Cuddy

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Creamer, Ella (12 July 2023). "Royal Society of Literature aims to broaden representation as it announces 62 new fellows". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 31 July 2023. Myers takes a different narrative approach in each of the five sections (four major parts and one short interlude) and in fact each part is a separate story that could almost be read independently. The thread is St Cuthbert (affectionately known as Cuddy) who was declared a saint in the North of England in the late 600’s. His coffin was taken from Lindisfarne by a group of monks after the Danes invaded. These monks then travelled around the country for years before they settled in what is now known as Durham and the majestic Durham Cathedral was built to inter his coffin.

Stewart, Ethan (2 December 2020). "A Look at the '80s and '90s UK Straight Edge Hardcore Scenes" . Retrieved 7 December 2020. Although the later sections (a second-person account of the construction of Durham Cathedral, a Murder in the Cathedral-type play set in the 1650s, the excavation of his remains in the 1820s, a young man and potential descendant in 2019 Durham named Michael Cuthbert) feel pretty pretentious and less than essential, it's neat that a similar female character (Edith or Edie in later sections) recurs.Bley Griffiths, Eleanor. "BBC announces new Shane Meadows drama The Gallows Pole, based on 'the biggest fraud in British history' ". Radio Times. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021 . Retrieved 24 May 2021. I admit I was a little daunted by the style when I first started but then Gallows Pole unnerved me to begin with.

Fisher, Mark (22 October 2021). "The Offing review – soft-pedalled adaptation of Benjamin Myers novel". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 10 March 2023. I found the poetry of Thomas Hardy to be dismal and the prose of DH Lawrence to be overwrought – all those exclamation marks. Expressing this was probably the reason I failed A-level English. But I now recognise both as visionaries who saw far beyond the England they occupied. I particularly admire Lawrence’s novellas, The Fox and The Virgin and the Gypsy. He was known as Cuddy. He was first a monk, next a bishop, then a hermit and later a saint. They say his body is incorruptible. They say he performs miracles. Myers reworks these stories to give us a masterpiece deserving of a place on this year’s Booker Prize longlist. The finely woven stories even use lines from the referenced works of multiple historians; an inventive way to set some historical narrative alongside the fiction. There is a strong smell of urine, the invisible scent markings of feral men after midnight staining the cold concrete. The stench of it is the perfume of bus stations everywhere; the desperate reek of transience at the crossroads of intoxicated.

Church Times/Canterbury Press:

Incorporating poetry, prose, play, diary and real historical accounts to create a novel like no other, Cuddy straddles historical eras - from the first Christian-slaying Viking invaders of the holy island of Lindisfarne in the 8th century to a contemporary England defined by class and austerity. Book II tells of masons repairing the cathedral stonework in 1346 and makes the saint an actor in condemning an abusive husband. The third book offers a pastiche of an M. R. James ghost story, set in 1827, when a sceptical professor finds his confidence in science challenged at the opening of the saint’s tomb. And, in the final part, a young labourer, Michael Cuthbert, has his own encounter with the numinous when unexpectedly given work in the cathedral while his mother lies dying at home.

Section 1, a kind of epic poem telling the story of the Haliwerfolc, a group of dedicated monks and others who carried Cuddy's body around the north to help it avoid desecration by the invading vikings, is glorious. It's one of the best passages I have ever read. Inventive, vivid, strange and peopled with great characters, it had me crying 'masterpiece!'. Myers, Benjamin (2005). Green Day: American idiots & the new punk explosion. Church Stretton: Independent Music Press. ISBN 0-9539942-9-5. OCLC 64553821. The stories we tell one another are all that shall remain when time dies and even the strongest sculpted stones crumple to sand.’ The triumphant new novel from the Walter Scott Prize-winning author of The Gallows Pole and The OffingCuddy is told (mainly) in four distinct parts, all written in unique styles and telling a different part of the legend and myth of St Cuthbert over more than 1,000 years in the north of England. Myers, Benjamin (2006). System of a Down: right here in Hollywood. Church Stretton: Independent Music. ISBN 978-0-9549704-6-8. OCLC 63136435. The book itself is separated into distinct times during which many people take centre stage. I love the differences in language and behaviour that he's captured, along with the changes in the story of how Cuthbert ended up at Durham and why the cathedral was built there. This will be incredibly difficult for me to review. My admiration of Benjamin Myers' work is well known, and I think with Cuddy- because it is extremely experimental in style and approach- he has positioned himself more than ever before to be in the running for a longlist nomination on this year's Booker Prize.