Book Review: The Easternmost House, Juliet Blaxland
The blurb says the book, “describes a year of life at the easternmost edge of England, in all weathers“ but that makes it sound like it’ll be overly poetic or sentimental and Blaxland is neither. If you want Gillian Clarke or Seamus Heaney type ruminations on landscape, this isn’t the book but for all the right reasons... This book is more relevant and relatable.
I’m clearly not alone in my thinking, it was named as Times nature book of the year in 2019 and shortlisted for both the 2019 Wainwright Prize and the East Anglian Book Awards. Part of the charm is that this book captures the disconnect between town and country, without Blaxland holding any enmity towards her urbanised counterparts. She manages to seem objective without being detached.
She cycles through a number of topics many lesser writers would avoid; without playing devil’s advocate, or any type of advocate really, preferring to navigate them through astute observations and thoughtful questions: stubble burning vs industrial weedkillers; veganism vs free-range meat in the battle for being environmentally friendly; beach-combing as salvage as opposed to theft; and what really constitutes as ‘native’ and who exactly should hold the deciding vote on policies that regulate, shape or harm those native inhabitants or practices. .
The book feels like a collective representation of her patch rather than a personal one, which is something near impossible to pull off and runs deeper that her use of personal pronouns in phrases like “we sea-people“. It’s in the way that from start to finish we are made aware of the parish of Easton Bavents that doesn’t exist physically anymore, but seems to live through the inhabitants of the strip of the area that hasn’t eroded into the sea. Blaxland seems to speak for a people without claiming to; it’s present when we learn about the oral traditions of passing down knowledge in her community.
“Occasionally, there occurs such a dramatic one-off visual drama that it stays in the collective memory for years, decades and even centuries, becoming a sort of folkloric local parable to be told and retold, warped and distorted by memory and exaggeration. The 1953 flood is one such event; the 1987 storm another.“
Her humour jumps out in the way she uses language as much as it does in the anecdotes she chooses to include. When talking about how a shipment of logs turned up on her local beach she describes the reaction of the community in a series of puns, “Finally, there came a kind of exhilaration, a wood-wonderment: we were lumber-drunk, plank-happy, beaming.“
I found it interesting the way that although the structure progresses the narrative steadily, chapters being broken up into months, Blaxland doesn’t feel the need to add extra signposts, like updating us on the weather, or festivities related to the month. We do get a list of ‘food in season and local ‘sea state‘ update‘ but nothing in the prose itself ever seems shoehorned in to fit the brief or expectations of readers. I don’t ever find myself skim reading a section full of dry facts or functional anecdotes, it feels like every inclusion has come without force. This lends the book an unpredictability I really appreciate, Blaxland seems to have taken the liberty of writing about only that which has left an impression on her, I wish all non-fiction writers gave themselves the permission to wield this power.
I’m a city girl, even if that’s a city with a small c, as Cardiff is indeed small, (although I do always capitalise the C, it’s just polite). I feel this is important to mention, as I read this book through that lens. If you’re from a rural community however, I would like to think you’d still enjoy it. It’s as rich in vignettes of characters as a Dickens novel, I particularly enjoyed reading about “Running Roberts… A composer for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra who lived on instant coffee and shallow-tinned steak and kidney pies”.
In summation, if you want something lively while informative then I’d recommend The Easternmost House. Just don’t expect it to be representative of all types of people living in rural areas, Blaxland represents her world and that is undoubtedly one of privilege, she is an architect and some of her local friends have their own planes! So, yes, obviously her lived experience has informed what does and doesn’t make it into the book but it didn’t feel blinkered or rose-tinted.
Examples of Blaxland’s style:
“All the usual cliches of rural stereotypes and caricatures certainly exist, but they have a habit of confounding any lazy pigeon-holers on their toes. And elegant 90-year-old former side-saddle hunting thruster is also a concert pianist. An NHS doctor hunts on a cob every Saturday in winter (hounds and the whole entourage following a trail laid in advance by an accountant, in accordance with the Hunting Act 2004.) A fisherman gives away the bass he spends hours catching, because he doesn't like eating fish. A vegan skateboard shop owner married a neighbouring organic beef farmer. I could take you to meet them all now. “
You might like this book if you enjoyed:
The Outermost House, Henry Beston
Field Notes From the Edge, Paul Evans
