A few weeks back I shared that John Preston’s The Dig had arrived on my TBR table.

In the meantime, yes, I have been reading it and yes again, it’s full of gorgeous words. The Suffolk countryside is very much a presence in the story and the related writing is always evocative.

The sequence that struck me most profoundly, though, was the concluding paragraphs of the main story (as opposed to the epilogue that follows.)

“Beyond Rendlesham, they were burning stubble. The columns of smoke were visible from miles away. Around the edges of the fields avenues had been ploughed to stop the flames from spreading. Even so, a number of hedgerows had already caught fire.

Everything crackled as the wood and dry stalks burned. Along with the smell of the burning stubble, there was a deeper, darker smell of charred earth. Partridges rose wildly into the air, screeching as their nests were consumed. Rabbits and hares, terrified by the flames, ran across the road. But they were only escaping from one inferno into another. The whole landscape was ablaze. There was no longer any sign of the sun.

Ahead of me, the road rose and disappeared into a bank of grey smoke. As I rode towards it along the ash-covered tarmac, my wheels made no sound at all.”

2008 edition

The passage is compelling in its own right, but the year of the Sutton Hoo archaeological discovery was 1939 — and four days before this passage takes place, the UK had declared war on Germany. The reader knows, therefore, that the stubble fires are also a direct analogy to a Europe that is about to also go up in flames, with effects on people similar to those of the stubble burning on the Suffolk wildlife.

Needless to say, given the larger connections but also themes such as time, history, and the impressions we do or do not leave on it, these final paragraphs made for a satisfying ending.