Red Sky at Sunrise [Paperback]

Laurie Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 1993

Spanning the first twenty-three years of his remarkable life, Laurie Lee's celebrated autobiographical trilogy is presented here in one delightful volume. Beginning with "Cider with Rosie", Laurie Lee writes evocatively of his idyllic childhood in the Cotswolds of the twenties, a world of rich sensuousness and native innocence. "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" picks up the story as he leaves his valley for London and then for Spain. There, equipped only with a violin and his wits, he crossed the dramatic landscape of a vibrant and still almost medieval Spain for which he developed an abiding affection. In the winter of 1937 he returned to a country now in the grip of Civil War and joined the International Brigade, describing in "A Moment of War" his journey into the dark side of Spain with unsparing honesty and poignancy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (October 28, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140172858
• ISBN-13: 978-0140172850
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,027,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laurie Lee was one of the world's greatest wordsmiths, August 23, 2006

By 

J. Cox (North America) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Sky at Sunrise (Paperback)

My english literature teacher back home in my secondary comprehensive school in Dorset, first introduced me to Laurie Lee's work. I was living in my early formative years, and I had a lot to relate to, at age 14, with Lee's beautiful tale of first love, in Somerset in his 'Cider with Rosie' book. This particular volume, 'Red Sky at Sunrise' really makes your heart and mind expand, palpitate and gracefully sink back to the safety of your fireside hearth. His work is such a pleasure, it is a shame that so few people have ever read his work.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An insight into war, March 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Red Sky at Sunrise: Cider With Rosie/As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning/a Moment of War (Hardcover)

I bought this book because I was interested in the Spanish Civil war. You get three books in one, which is great. I'd read Cider with Rosie when I was at school, but not since, and I was disappointed when I read it again - I remembered it being so much better! Laurie Lee is heavy on description, which makes for slow reading, and basically very little happened during his childhood years.

As I walked out one midsummer morning is Lee's account of a trip he made to Spain just before the start of the civil war. It's very bizarre in places - he goes to Spain with £5 in his pocket, his passport and his violin. A lot of the rest of the story is about food, since he was usually stony broke and starving! It seems to be a romantised account though - either that or he really did meet every eccentric, unusual or downright mad person in Spain.

A moment of war takes over where the previous book left off. Lee returns to Spain to join the International Brigade and help fight the fascists (as Hemmingway did). I found this story quite disturbing, because it showed just how easy it was for an untrained, very young English boy to become part of a badly equipped and ultimately hopeless struggle.

Overall, this is not a book that I would consider enjoyable - a lot of it is just too bleak. But it does give you a good insight into what life was like in Spain just before and during the Civil War, and you get a classic read in Cider with Rosie to boot.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars lyrical and haunting, May 18, 2007

By 

Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Sky at Sunrise (Paperback)

Lee is most famous for three autobiographical books: "Cider with Rosie," which deals with his childhood in England; "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning," which covers the year he spent bumming through Spain (1934); and "A Moment of War," which tells how he returned to Spain during the Civil War to fight for the communists.

The three have now been brought together in this volume, entitled "Red Sky at Sunrise."

Overall, I would say the three are well worth reading, even though the quality is uneven. The first, "Cider with Rosie," is most well-known, but my favorite was the second, in which he recounts his trompings through Iberia. At times Lee's writing can be achingly poignant, but other times he manages to alienate his reader because everything in his narrative sometimes seems to take a backseat to stressing how bold and romantic he was:

"Having not a shilling to my name, having not eaten in weeks, having not changed my underwear in months, having slept under a series of bridges for two weeks running, and having not a friend in the world, I decided I would embark for . . . "

You get the idea.