Nieuwe Zwolse boekwinkel en antiquariaat aan de Papenstraat. Hier vind je de mooiste boeken op gebied van kunst, cultuur, literatuur, geschiedenis en koken. De Schotse marsen (paperback). Het schitterende relaas van een wandeltocht langs de Engels-Schotse grens door een zoon en zijn 89-jarige vader Zijn vader leerde Rory Stewart lopen en nam hem als kind mee op wandeltochten langs de Chinese Muur en door de Maleise jungle. Nu is vader 89, en trekken vader en zoon er nog eenmaal op uit, langs de Marsen, het grensgebied tussen Engeland en Schotland.
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Zijn vader leerde Rory Stewart lopen en nam hem als kind mee op wandeltochten langs de Chinese Muur en door de Maleise jungle. Nu is vader 89, en trekken vader en zoon er nog eenmaal op uit, langs de Marsen, het grensgebied tussen Engeland en Schotland. Vader arriveert vanuit Schotland, in tartanruit; zoon vanuit zijn huis in het Engelse Lake District, met zijn Punjabi-wan...more
Published March 17th 2017 by Prometheus (first published April 28th 2015)
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Rating details
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Dec 23, 2016Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: read2016, travel, reviewcopy, location-scotland, location-uk, ebooks
I think sometimes interweaving seemingly disparate threads can work well in non-fiction, unfortunately in this book I think it muddied the waters. Rory Stewart once did a walk across Afghanistan, which you can read about in his book, The Places in Between, which got a lot of acclaim. Much to my chagrin, he continuously references this journey and book throughout The Marches. At times he seems to be trying to find connections between Afghanistan and the borderlands between historical Scotland and...more
Jan 19, 2017Althea Ann rated it liked it · review of another edition
I've previously read both Stewart's 'The Places In Between' and 'Prince of the Marshes.' I found both books to be illuminating and informational, as well as engaging. I felt that they really gave me an insight into the situations and cultures of Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively.
However I have to say that I don't feel that Stewart's change of focus in 'The Marches' works as well. Unfortunately, it also lessened, to a degree, my personal respect for the author.
The first problem, perhaps, is tha...more
However I have to say that I don't feel that Stewart's change of focus in 'The Marches' works as well. Unfortunately, it also lessened, to a degree, my personal respect for the author.
The first problem, perhaps, is tha...more
Apr 08, 2017Maxwell marked it as dnf · review of another edition
Maybe this was too ambitious for me considering I don't read a lot of non-fiction that isn't memoir or essays. I thought this would be an interesting read about a man's life in conjunction with his findings on a long walk across the U.K. but it turned out to be a bit too tedious for me. The information is dense and the narrative is uneventful, so it was hard for me to feel motivated to read it. It took me over a week to read 50 pages because I didn't want to pick it up. It wasn't poorly written,...more
Nov 29, 2016Paul rated it liked it · review of another edition
We tend to think of the UK as one complete country, but there are separate countries here that have their own distinct identity and outlook. This loosely defined border between us and the Scottish has existed since Roman times. Their farthest outpost, it suffered from marauding Picts and Celts who took every opportunity to give the Romans a bloody nose, hence why they built Hadrian’s Wall. It was this 200 year old monument that Stewart chose to walk as his first journey in this book. Some of the...more
Jan 14, 2017Amy Durreson added it · review of another edition
This is a fascinating and complicated book. I picked it up because I'm currently fascinated by the borders. I'm not close enough to go and walk the ground myself (always the best way to learn a place), but I was hoping that reading the account of someone who had might give me a sense of the land. It did, but it also offered me far more than that. The book is split into three stages: an attempt the author made to walk Hadrian's wall with his father (who, being then in his late eighties, met him a...more
Nov 27, 2016Jim rated it liked it · review of another edition
I was a Goodreads winner of this book. I liked this book, but didn't love it. The history of Scotland and England was great, I enjoyed reading the historical tidbits thrown in the book but this book was not about the history but about a walk along Hadrian's Wall. The book is divided into 3 parts, the walk with his 89 year old father which is very interesting and what a wonderful person to be with. The second part is about a self journey which I found to be more difficult to read and the third is...more
Mar 08, 2018Jo Walton added it · review of another edition
This was a very strange book. I started off loving it, and then it curdled on me.
