Cuddy

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The styles of the novels differ and each reader will likely find a different part appeals. The first section is perhaps the most innovative, with prose poetry mixed with a story told from attributed quotes from various sources, ancient and modern, on which Ben Myers has drawn. The latter aspects was one of the book’s highlights for me, but the prose poetry it’s weakest element, albeit one that put Cuddy in dialogue with Letty McHugh’s brilliant Barbellion Prize winning The Book of Hours. The Revd Dr Sarah Foot is Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford, and Dean Designate. Book II tells of masons repairing the cathedral stonework in 1346 and makes the saint an actor in condemning an abusive husband. The third book offers a pastiche of an M. R. James ghost story, set in 1827, when a sceptical professor finds his confidence in science challenged at the opening of the saint’s tomb. And, in the final part, a young labourer, Michael Cuthbert, has his own encounter with the numinous when unexpectedly given work in the cathedral while his mother lies dying at home. The final book is the story of Michael, a teenager labourer who in 2017 begins work at the cathedral among the repairs to the medieval masonry. This is Myers at his most modern and antagonistic. Take this short description of Durham’s early morning bus station, rank with the detritus of the night before:

I have not read any books by Baenjamin Myers before but so I approached this novel cautiously particularly as its main plot was about St Cuthbert and how he reached his final resting place in Durham Cathedral.Myers, Benjamin (2002). American heretics: rebel voices in music. Hove: Codex. ISBN 1-899598-23-5. OCLC 50175926. Initially it took me a moment or two to get into this book but as I carried on I was gripped. Admittedly as an ex student of Durham, I have a connection to the source material but I found it a really beautiful and evocative piece of writing. Past winners of the Tom-Gallon Trust Award". Society of Authors. 8 May 2020. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020 . Retrieved 27 May 2021.

In this first story we meet the young cook who is part of the haliwerfolk, feeding the monks with whatever can be found and also tending to their ailments – their aches and pains and even their tooth aches. This is a poem that she utters and which I though is excellent. But here, in Cuddy, I feel that Myers has excelled himself. Here we have all the poetry and intensity of his writing, all the excellence of his historical fiction and it is all mixed together with some literary experimentation that makes you think Myers is really going places with his writing. Stewart, Ethan (2 December 2020). "A Look at the '80s and '90s UK Straight Edge Hardcore Scenes" . Retrieved 7 December 2020. Myers, Benjamin (2004). John Lydon: PiL, Pistols and anti-celebrity. London: Independent Music. ISBN 0-9539942-7-9. OCLC 56640176.The problem is, when a book starts with such an extraordinary beginning, it's very easy for the other sections of the book to pale in comparison. And that is sadly what happened. Don't get me wrong, there are no bad sections, but nothing was ever as good as that first part. Whenever I am overcome with existential dread I, like many others, reach for the PG Wodehouse – currently about thrice daily. I only have to think of the title Eggs, Beans and Crumpets and I laugh. Or Viz comic, which is the vocabulary of my childhood. In 2014 Myers won the Society of Author's Tom-Gallon Trust Award [22] for his short story, 'The Folk Song Singer'. He was runner-up in the same prize in 2018 for his story 'A Thousand Acres Of English Soil'. His poem 'The Path To Pendle Hill' was selected by New Statesman as one of its Poems Of The Year 2015 [23] and work from the same collection were read by Myers on BBC1 programme Countryfile.

BENJAMIN: Writing is fun. When I do it, I feel free. Not always, but often. I get to be king of my own kingdom, or at least until the doorbell goes and there’s a parcel to be retrieved from the hedge, or my faithful hound is letting me know that he needs emptying. But inspiration comes from the love of the form, really: if you want to write, ideas will hopefully come. And if they don’t, just log-on to BBC news, buy your local paper or go and sit in a library for a morning: they’re full of endless stories, or at least the seeds of ideas. a b Myers, Ben (8 July 2011). "My Time Undercover At The News Of The World". Vice. Archived from the original on 24 May 2021 . Retrieved 24 May 2021.

Diana Hendry The long journey from Lindisfarne: Cuddy, by Benjamin Myers, reviewed St Cuthbert’s body, rescued from the ‘devilish Danes’, is carried for hundreds of years to its eventual shrine in Durham cathedral Some sections are written as poetry with typesetting enhancing the reading experience and others as play scripts with st Cuthbert a voice appearing from beyond the grave The stories we tell one another are all that shall remain when time dies and even the strongest sculpted stones crumple to sand.’ It’s a humble orphan girl, not one of the Lindisfarne monks, who is given a vision of Durham cathedral

The downtrodden wife of an archer seeks the truth in stone walls, in meadows full of garlic flowers.But through all the changes the one voice that never leaves is that of the saintly Cuthbert who never quite seems to get his wish to be left alone to worship God. Myers, Benjamin (2006). System of a Down: right here in Hollywood. Church Stretton: Independent Music. ISBN 978-0-9549704-6-8. OCLC 63136435. I'm a very traditional reader who likes nice lineal stories, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, but despite its novel approach in Book 1, I could not put this one down. Myers, Benjamin (2019). The gallows pole. London. ISBN 978-1-5266-1115-4. OCLC 1102319901. {{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link)