i trädgården och tog upp ett par stånd, skakade av jorden, sköljde dem under pumpen och slängde dem i kastrullen. När de var färdigkokta, smakade de timjan och mynta och sommar och hade samma delikata konsistens som kanderade kastanjer.”
”Och om vi ville ha champinjoner, gick vi ut och plockade dem före frukosten, från tuvor av vått gräs på de blänkande septemberängarna. Och när de var stekta, hade de en förtrollande smak av manna, varken grönsak eller kött, en skogsdoftande arom av söta rötter med ett sting av orkidéer, sav och nötter.”
”Det finns bara två städer till i världen som vet vad Warszawa vet. Det tog bara cirka trettio sekunder att ödelägga Hiroshima och Nagasaki, med teknikens ultramoderna påfund. Warszawas öde var mer gammalmodigt, där krävdes det sex års fientlig ockupation. Men förödelsen var till slut lika total.”
”För första gången i sin historia var oräkneliga invasioner har Ibiza nu erövrats, inte med vapen utan med pengar.”
”Holland är inte likt någonting annat, det är en gåva från havet, ett omvänt Atlantis, en nation som holländarna har dragit upp ur böljorna. För tusen år sedan låg hälften av landet under vatten som det hade gjort sedan istidens dagar, och det var de dammgrävande, fördämningsbyggande, bäverflitiga holländarna som torkade ut jorden och gav den tillbaka till världen.”
”Och om vi ville ha champinjoner, gick vi ut och plockade dem före frukosten, från tuvor av vått gräs på de blänkande septemberängarna. Och när de var stekta, hade de en förtrollande smak av manna, varken grönsak eller kött, en skogsdoftande arom av söta rötter med ett sting av orkidéer, sav och nötter.”
”Det finns bara två städer till i världen som vet vad Warszawa vet. Det tog bara cirka trettio sekunder att ödelägga Hiroshima och Nagasaki, med teknikens ultramoderna påfund. Warszawas öde var mer gammalmodigt, där krävdes det sex års fientlig ockupation. Men förödelsen var till slut lika total.”
”För första gången i sin historia var oräkneliga invasioner har Ibiza nu erövrats, inte med vapen utan med pengar.”
”Holland är inte likt någonting annat, det är en gåva från havet, ett omvänt Atlantis, en nation som holländarna har dragit upp ur böljorna. För tusen år sedan låg hälften av landet under vatten som det hade gjort sedan istidens dagar, och det var de dammgrävande, fördämningsbyggande, bäverflitiga holländarna som torkade ut jorden och gav den tillbaka till världen.”
July 16, 2019
This book has generally dated, but still repays reading. It is frustrating and unhelpful that the publisher does not provide the dates of original publication of each piece.
The first section relates to Lee's early life, and generally shares the lyricism of Cider with Rosie.
The second section has a couple of very worthwhile pieces - "Firstborn", and one on Aberfan. The remaining pieces feel as if they were dashed off without much thought, to meet a magazine publishers's deadline.
The third section of travel pieces is still worth reading, but shows very clearly how much the world has changed. The piece on Beirut - busy, raucous, thriving - is bittersweet, given that the civil war was effectively underway in 1975, when this book was published. Lee's city has gone forever.
The first section relates to Lee's early life, and generally shares the lyricism of Cider with Rosie.
The second section has a couple of very worthwhile pieces - "Firstborn", and one on Aberfan. The remaining pieces feel as if they were dashed off without much thought, to meet a magazine publishers's deadline.
The third section of travel pieces is still worth reading, but shows very clearly how much the world has changed. The piece on Beirut - busy, raucous, thriving - is bittersweet, given that the civil war was effectively underway in 1975, when this book was published. Lee's city has gone forever.
November 29, 2021
If I was just reviewing the account of the aftermath of Aberfan, ‘The Village That Lost Its Children’, I would have rated this a five. It’s a deeply moving eyewitness account, rendered with sensitivity and skill, of one of the defining events of the 1960s.
Some of Laurie Lee’s accounts of growing up in Gloucestershire are also beautifully written, bittersweet and splashed with humour, as you might expect.