The trouble with a travel book is that you have to like the narrator. I liked Rory Stewart's father Brian, and this is largely a book about Brian. I started off liking Rory too, but the more time I spent with him the more the very high opinion he had of himself started to grate. There are some wonderful bits in this book, and I'm not at all sorry I've read it, but there's also a narrowness of perspective, a smug pet...more
The trouble with a travel book is that you have to like the narrator. I liked Rory Stewart's father Brian, and this is largely a book about Brian. I started off liking Rory too, but the more time I spent with him the more the very high opinion he had of himself started to grate. There are some wonderful bits in this book, and I'm not at all sorry I've read it, but there's also a narrowness of perspective, a smug pet...more
Jan 07, 2017Toto rated it it was ok · review of another edition
This is not a wholly successful book, thought it could have been. It could have used better editing as it does not cohere very well. The first part is about Stewart's walk by Hadrian's Wall, which is interspersed with his thoughts on the Roman presence in England and dominated by thoughts on and presence of his father. The second part, in which he walks 'the Debatable Lands' between that wall and the Scottish border without his father, (perhaps because of it) sags and is thoroughly without focus...more
Dec 22, 2016Don rated it really liked it · review of another edition
(FROM MY BLOG). Hadrian's Wall, constructed by the Romans from A.D. 122 to about 128, crosses northern England from Newcastle, through Carlisle, to Bowness on the Solway Firth. In 2010, I followed the wall its entire length on foot.
In 2011, Rory Stewart walked the same route, together with his 89-year-old father (the father driving far more than walking). The following year, he walked a more rambling, and much longer, route from the Lake District to his father's home at the foot of the Highland...more
In 2011, Rory Stewart walked the same route, together with his 89-year-old father (the father driving far more than walking). The following year, he walked a more rambling, and much longer, route from the Lake District to his father's home at the foot of the Highland...more
Jul 08, 2018Crazytourists_books rated it it was ok · review of another edition
Reading this book was a real struggle. I found it boring, incoherent, a mess really. Three different parts, none of which deliver what's promised by the title. It makes me wonder why the author didn't adapt his writing when he found out that his original idea wasn't working.
If the whole book was like the third part, the last 50 pages that is, it would have been great (the third part explains the two stars).
If the title and the description of the book were different it might have had a better r...more
Nov 23, 2017Barbara rated it really liked it · review of another edition
If the whole book was like the third part, the last 50 pages that is, it would have been great (the third part explains the two stars).
If the title and the description of the book were different it might have had a better r...more
Shelves: 2017-reads, england, history, e-book, scotland
Rory Stewart walks the border between Scotland and England, much of it along Hadrian's Wall. This is a fairly long book that contains a lot of historical detail about the region. The author's father figures in much of the book and is a very colorful character. A survivor of D-Day he served with Scottish brigades as well as having a career in the Intelligence Service all over the world.
Stewart discovers that most people living along the border are ignorant of its history or indifferent. Occasiona...more
Stewart discovers that most people living along the border are ignorant of its history or indifferent. Occasiona...more
Feb 08, 2017John Thomas rated it really liked it · review of another edition
The book has been criticized as having difficulty in coming to a conclusion about these borderlands between England and Scotland. I found it very interesting to understand that there were many cultures, kingdoms, and people who had lived in this area for thousands of years -including the Romans for over 300 years. Rory tried to find someone who could talk about their villages and ways but most of rhw villagers and farmesr he met were newcomers and had little or no knowledge of local history. He...more
Dec 07, 2016Laura rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
This is the 'walking' book I've longed for. Mr. Stewart's walk combines history (Hadrian's Wall, the Romans, Picts, ancient Britons, barbarians), his relationship (and it's a sweet and loving one) with his father, and a really nice set of walks across what his father called The Middleland, defined as 'the upland landscape that forms the geographical center of the island of Britain. At its core lie the Lake District hills, the Pennines, the Cheviots, and the Scottish Borders... .'
The descriptions...more
The descriptions...more
Dec 16, 2016Charles rated it liked it · review of another edition
Oh, Rory. Growing up in the north-east of England I really wanted to enjoy this book, and although there are some fascinating insights I found it lacking purpose and direction. Continual references to his walk across Afghanistan and stretched attempts at drawing comparisons left my head rather scattered.
