Tales from the Blue Stacks

Synopsis

[from inside flaps] "Ten miles north of Donegal Town, in the extreme northwest of Ireland, runs a range of low, rounded hills known as the Blue Stacks. Their name is fitting, for from a distance they always appear a deep, purple blue, even on the clearest days. Around those hills live a small group of farmers whose lives continue to be rooted in the eighteenth-century pattern, or earlier. Robert Bernen, a gifted young American writer, and his wife moved to Ireland in 1970. Raising sheep on a Donegal hillside and living in the manner of their neighbors, they discovered that they had chosen a region in which much of the richness and variety of pre-modern existence still remained. While coping with the difficulties of restoring a derelict hill farm they yet found time to observe with sympathy and humor the vanishing mode of life around them. These attractive stories and sketches record some of the simple but lastingly memorable moments of that experience. The author spent part of his life studying those ancient languages that once seemed to men to be the mainstay of Western civilization: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In them he sought to find out not only literary values, but an experience of the human past as well. Six years spent among the illiterate and semiliterate hill farmers of the Blue Stacks provided, often unforeseen, a living completion of those studies. There he discovered many of the deepest interests and values of ancient men living on unnoticed. Some of those qualities are embodied in these pages: the Greek awe of nature and its wonders, the Roman fascination with men and their ordinary lives, the Hebrew commitment to life. "Marauder" preserves an event that occurred in the early part of the century, which the author heard casually and then carefully researched. "Hired Man" and "Joe's Return," seemingly simple stories of farm life, are also stories about loyalty--loyalty to God, to one's neighbors, and to one's self--and its betrayal and persistence. The quiet humor of "The Thatched Byre" and "The Yellow Dog" are drawn from the author's own experiences. "Danny's Debts" is a local tragedy occasioned by the sudden intrusion of modern developments into primitive farming ways. "The Resurrection of the Donkey" is one of those inconspicuous rural comedies that so often go unnoticed. The final story, "The Fence," sums up the qualities that give Blue Stack life its universal human interest."

Copyright:

1978

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

144 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780684155401

Publisher:

Scribner

Date of Addition:

06/17/14

Copyrighted By:

Robert Bernen

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Animals, Outdoors and Nature

Submitted By:

Evan Reese

Proofread By:

Lissi

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.