My Apologies.
Posted: Monday, 09 May 2005 |
Comments
I think the issue you raised regarding these "stories" is actually more important than the stories themselves. GIANT MAN retells a familiar tale well but for me your blog (which I enjoy immensely and encourage you to make more frequent)sparked my interest in the concept of "sense of place" in respect of the Hebrides. One of the most articulate and perceptive essays on this subject is the late Iain Crichton Smith's "Real people in a real place" with which you are probably familiar but, if not, would no doubt appeal. I share your view these stories are of utmost importance to those of us fortunate enough to have lived in the Western Isles and also to others less blessed than we are. Interestingly, (to me at least!)the Australian aborigines had a highly developed sensitivity to their landscape and the stories associated with them that Bruce Chatwin described so memorably in "Songlines". Perhaps blogging has the potential to be a cyber-world equivalent of a ceilidh (or Songline) but I wish somebody would invent a technological equivalent of buying a good storyteller a dram because that is what I would like to do for you and also for Giant Man who I suspect I have already met!
Exiled Islander from Perth, Australia
Islander from Perth Australia,
A far travelled comment; isn't the computer wonderful! Anyway thanks.
The trouble is that so few of the stories remain,and are at times only in books haorded away in libariers or archives-difficult to get at when the spirit moves and is inclined to the tales of yore.
Unfortunately I am not acquainted as much as I would like with Ian Chrichton Smith's books. I am sure that much insight could be gained from:"Real People In A Real Place". As we all know the ceilidh house has long disappeared.
I believe that my attempt to get the past on blog just touches on the certain need of us for some sense of identity, if nothing else.
Australian abrigonies may well be tuned in with a deep well of ancient lore that the world as a whole yearns for in these days of no real vision,
IW.
Island Wanderer from From Tiree