Jun 13, 2018Thom rated it liked it · review of another edition
Best read as one man's reflections on life as he rambles. It is not about a pilgrimage of any sort, really. The walk is the place and means by which Mr. Stewart is able to reflect on any number of issues of interest to him. Ostensibly in search of trying to define 'England' as opposed to 'Scotland' Stewart reveals the complexities of identity in a landscape in which those identities are quite malleable and grounded more certainly in more local and specific locales than any greater 'national iden...more
Jan 15, 2017Beth rated it it was ok · review of another edition
Read for Winter Book Bingo 2017 'Set someplace I've always wanted to visit' selection. I pickled this up because I wanted to read what I thought would be a book about a borderland journey between England and Scotland as the subtitle says. If I had previously read Stewart's earlier books, been a scholar of the history of the land, had an ear (or a reading eye) tuned to Scot-speak, maybe I would have liked this as much as I expected to. But that wasn't to be. I found it a slog with a few delightfu...more
Feb 18, 2019Jamie rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I read Stewart’s The Places in Between and The Prince of the Marshes and liked them both. He has a conversational writing style and an eye for the telling details in both people and landscapes. The first book was a walk through northern Afghanistan in the dead of winter while there was a war going on, a trip so dangerous it was almost suicidal; if the Taliban didn’t kill him the climate certainly could have. From it the reader learns about the Afghan people, the flexible interpretations of the I...more
Jan 23, 2018Chris rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Not the travel book I thought I’d be getting. This is a book about fathers and sons. Rory’s dad was 50 years old when Rory was born. We discover that his dad was the second highest ranking official in MI6, the British spy agency. His dad is quite a character too as we discover on their walks along the English Scottish border.
The author is trying to understand the Border area. How can things be so different yet the same in this area. It defies his thesis. Lots of reflection on Scottish independen...more
Feb 01, 2017Richard rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
The author is trying to understand the Border area. How can things be so different yet the same in this area. It defies his thesis. Lots of reflection on Scottish independen...more
Recommends it for: readers interested in the British Isles and their history, especially the midlands border area
Recommended to Richard by: Stewart's other books and a TLS review
I had read Stewart's two earlier books, one about walking Afghanistan and the second on his work in Iraq. His writing and his insights impressed me greatly.
This book describes two of his walking trips in the 'Marches,' the territory of the English-Scottish border(s), including much of the history of the area, going back to the pre-Roman era but mostly around Hadrian's and the Antonine walls which marked the extreme western boundary of the Roman Empire. There is a series of maps to follow Stewar...more
This book describes two of his walking trips in the 'Marches,' the territory of the English-Scottish border(s), including much of the history of the area, going back to the pre-Roman era but mostly around Hadrian's and the Antonine walls which marked the extreme western boundary of the Roman Empire. There is a series of maps to follow Stewar...more
Jan 07, 2018Richard rated it liked it · review of another edition
An ambitious project, to explore and perhaps define an intermediate identity between Englishness and Scottishness in what Stewart calls the Middleland, by walking from his home in Cumbria (northern England) to his father’s in the Scottish lowlands. It’s a Romantic idea from the man who walked thousands of miles across Afghanistan before governing a province in occupied Iraq and then becoming a Conservative MP and government minister, and to his credit, Stewart admits in the book’s closing sectio...more
Mar 19, 2017Steven rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: biography, history, maps, geography, travel, memoir
I read Stewart's The Places in Between many years ago, enjoyed it, and thought I'd give this a try, since it involves a memoir of along walk, and one along Hadrian's wall at that, something I've always wanted to do.
Stewart is a very thoughtful writer and very mindful of the sense of place and the way that the landscape imprints itself on people. The book can be divided into three parts, the first being a walk along Hadrian's Wall built by the Romans. The second, a longer and much more interestin...more
Stewart is a very thoughtful writer and very mindful of the sense of place and the way that the landscape imprints itself on people. The book can be divided into three parts, the first being a walk along Hadrian's Wall built by the Romans. The second, a longer and much more interestin...more
Nov 26, 2017Suzanne rated it liked it · review of another edition
It feels muddled, forced and over-long. It’s partly about his father, partly about the Roman and Middle Ages history of the region around Hadrian’s Wall, and partly about borders more generally.
The first section was intended to be structured around a walk with his father, 89 at the time, along Hadrian’s Wall. His father really wasn’t physically up for that anymore, so, while the author’s walk along the Wall still provides the framework for the section, the stories about his father, although int...more
The first section was intended to be structured around a walk with his father, 89 at the time, along Hadrian’s Wall. His father really wasn’t physically up for that anymore, so, while the author’s walk along the Wall still provides the framework for the section, the stories about his father, although int...more
May 23, 2019Nathan Albright rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
As a human being I have often found myself dwelling in middle lands, border regions, contested territories on the periphery fought over by multiple parties, with complex views on identity and loyalty, and this book is about one of the ways in which this is the case through the author's walk, along with his late father (who sounds like he would be one of those funny but cranky old men full of stories and sharp-witted judgments), in the middle regions of Britain, an area that was first defined by...more
May 12, 2017Joseph Reynolds rated it liked it · review of another edition
Two books here. One about the Borders area, its history and culture, and the future of the area. The other about him and his father. The first book even Stewart admits is something of a wash. He can't figure out the area, and the people and culture are gone. The history, from Romans through the reivers to now, is kind of messy and anarchic. He implies a lot of the 'history' is just manufactured bullshit.