However I found the essays on abstract themes (love etc) had dated badly, especially their attitudes to gender (and in relation to women). I didn’t like them much.
He was back to surer ground with the travel pieces that end this patchy collection, though national stereotypes and sweeping generalisations did make rather frequent appearances. There are always, of course, some beautifully-turned phrases (he’s a wonderful crafter of words) but for me none of this material quite hit the mark of ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’, which I remember loving as a teenager.
Some of Laurie Lee’s accounts of growing up in Gloucestershire are also beautifully written, bittersweet and splashed with humour, as you might expect.
However I found the essays on abstract themes (love etc) had dated badly, especially their attitudes to gender (and in relation to women). I didn’t like them much.
He was back to surer ground with the travel pieces that end this patchy collection, though national stereotypes and sweeping generalisations did make rather frequent appearances. There are always, of course, some beautifully-turned phrases (he’s a wonderful crafter of words) but for me none of this material quite hit the mark of ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’, which I remember loving as a teenager.
April 10, 2023
Mr Lee is a wonderful poet, and the prose of this travel narrative flows like his poetry. One can feel the poet's sensitivity and sensibilities on every page. It's a travel book, but one filled with delicate impressions of people and places, as if Mr Lee is somehow hovering above them in spirit form, outside looking in. It's a mesmerising style, and wholly unique. He leaves home at 19 and spends two years walking, penniless, until he reaches Spain and becomes involved in the Spanish Civil War. It's another life of adventure and romance, and he embraces both with every place he visits. I defy anyone to be disappointed in this book - I can almost guarantee they won't be able to put it down until they have finished reading it.
October 24, 2024
I read “cider with Rosie” and “As I walked out…” at school, the latter for O level. As I started reading this book, I was taken back to teenage memories - when I admired Lee’s prose and envied his adventures.
I still enjoy his style, but as I have developed a more scientific and technical approach to writing, I find his prose a little flabby. He doesn’t write like a poet. Perhaps the problem is his material, which reads as though it extracts and abstracts of a life have been picked up and sewn together.
I still enjoy his style, but as I have developed a more scientific and technical approach to writing, I find his prose a little flabby. He doesn’t write like a poet. Perhaps the problem is his material, which reads as though it extracts and abstracts of a life have been picked up and sewn together.
June 23, 2025
Fantastic pieces in the first section, especially the evocative writing about childhood.
The second section has some terrible essays about "love" "appetite" , "charm"," etc, which feel like schoolboy assignments and betray some dated attitudes. Although there's a great piece of reportage about the Aberfan disaster.
And finally the travel articles are mostly too brief to do anything other than offer a few fleeting impressions, although it was amusing to read about the desolate, pre-raver island of mid-20th century Ibiza.
The second section has some terrible essays about "love" "appetite" , "charm"," etc, which feel like schoolboy assignments and betray some dated attitudes. Although there's a great piece of reportage about the Aberfan disaster.
And finally the travel articles are mostly too brief to do anything other than offer a few fleeting impressions, although it was amusing to read about the desolate, pre-raver island of mid-20th century Ibiza.
April 17, 2021
As always his writing is lyrical and offers an insight into the author's character but get the impression that these were the stories which didn't get into his more famous works and some stories are a bit dated.
July 12, 2023
I just get hooked and drawn in by his linguistic mastery … pretty insightful views on (future) mass tourism and the impact that might have, not just on the planet but on us as individuals and how we ‘experience’ the journey
February 27, 2025
I really enjoyed this collection; most especially his thoughts in Part2. His travels were also very interesting probably because some of the places I'd also been to, and now wish I could have seen them with him.
January 24, 2018
Short stories and essays - some more interesting than others
November 19, 2018
The first two parts of random prose I love. Not so much the third part where it was exceedingly travel literature.
August 28, 2020
Lee is a fantastic writer, he could make grey seem colourful. Opening on a random page you will find beauty in his poetic brilliance.
February 16, 2021
Loved this one too. Also given to me by Tim in 2016. Sold to 'webuybooks' in 2021.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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