麻豆区
Customer Review
- Reviewed in Canada on November 13, 2014Scottish author, Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) is best known for his classic fantasy The Wind in the Willows. But thirteen years before that came a classic of another kind. In The Golden Age, the author revisits his childhood. Capturing the nineteenth century, and the 鈥渃hildren should be seen and not heard鈥 era, Grahame paints a delightful picture of a family of children who, left to themselves in an English country home, are endlessly creative, and sometimes mischievous, in their play.
Some of the eighteen short stories are warmly humorous, others are almost painfully nostalgic. The tales are often couched in the mythology of ancient Greece, with adults being the Olympian gods, far above the children, and often lacking in sensitivity for the fears and frustrations of the young.
This is a superb book. Swinburne, in a critical analysis, called it 鈥渙ne of the few books which are well-nigh too praiseworthy for praise.鈥 The writing is full of insightful imagery that often captures the serious business of childish play. Be prepared to have your vocabulary challenged from time to time, though. It鈥檚 helpful to have the Kindle version with which one can check word meanings easily.
For those who remember, even dimly, what it was like to be young in a sometimes confusing adult world, this book will ring true. Lewis Carroll鈥檚 Alice, and James M. Barrie鈥檚 Peter Pan, take up a similar theme, but this book stands up well in their company. Recommended.