His father is an interesting though somewhat Blimp-ish figure. A Normandy veteran. Veteran o...more
His father is an interesting though somewhat Blimp-ish figure. A Normandy veteran. Veteran o...more
Nov 10, 2017Thom rated it did not like it · review of another edition
![The The](http://www.quatre-mains.net/Scores/Schubert%20-%20Military%20March%20Opus%2051%20No%201%20-%20Preview.png)
This book took over a month to finish, and in this case that does reflect on the book. I think a good history could be written for this region, but this book is more a muddled memoir and travelogue. While the maps were nice, it certainly didn't live up to the cover blurb.
The first part of the book covers the Romans as the author and his father walked along Hadrian's wall. Stopping after this would have resulted in a better book, though short. In the second (and longest) section, the author walks...more
The first part of the book covers the Romans as the author and his father walked along Hadrian's wall. Stopping after this would have resulted in a better book, though short. In the second (and longest) section, the author walks...more
Feb 05, 2017Jrobertus rated it liked it · review of another edition
This is a multilayer book. Stewart walks Hadrian’s wall and much more in the border lands between Scotland and England. Along the way he describes the history of the area and folk from iron age Celts on to the modern day. Who are they? Is there a sense of place and history, and is it realistic. Aong with this description, he walks a bit with and talks at length with his 90 year old dad, a WWII vet, foreign office officer and perhaps spy who fought Communist insurgents in 1950’s Malaya. Stewart h...more
Sep 01, 2017Jan Wouter rated it liked it · review of another edition
This book combines a memoir of the relationship the author had with his father with an account of a series of long walks through the borderlands between the north of England and Scotland. The author delves into comparisons between the Roman presence along Hadrien's wall and his own more recent experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, reflects on the elusive nature of national and local identity and how the changing landscape reflects the history of the region. Both these elements and the very person...more
Jan 21, 2018Catrinamaria rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I'm not new to Rory Stewart. Some time ago I read about his journey through Afghanistan and about his time in Iraq. I had also watched his TV docs ahead of the Scottish Independence Referendum. And so I wanted to read 'The Marches'. I was certainly not disappointed. He writes well and manages to corral a huge amount of material into a structure that worked for me. I'm familiar with the landscapes he describes and learned a great deal about the history. I was charmed by the warm and intimate desc...more
Jul 30, 2017Moirad rated it really liked it · review of another edition
3 parts to this book, linked by the author's relationship with his father: a walk they along Hadrian's Wall they attempted together, a much longer walk through the Marches taken by the author alone with occasional visits/emails from his father, and the end of his father's life. A somewhat dispiriting picture of the state of Britain today with the author's views on (for example) the anti-farming movement in the Lake District, alongside fascinating glimpses of history, nature, landscape. The close...more
Nov 29, 2017Germán rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Halfway between a travel book and a philosophical novel, Rory Stewart does something remarkable... a book that deals with a normal/caring relationship between a father and a son. The admiration that the author has for his father transpires through the writing, and it is a pleasant thing to see.
If interested in autobiographical novels that deal with caring families, this is a book to read... I would also suggest Verde Acqua by Marisa Madieri (sadly not in English at the moment)
If interested in autobiographical novels that deal with caring families, this is a book to read... I would also suggest Verde Acqua by Marisa Madieri (sadly not in English at the moment)
topics | posts | views | last activity |
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Goodreads Librari...:Not the same book as The Prince of The Marshes | 2 | 16 | Jan 27, 2017 03:25PM |
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Rory Stewart was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Malaysia. He served briefly as an officer in the British Army (the Black Watch), studied history and philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford and then joined the British Diplomatic Service. He worked in the British Embassy in Indonesia and then, in the wake of the Kosovo campaign, as the British Representative in Montenegro. In 2000 he took two years...more
“As we walked past a quad bike chained to a farm gate, he remarked 'It's such a pity how times have changed. You can't leave a piece of machinery out on the road any more.' He seemed to have forgotten that he had just been describing a time when you couldn't leave you cattle out.” — 0 likes
“Steep curving stone stairs led to a square library on the floor above. The 4,000 books in the library were mostly collected between 1710 and 1730. ... For a moment I was tempted to ask to be locked in. If I could skim ten books a day for a year, I would be able to get a sense of most of what David Hume might have read in 1730 -- an age when it still might just have been possible to read everything.” — 0 likes
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