Boekverslag Laurie Lee

Geschreven door:	Jakob von Stolk (5 vwo) [meer]
Datum ingestuurd:	16 juli 2001
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Bekeken:	1553 keer (3 deze maand)
Waardering:	Currently 2.43/5 1 2 3 4 5 2.4/5 (14 stemmen)
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Titel:	As I walked out one midsummer morning
Auteur:	Laurie Lee
Jaar van uitgave:	1969
Aantal pagina's:	192

Auteur:	Laurie Lee
Geslacht:	vrouw
Nationaliteit:	Engels
Geboren:	26 juni 1914
Overleden:	13 mei 1997
Populaire titels:	1969As I walked out one midsummer morning (2)

1. As I walked out one midsummer morning
2. As I walked out one midsummer morning

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Penguin Books
Illustrated by Leonard Rosoman
1971
186 pages

The background
Laurie start’s with walking nearby Wiltshire, England, and he stop’s in Castillo, Spain.
This happens in 1934.
Laurie himself tell’s the story and when he begin’s to walk he’s nineteen and unexperienceted.
Laurie Lee was born in Gloucestershire and educated at Slad Village School and at Stroud Central School.
He’s got two sisters and three brothers.

The genre
It’s a book of travel.
It’s been described very realistic because Laurie gives many little details and talk’s about the good
and the bad things.
But sometimes he has got so much luck, that it is hard to believe.

The characters
There is actually one character and that is Laury Lee.
He doesn’t get to know the people he met because he doesn’t stay very often on one place.
And when he does he describes the persons as less as possible.

-Laury Lee is an unexperienceted person who “walks out one midsummer morning”.
He plays violin to survive.
He leaves his village to concer the world.
He doesn’t tell much about himself.
-Cleo is his girl-friend who lives in London and got “huge brown eyes like crumbled honey, a smooth leggy figure, lithe as an Indian pony”.
-Manolo is a Spanish friend and “is about thirtyyears old, handsome as a playboy, but moody and idealistic. He was the leader of a group of fishermen and labourers”.

I would like to meet Laurie Lee because I would like to know why somebody walks ‘half of the world’.
But I don’t want to meet all the beggards who he meets in Spain because they lead a terrible live and I would be aschamed because I’m so rich compared with them.

Summary
The story beginns in the time that there were no highways and modernisation was not everywhere introduced.
Laurie Lee is an eighteen years old boy who wants to know the world better.
He starts with walking to London with only a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits and some cheese.
He goes to his girl-friend to find out that she likes him but no more.
And so he works a year at the buildings pushing wet barrows of cement.
He also plays the violin on the streets and get to know the little tricks to make money.
When he has enough money, he decides to go to Spain.
He arrives in Vigo in the north of Spain and he walks to Castillo in the south of Spain.
In the meanwhile he learns to walk all day and to earn his money with the violin.
He goes through a great deal and get to know the language and the habbits of the people but he never stays in one place longer than necesarry.
He ones tried to walk with a mate but that doesn’t worked out because he’s a loner.
He sleeps in inns or in the cold and he walks and walks.
He’s very lucky because also when his violin broke, he get right away a new one from a German for nothing.

When it becomes winter he decides to stop in Castillo.
It’s a poor little village.
The people make their money or with fishing or with raising sugar canes.
That gives two groups in one village.
And a civil war enlarges the enmity.
The fishermen are fascists and the landworkers are communists.
And the fascists win.
Happily Laurie has not to take side.
The villagers thought that there village would not be involved but the war reaches them to and they are going to fight.
Just before it get’s serious an English ship comes to Castillo to look for English sivilliants and Laury can escape to England.
But there he cannot get usted to English manners anymore and he finds out he’s a little bit in love with Spain.
And he goes again but it is a problem to get into Spain because of the war.
But he meets friends who take him over the Pyrenees and he’s back in Spain.

The title
I think the title is well chosen because what he does, is just what the title says.
It’s as simple as that and that why I can’t think of a better title.

My opinion
I liked to read the book , it’s very relaxing but I think you have to like his style because there are no dialoques and nothing really exciting happens and so you could find it boring.
He describes everything in a beautifully simple and slowly way and that makes it relaxing.
But you have to have time for reading it otherwise it becomes very irritating by its slowly tempo.
It is fun to read all the little things that he’s going through and I would recommend it to everybody who likes to read in English and who doesn’t like acton-books.