{"id":32490,"date":"2016-06-12T06:30:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-11T18:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=32490"},"modified":"2016-06-11T17:40:04","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T05:40:04","slug":"more-on-trees-in-my-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/06\/12\/more-on-trees-in-my-books\/","title":{"rendered":"More on Trees — In My Books!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"54<\/a>Last Sunday was Arbor Day and I shared some of my thoughts<\/a> on the importance of trees.<\/p>\n

Mostly I focused on the big picture and the (major) environmental benefits and landscape contribution of trees, but trees — as the various tree poems <\/a>I’ve featured recently bear out — also influence human creativity in terms of art and literature.<\/p>\n

In my own writing, trees often play an important part in defining landscape and over the next few weekends, I’m going to feature some excerpts that illustrate this point.<\/p>\n

\"Thornspell<\/a>Today I start with Thornspell<\/em><\/a> and the enchanted wood:<\/p>\n

\u00a0“The road did not go far, petering out into a bridle path within a few hundred yards of the castle wall, and fading away altogether beneath the forest eave.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It had been very dark and quiet beneath the canopy, a heavy, listening silence. There was no call of bird or insect, no whisper of falling leaf—not even the wind stirred.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

~ from Thornspell<\/em><\/strong>: Chapter 1, The Silent Tower<\/p>\n

Later, the main character, Sigismund, rides out with his friends on a late autumn morning:<\/p>\n

“Sigismund’s heart lifted with the sun and he found himself noticing little things: a dew-beaded cobweb hanging from a hedge, the song of a thrush as they clattered\u00a0 past a walled orchard, and the grace of tree branches without their summer veil of leaves…”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Thornspell_bird\"<\/a>And eventually reaches another forest, known as Thorn:<\/p>\n

“Flor’s description of the forest as rough, wild country proved accurate as the road brought them closer. The hills rose up steeply, shutting out the sky, and the trees in the forest pressed close together, tangled into each other and the undergrowth at their feet. It reminded Sigismund of the Wood that adjoined the West Castle, except that this forest was full of bird noise and he could hear running water in the distance.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

~ from Thornspell<\/em><\/strong>: Chapter 7, The Boar Hunt.<\/p>\n

There’s a great deal more, but I think that gives you a taste of the influence of trees on the landscape of the story. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Sunday was Arbor Day and I shared some of my thoughts on the importance of trees. Mostly I focused on the big picture and the (major) environmental benefits and landscape contribution of trees, but trees — as the various tree poems I’ve featured recently bear out — also influence human creativity in terms of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32490"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32496,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32490\/revisions\/32496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}