Fragments and ruins

摘要

TO LIVE BESIDE the sea is to be reminded of absences. Bones, mammoth tusks, fossilised creatures and even ghostly footprints are washed up on the beach or uncovered under layers of sand, hinting at generations of bygone residents, human and animal. The coastline of East Anglia in England has inspired many writers, notably W.G. Sebald, a German who walked and meditated on its history. That stretch of shore is also one of the places where evidence of Doggerland-the huge area of forests and plains that connected Britain to mainland Europe before it was submerged by the rising sea-has recently appeared. A search for traces of Doggerland is the starting point for "Time Song" by Julia Blackburn, a writer and poet who lives in Suffolk. Blending nature writing with memoir and poetry, her book is an unconventional attempt to "learn prehistory hand to mouth". The result is a meditation on the Mesolithic and what people are truly looking for when they turn to the past.