Modern Nature
Book description
Derek Jarman tells the story of his discovery that he is HIV+ and, in a series of flashbacks, looks at his life - his difficult relationship with his father, his discovery of his homosexuality and the dramatic exposure of his first homosexual relationship, his university days and his coming out…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Modern Nature as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Derek Jarman's memoir immerses us in his world, or rather worlds - his life as a film-maker in London, and as an out gay man diagnosed with HIV at a time when that gave a grim outlook, and his other life at Prospect Cottage on Dungeness, where he enjoyed the complete contrast of quietness and often solitude. He says that in another life he could have been a gardener, and loves creating his iconic garden of pebbles, maritime plants and objects found on the shore. We go back and forth from childhood memories to the present, from accounts of making…
After I first visited the extraordinary coastal landscape of Dungeness, I sought out this book. This is a nature journal. Artist and director Derek Jarman lived in Dungeness on the Kent coast (UK) in an old fisherman’s cottage painted black with striking yellow windows.
In the late 1980s, he wrote a journal in the salt breezes and shadows of two nuclear power stations. This journal charted his cultivation of the cottage’s salvaged garden, his battle with AIDS, and his reflections on the culture at the time.
What drew me into this book is its beautifully engaging voice and its sensitivity…
From Abi's list on speculative fiction with soul.
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