Viva Lewes Issue #153 June 2019

BITS AND BOOKS
BOOK REVIEW: PATH BY LOUISA THOMSEN BRITS
In this beautiful little book, Louisa Thomsen
Brits takes the reader on a lyrical meander
across the South Downs. Rather than written as
an observation of the landscape from a walker’s
or viewer’s perspective, Path is an incantation in
the voice of one of – or all of – the chalk paths
that slice through the hills. Subtitled A short
story about reciprocity, the book is a call to pay attention,
to be present and to be connected.
Intertwining poetic language with muted photographs
by Jim Marsden, and Linda Felcey’s textured
artworks, there is a tactility and substance
to Path that encourages us to engage all our
senses as we travel through the world. Delicious
local Sussex words smatter the prose, creating a
rhythmic, flowing journey that demands to be
read aloud to the windblown trees and trilling
skylarks: ‘…up scrambly bostal,/ over rill and
rimple,/ fists of thistle,/ rutted sod.’
Through animating
a path,
Thomsen Brits
creates a sense
of drawing
from deep time
to give a backstory
and character
to these
ever-changing,
yet permanent
features of the
local countryside she so clearly loves. Shapeshifting
with the weather, the tread of feet, the
upturning of flint and the crumbling of chalk,
the path tells us to mark the beats and breaths
of our lives; to ‘… stand in an intimate lattice of
paths,/ laced in plenitude,/ and know that you
are not alone.’ Lulah Ellender
Cooper & Son
Funeral Directors
42 High Street, Lewes 01273 475 557
Also at Seaford, Uckfield & Heathfield
www.cpjfield.co.uk
Because every life is unique