A Snow Goose And Other Utopian Fictions

Product Description

Brings together four substantial stories from a master travel writer & teller of tales. In 'A Snow Goose', the tragic & romanticised mystery of what became of the Franklin Expedition to discover the North-West Passage is re-imagined, weaving together Inuit oral testimony & a landscape on the brink of abstraction to produce a story that is desolate & beautiful & in which artefacts & characters come to life, A Snow Goose is an eco-fable that resonates with our times.' After the Fall' plays with the notion of human credulity, symbolised her by the shadowy existence of the Yeti & building on HG Wells' climbing sequences in The Country of the Blind to construct it's own utopian fantasy.' Incident at Mew Stone Point' takes a climbing location on the limestone sea-cliffs of the Castlemartin peninsula in South Pembrokeshire & a premise from Ambrose Bierce's 1890 tale, ' An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' & produces something altogether more celebratory; a rock-climbing romance. The final story ' The Burning' picks up a contentious remark made by the poet R. S. Thomas in support of the campaign of arson against Welsh holiday cottages from 1979- 1994. The story weaves together Welsh mythology & influences from Jung to contemporary Welsh social tradition to produce a scintillating comedy of identity. Jim Perrin is best known as a rock climber & acclaimed travel writer, including contributing to the Guardian Country Diary. Before turning to writing, he worked as a shepherd in Cwm Pennant & has made many contributions to newspapers & climbing magazines. As a climber, he has developed new routes, as well as making solo ascents of a number of established routes. He has twice won the Boardman Tasker Prize. A Snow Goose & other tales is his first full-length fiction work, bringing together four long stories.