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2 comments about Landscapes and Desire: Revealing Britain's Sexually Inspired Sites.

1. I think I was expecting more than the author intended to deliver, so maybe it is unfair for me to give only three stars, but on the other hand I may not be the only one to make that mistake because of the vagueness of the title and presentation.
   
   I was hoping for an anthropological examination of sacred landscape being seen as sexual and as the body of the earth spirit, perhaps with some discussion of shamanism in connection with the topic. Despite its title, though, landscape wasn't really what this book was about. It addressed only man-made sites. The early parts were best, addressing the subject of ancient monuments with their fertility connections, phallic representations, and sun-penetrating-the-barrow-to-fertilise-the-earth kind of things.
   
   But even there, sometimes the hints dropped sounded more interesting than the material covered. I would like to hear more about Irish traditions about valleys and springs representing the female principle, but all it got was a mention. References for further reading on that would have been nice. Also, to be honest, the phrase "ritual copulation" got a little old.
   
   Later in the book, in more recent times the topic of sex must not have provided enough subject matter, so it was watered down to places connected with love, along with stories of dalliances. The whole thing made me squirmy and I was reminded of a Monty Python bit I'd forgotten, the one in which Cleese comes into a couple's apartment to talk about shellfish and can't get their attention until he mentions sex, so he starts getting more and more lurid, making up sex lives for the poor inert creatures in order to keep his audience rivetted. The bit was meant as a commentary on television and how it's guided by people's taste, but in places this book took on some of Cleese's character's desperation in its efforts to tittilate. I began to fear, uneasily, that in the book truths were being similarly stretched.
   
   Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy the book for the most part. The pictures are lovely and information on sites is generally good. It makes a good addition to a collection of books on megaliths, and a cute book to show to your kids when they're home from college, unless you're too prudish.
   
   Maybe that was my biggest disconnect with the author. She represents all of the sexual imagery as somehow surprising and risque, but for anyone who has been paying attention to discussions of sacred landscape recently, these topics become matter-of-fact pretty quickly. You'll enjoy the book more if for you the whole idea of sexual imagery has retained its naughty giggle quality.



2. This fascinating book investigates the erotic landscapes and monuments that were created over 5000 years in the British Isles, from prehistoric times through the Roman and Victorian eras to the present. The informative and well-researched text is enhanced by copious full colour illustrations.

   The chapters are titled From Eden To Eternity (includes the Mound of Venus in West Wycombe, the Cerne Abbas Giant and the Long Man of Wilmington), Romancing The Stone (standing stones and stone circles), From Womb To Tomb (caves), The Goddess Landscape (including the Paps Of Anu and Jura), When In Rome (Roman baths of Bath, Hadrian's Wall), The Serpent In The Garden Of Eden, Licentious Landscapes, We Are Surprisingly Amused, Signs Of The Times (including the work of sculptor Tim Shaw at the Eden Project at St. Austell in Cornwell and the garden of Derek Jarman at Dungeness on the Kent shore, made of pebbles, poles and driftwood).

   It is a very revealing study of a landscape that is suffused with fertility images, both ancient and modern. It really makes you think! The book contains a bibliography and a Site Gazetteer. I also recommend the book Stone Age Soundtracks by Paul Devereux, for another perspective on ancient monuments.

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