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In Ruins
 
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In Ruins (Paperback)

by Christopher Woodward (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (3 Oct 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099289555
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099289555
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 132,948 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

The London Review Bookshop

`a digressive and enthralling meditation on the evocative power of incompleteness and decay...'


Product Description

Why are we so fascinated by ruins? Do we see them as jig-saws and riddles or romantic evocations of the damage of Time, complete with crumbling stone and ivy? The author looks back to the start of the cult in the 18th century, when follies were built in English landscape gardens, artists and writers thrilled to Rome's poetry of decay, and in Paris, the great chef Careme even served blancmange in the shape of classical ruins. His narrative takes the reader from Troy and Pompei to Nazi fantasies, the shattered Statue of Liberty in the film "Planet of the Apes" and even to the Chelsea Flower Show's "Millenium Ruin".

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic for the Ages, 31 Oct 2001
By Curt DiCamillo (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: In Ruins (Hardcover)
The erudite Woodward has written an enormously entertaining and illuminating book whose rich, flowing prose is a pleasure to read. History is blended with the starkness of the modern world and transmitted to the reader redolent with imagery. Woodward's broad, firm grasp of history, and effective weaving of desperate elements, produces a satisfying read for those intrigued by the forgotten corners of the world and the mystery of the past. "In Ruins" is destined to become a classic. The residue of a romantic, misty past lingers long after the last page is turned
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8 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully evocative meditation!, 29 Sep 2001
By Henry J. Blackmore (Western Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: In Ruins (Hardcover)
As a child I read Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" and I was gripped by the vivid picture of ruins of power and wealth - a picture that has never left me. The poem spoke of long-gone living beings, of their aspirations and achievements, and of the tenuous nature of what we create in the physical realm. Yet these ruins remain to teach us the very things that Christopher Woodward so beautifully describes in his book. It has been a joy to read, to sit and think of all the ruins one can recall, and those which one should have recalled, and then to continue reading. It helps to have lived through three quarters of the twentieth century, as I have, to really appreciate this book. Highly recommended.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The love of collapse, 3 Dec 2002
I finished reading this piece while eating lunch at work in an office overlooking a church - roofless and leaning, a victim of the second Great War. The ruins of the building are fenced off from the public, and while you can linger in gardens outside the chapel, its grounds are closed to the possibility of soporific loiterers.
As Woodward acknowledges, this is less a work of architectural history than a overview of the Romantic possibilities of collapse. The author intersperses his own love-affair with the mystery of the untouched ruin with that of poets, eccentrics and fallen Princes through the ages. At once personal and engaging, the book is a captivating history of man's relationship with the physical remains of rise and fall of civilisations.
My only complaint would be with the publisher's emission of a glossy photo section. The black and white digital pictures within do not capture the intensity of some of the artworks they reproduce.
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2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting idea, but lost in anecdotes
This book, although interesting in parts, loses it self with too many facts loosely connected, hopping from interesting antiques to adverts in magazines, which left me feeling... Read more
Published on 24 May 2003

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