The calm of Reynard Langrish's quietly predictable life is shattered when, on a night of rain-swept storm, a stranger - a young soldier called Captain Archer - appears at his remote Kentish cottage. He takes Langrish to an ancient hill fort and introduces him to the men under his command, all of whom share a mysterious tattoo - two snakes entwined around a drawn sword - and are engaged in preparations to defend against a nameless menace, referred to only as 'the Emergency'. As the dreamlike narrative rapidly accelerates ...
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The calm of Reynard Langrish's quietly predictable life is shattered when, on a night of rain-swept storm, a stranger - a young soldier called Captain Archer - appears at his remote Kentish cottage. He takes Langrish to an ancient hill fort and introduces him to the men under his command, all of whom share a mysterious tattoo - two snakes entwined around a drawn sword - and are engaged in preparations to defend against a nameless menace, referred to only as 'the Emergency'. As the dreamlike narrative rapidly accelerates into Kafkaesque nightmare, Langrish is drawn into a world where illusion, paranoia, and reality unite with lethal consequences, and disorienting shifts of time and perception culminate in a terrifying moment of pure horror. Originally published in 1950, The Image of a Drawn Sword is steeped in the themes and images that occupy much of Brooke's writing - the relentlessness of time, suppressed homosexuality, condemned love, self-hatred, and futility; and, above all, an England that was both real and uniquely his own, a mystical, half-known natural world. 'In its way not inferior to Kafka . . . [it has] a haunting, sinister quality' - Anthony Powell 'Seldom have naturalism and fantasy been more strangely merged' - Elizabeth Bowen 'He is subtle as the devil' - John Betjeman 'The skill and intensity of the writing made peculiarly haunting this cry of complaint on behalf of a bewildered Man' - Pamela Hansford Johnson, Daily Telegraph
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Add this copy of The Image of a Drawn Sword to cart. $17.61, very good condition, Sold by Hay-on-Wye Booksellers rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hereford, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1982 by Secker & Warburg.
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Add this copy of The Image of a Drawn Sword to cart. $18.42, very good condition, Sold by Greensleeves Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Milton Under Wychwood, OXFORDSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1983 by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd.
Add this copy of Image of a Drawn Sword to cart. $41.38, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by Secker & Warburg.
