AccueilGroupesDiscussionsPlusTendances
Site de recherche
Ce site utilise des cookies pour fournir nos services, optimiser les performances, pour les analyses, et (si vous n'êtes pas connecté) pour les publicités. En utilisant Librarything, vous reconnaissez avoir lu et compris nos conditions générales d'utilisation et de services. Votre utilisation du site et de ses services vaut acceptation de ces conditions et termes.

Résultats trouvés sur Google Books

Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.

Chargement...

Machine Without Horses: A Novel

par Helen Humphreys

MembresCritiquesPopularitéÉvaluation moyenneMentions
351692,677 (4.27)10
"One of the best--and most wonderfully experimental--historical fiction titles of the year. . . . Truly spectacular." --Toronto Star What is an ordinary life worth? A seasoned writer stumbles across an obituary and imagination is sparked. The brief words of memoriam describe a woman who was both extraordinary--eccentric, revered in her field, a renowned expert--but also utterly ordinary. How does a writer, intrigued by all that isn't said, create a story, or capture an unknowable woman and all the secret passions, choices and compromises that make up a life? In Machine Without Horses, Helen Humphreys explores the real life and the imagined internal life of the famous and famously private salmon-fly dresser Megan Boyd, a craftswoman who worked for sixty years out of a bare-bones cottage in a small village in the north of Scotland. Humphreys, both present in the story and its architect, reveals with her inimitable style the complicated emotional landscape that can exist under even the most constant surface.    … (plus d'informations)
Aucun
Chargement...

Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre

Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre.

» Voir aussi les 10 mentions

About more than Salmon Fly Tying and Scottish Country Dancing
Review of the HarperCollins 2018 hardcover edition

This one was unorthodox in its title, its structure and its subject matter, and it appealed to me for all of those reasons. Humphreys divides the book in half. The first section is Humphreys' own non-fiction novel about the process of researching the life of real-life salmon fly tying expert Megan Boyd and about what decisions had to be made in the writing of her biographical fiction. The second half is the actual novella which was the result. The novella fictionalizes Megan into a new character named Ruth which was Humphreys' decision in order distance the fiction out of respect. I'm labelling the novel as 1/2 non-fiction novel and 1/2 novella as the relative lengths are pretty much an equal 144 pages in this 288 page book.

The title is its own puzzle, or at least it is for those most of us who don't know Scottish country dances. It isn't until pg. 121 that we discover (in the non-fiction section) that Machine Without Horses is "Megan's favourite dance ... and the one she is best at." That explanation still leaves its own mystery though. Why is the book titled after an event/incident that is only a tiny part of it? The reader can propose their own answers to that as no explanation is otherwise given. A simplistic one is that a salmon fly is a machine with which to catch fish. But perhaps a better one is that the human heart is a machine as well.

My thanks to Karan for the recommendation!

Trivia and Links
1. As mentioned in the Acknowledgements section, a recent biography is available called "Megan Boyd: The Story of a Salmon Flydresser" (2016) by Derek Mills and Jimmy Younger.
2. There is a recent documentary film Kiss the Water (2013) by director Eric Steel for which you can see the trailer on YouTube.
3. There are many examples of how to dance Machine Without Horses on YouTube. ( )
  alanteder | Jan 2, 2019 |
aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Vous devez vous identifier pour modifier le Partage des connaissances.
Pour plus d'aide, voir la page Aide sur le Partage des connaissances [en anglais].
Titre canonique
Titre original
Titres alternatifs
Date de première publication
Personnes ou personnages
Lieux importants
Évènements importants
Films connexes
Épigraphe
Dédicace
Premiers mots
Citations
Derniers mots
Notice de désambigüisation
Directeur de publication
Courtes éloges de critiques
Langue d'origine
DDC/MDS canonique
LCC canonique

Références à cette œuvre sur des ressources externes.

Wikipédia en anglais

Aucun

"One of the best--and most wonderfully experimental--historical fiction titles of the year. . . . Truly spectacular." --Toronto Star What is an ordinary life worth? A seasoned writer stumbles across an obituary and imagination is sparked. The brief words of memoriam describe a woman who was both extraordinary--eccentric, revered in her field, a renowned expert--but also utterly ordinary. How does a writer, intrigued by all that isn't said, create a story, or capture an unknowable woman and all the secret passions, choices and compromises that make up a life? In Machine Without Horses, Helen Humphreys explores the real life and the imagined internal life of the famous and famously private salmon-fly dresser Megan Boyd, a craftswoman who worked for sixty years out of a bare-bones cottage in a small village in the north of Scotland. Humphreys, both present in the story and its architect, reveals with her inimitable style the complicated emotional landscape that can exist under even the most constant surface.    

Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque

Description du livre
Résumé sous forme de haïku

Discussion en cours

Aucun

Couvertures populaires

Vos raccourcis

Évaluation

Moyenne: (4.27)
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5 3
4 2
4.5 3
5 3

Est-ce vous ?

Devenez un(e) auteur LibraryThing.

 

À propos | Contact | LibraryThing.com | Respect de la vie privée et règles d'utilisation | Aide/FAQ | Blog | Boutique | APIs | TinyCat | Bibliothèques historiques | Critiques en avant-première | Partage des connaissances | 203,211,407 livres! | Barre supérieure: Toujours visible