Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl
I had similar thoughts. It is about a way of life and not necessarily "my life as a shepherd." I read an interview where he stated that the book was "a letter to his father" and intended to show respect for his father and that he was very glad that his dad was able to read the book before he died and tell him how proud he was. I also read that his intent was to portray shepherding life as an insider. He wanted to contrast with the famous literature about shepherds written by outsiders.
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I'm reading an excellent book right now,
Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, a history of women's lives in 1950s Britain, and while it's irrelevant to
A Shepherd's Life, it helped me pinpoint something I found off about the book.
Rebanks was born in 1974. The schooldays described would have been late 80s to 1990-ish. But the whole flavor of them and of his homelife to me smacked of being much earlier. His illiterate father was probably born post-war (there might have been good clues to his age, but I've forgotten them). His grandfather? Smacked of those novels set earlier in the century where the men come home from t'pit for their tea, but again, his life was somewhat later than that (and what did he do in the war? I might have missed that, also.) While I was reading it, I had to keep doing a mental adjustment for what the actual year was.
I'm getting into highly speculative areas, but bringing it back around to his schooldays, I'm struggling with a 16-year old boy in 1990 being so unaware of the world and possibilities. Part of it might have been willed ignorance, but there's an element there that seems exaggerated for effect to me.