Customer Reviews

Ladder of Shadows: Reflecting on Medieval Vestige in Provence and Languedoc (Ahmanson Foundation Book in the Humanities)

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This is a beautifully written series of meditations on the present of the past in the landscape of southern France. The author, Gustaf Sobin, was also a poet, which shows in the precision and force of his language. The book explores the shift from late antiquity to the Dark Ages and then to the Romanesque period and discusses the transition from paganism to Christianity. One of the most interesting things about the book is the way it takes physical objects (the medieval vestige of the title) and places them in their larger cultural and geographical context. Particularly excellent was a short chapter on glass beads made during the Dark Ages.

Sobin was transfixed by the melancholy of change and saw progress as a sort of all-devouring idol. He was even able to mourn the passing of the Dark Ages by discussing how the forests rebounded then.

I'm not an expert on French history, so I can't speak to how it connects to that historiography, but as a general reader I can say that this is a wonderful guide to the presence of the past in the present. If you have any interest in the remains of the past or in France, you would do well to read this book.

This is a posthumously published continuation of Gus Sobin's incredibly lovely "Luminous Debris", which is my favorite of all his writings. This is short, but beautifully written, with vestiges of his poetry hidden behind the eloquence.