Extract: The Burning Leg | reviews, news & interviews
Extract: The Burning Leg
Extract: The Burning Leg
An exploration of the whys and wherefores of walking in fiction
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Tess takes a hike: Gemma Arturton in the BBC adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Walkers, like lovers of literature, are driven by the urge to explore, and writers have blessed their fictional characters with itchy feet since the earliest of narratives. Walks found in novels, short stories and even drama can have a multitude of meanings. The Burning Leg: Walking Scenes from Classic Fiction (Hesperus Press) collects extracts from Dickens and Dostoevsky, Proust and Poe, Kipling, Kafka and many more to show imaginations time and again set in motion by the simple act of walking. The following introduction is by the anthology's editor, Duncan Minshull
Walkers, like lovers of literature, are driven by the urge to explore, and writers have blessed their fictional characters with itchy feet since the earliest of narratives. Walks found in novels, short stories and even drama can have a multitude of meanings. The Burning Leg: Walking Scenes from Classic Fiction (Hesperus Press) collects extracts from Dickens and Dostoevsky, Proust and Poe, Kipling, Kafka and many more to show imaginations time and again set in motion by the simple act of walking. The following introduction is by the anthology's editor, Duncan Minshull
When Millamant says in The Way of the World, 'I nauseate walking,' she could be saying, ‘I nauseate walkers’ too
Explore topics
Share this article
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more
Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, Disney+ review - how the boy from Sayreville, NJ conquered the world
Four-part documentary series outstays its welcome
Album: Pokey LaFarge - Rhumba Country
A pig in a pokey, as the singer farms in Maine and reads the Bible, with technicolor results
Red Eye, ITV review - Anglo-Chinese relations tested in junk-food thriller
Richard Armitage returns in another preposterous potboiler
L'Olimpiade, Irish National Opera review - Vivaldi's long-distance run sustained by perfect teamwork
Sporting confusions and star-crossed lovers clarified by vivacious singing and playing
Album: Josienne Clarke - Parenthesis, I
Redefining the self, from the most absorbing of British singer-songwriters
Music Reissues Weekly: West Coast Consortium - All The Love In The World
Top-drawer British harmony pop band whose promise was unfulfilled
Love Lies Bleeding review - a pumped-up neo-noir
There's darkness on the edge of town in Rose Glass's sweaty, violent New Queer gem
Remembering conductor Andrew Davis (1944-2024)
Fellow conductors, singers, instrumentalists and administrators recall a true Mensch
Brancusi, Pompidou Centre, Paris review - founding father of modernist sculpture
Uplifting quest for form and essence in a landmark Paris show
CVC, Concorde 2, Brighton review - they have the songs and they have the presence
Welsh sextet bring their lively Seventies-flavoured pop frollicking to the south coast
Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair
A form-defying writer explores the troubled mindscape of a Soho photographer
Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - meeting a musical communicator
Drama and emotional power from a new principal conductor
Add comment