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A quiet lonely child spending her holidays by the sea is changed by an inexplicable link with people and events of one hundred years ago and also by the very real and lively family next door.
L'estate in cui tutto cambiò * di Penelope Lively (Ed. Guanda, trad. di Elisa Banfi, pp. 218, euro 15,00). Maria ha undici anni, è figlia unica e vive in un mondo tutto suo. Saggia e sensibile, non si sente molto a suo agio con i grandi, in genere preferisce parlare con le cose, gli animali o le piante. È tempo di vacanze estive e la casa vittoriana sul mare, nel Dorset, che i genitori hanno affittato per qualche settimana, l'affascina moltissimo. E ancora di più la colpisce la storia che le racconta la padrona di casa, quella di Harriet, una bambina vissuta lì intorno alla metà dell'Ottocento. Maria trova alcune tracce lasciate dalla bambina: disegni di fossili in un libro e un imparaticcio ricamato quando aveva dieci anni. Però, perché tra le tante foto disseminate per la casa non ce ne sono di Harriet da adulta? Che cosa può esserle successo? Il destino di Harriet diventa così un'ossessione per Maria, sospesa fra la suggestione del luogo e gli strani segnali che percepisce (il cigolio di un'altalena, i guaiti di un cane misterioso che sente soltanto lei...). Ma anche il presente le riserva qualche sorpresa: conosce un ragazzino, Martin, come lei in vacanza a Lyme Regis. Insieme vivono avventure che hanno il sapore dolce ed eccitante delle prime scoperte, e come spesso accade in certe estati speciali, Maria finisce per accorgersi che qualcosa dentro di lei sta cambiando, che i suoi fantasmi stanno per lasciarla.
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi.Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
"All right, back there?" said Maria's father.
Citazioni
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When places are clothed in tarmac, houses, walls, shops and lamp-posts, it is difficult to remember that beneath lies earth, rock and the natural shape of the land. In the heart of London, in Oxford Street, Maria had been startled once to see workmen life a slab of paving to reveal, beneath, brown earth. It was as though the new, shrill street of concrete and plate-glass windows had shown its secret roots, But here, she noticed, in this small seaside town, the roots came boldly out on to the surface, for walls and the occasional house were made of the same grey-blue stone as the cliffs. It seemed, somehow, satisfactory, as though the houses had grown out of the soil just like the trees and grass and bushes, settling down to match the pewter sky and the pale green seal below it. And as they passed a terrace of cottages she saw suddenly the coiled glint of an ammonite, enshrined there for ever in the wall ... (p. 77)
There are some supremely agreeable moments in life that are best savoured alone - the first barefoot step into a cold sea, the reading of certain books, the revelation that it has snowed in the night, walking on one's birthday ...And others the full wonder of which can only be achieved if someone else is there to observe. (p. 95)
Later that evening she went and sat alone in the ilex tree, after Martin had gone back to his family. It was a very soothing tree. Not just a good, private place in which to be, but somehow enclosing and companionable with its warm rough bark and its whispering, shifting leaves, darker and more leathery than the leaves of ordinary trees. Sitting in it, back against the trunk, legs stretched out along a fat branch, everything swayed and moved around you and yet at the same time you seemed to feel the roots of the tree reaching down, down into the ground, tethering it so firmly that it must be solid as a house, immovable. It had been making acorns, the tree; there were green berries in the scaly cups all around her, pale against the dark shiny leaves, hundreds of them. (p. 96-97)
There seemed to be no difficulties about being Martin: he just "was", like some kind of business-like confident dog. Though, she now saw, he was not as good at managing his own mother as he was at managing other people's. But it is, of course, nearly always the case that other people's grown-ups are more persuadable than one's own. (p. 103)
In any other language, it was a day of gold and palest blue and chestnut brown in which shadows chased across a chameleon sea that melted from turquoise to sombre grey and back to milky green. [The book cover matches this passage.] (p. 143-144)
There is the moment you dip the brush in the paint, and tap it on the edge to get rid of the drips, and there it is all lush and fat with paint in your hand, ready for the stroke down that sad, hungry, unpainted surface. And there is the moment you lay it on the dull, unpainted surface, and what was rusty and tattered is transformed with one majestic sweep into glistening sparkling black. And there is the dabbing at the links of the chain to make them all neat and painty once more ... (p. 159
Recovering from a surge of emotion is like recovering form a sudden attack of fever. You are left feeling exhausted, ill-used ... (p. 164)
Ultime parole
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi.Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
Maria talked, and her mother listened and made sounds of interest and curiosity, and beyond them on the other side of the window, night fell on Lyme Regis.
A quiet lonely child spending her holidays by the sea is changed by an inexplicable link with people and events of one hundred years ago and also by the very real and lively family next door.