Luminous Debris Reflecting on Vestige in Provence and Languedoc
- Binding: Paperback
- Publisher: Univ of California Pr
- Publish date: 11/01/1999
Description:
INTERPRETING VESTIGE WITH THE ELOQUENCE of a poet and the knowledge of a field archeologist, Gustaf Sobin explores his elected terrain: the landscapes of Provence and Languedoc. Drawing on prehistory, protohistory, and Gallo-Roman antiquity, the twenty-six essays in this book focus on particular places and artifacts for their inherent relevance. A Bronze Age earring and the rippling wave pattern in Massalian ceramic are more than archival curiosities for Sobin. Instead they invite inquiry and speculation on existence itself. Artifacts turn into realia and history becomes an uninterrupted sequence of object lessons.
Expand description
As much travel writing as meditative discourse, Luminous Debris is enhanced by a prose that tracks, questions, and reflects on the materials invoked. Sobin engages the reader with precise descriptions of those very materials and the messages to be gleaned from their examination, be they existential, ethical, or political.
An American expatriate living in Provence for the past thirty-five years, Gustaf Sobin shares his enthusiasm for his adopted landscape and for a vertical interpretation of its strata. In Luminous Debris he creates meaning out of matter and celebrates instances of reality, past and present.
Please Wait