Hummingbirds Between the Pages

by Chris Arthur

Overview

In his latest collection, Hummingbirds Between the Pages, prizewinning Irish essayist Chris Arthur muses on subjects ranging from Charles Darwin’s killing of a South American fox to the carnal music sounding in a statue of the Buddha, from how Egyptian seashells contain echoes of World War II to a child’s first encounter with death. Whether he’s looking at skipping stones, old photographs, butterflies, the resonance of a remembered phrase, or being questioned at an army checkpoint during Northern Ireland’s Troubles, what gives these unorthodox meditations their appeal is the way in which—with striking lyricism—they tap into unexpected seams of meaning and mystery in our everyday terrain. Arthur explores the moments that have left him spellbound, tying his own experiences as a young boy from Ulster who saw his first hummingbirds in London to the wonder felt by early settlers to America who sent pressed hummingbirds across the ocean to the communities they had left behind. Through rumination on the seemingly quotidian, Arthur’s lyrical prose exposes new layers of possibility just beneath the surface of the expected.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814254844
Publisher:	Ohio State University Press
Publication date:	07/24/2018
Series:	21st Century Essays Series
Edition description:	1
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Chris Arthur is an Irish writer whose seven previous essay collections include Reading Life, On the Shoreline of Knowledge, and Words of the Grey Wind.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Darwin's Fox 1

How Many Words Do You Need to Describe a Woodpigeon? 13

The Walking Buddha Beckons 24

Sleepers 34

How's the Enemy? 46

Glass 59

(Un)sentimental Timekeeping 65

Before I Knocked 75

Butterfly Smoke Signals 94

Watchwords 110

Death and the Maiden 130

Crux 144

Shells 163

The Archaeology of Days 176

Putting Two and Two Together 192

Skimming 211

Hitting the Right Note 224

Afterword: Thirty-Six Ways of Looking at an Essay 237

Acknowledgments 243

Editorial Reviews

06/04/2018
In these reflections on memory, mortality, and history, Irish essayist Arthur (Reading Life) exhibits a well-trained “magpie-eye” for the telling fact or detail that seems trivial but contains a greater significance. Such is the case with the tendency of early Scotch-Irish immigrants to America to press hummingbirds, an unfamiliar species to them, between the pages of a book and send these mementos home. To Arthur, this is a metaphor for his own process of trying to capture the ineffable in textual form. Elsewhere, Arthur fixes on the moment on December 6, 1834, when Charles Darwin, visiting San Pedro Island off the coast of Chile, killed a species of fox seldom seen there. Observing the odds against the famous naturalist and the rare species crossing paths at that very spot, he reflects that “any moment offers a portal into the tapestry of time and chance and consequence.” Still another essay discusses discovering his father’s pocket watch, recalling memories that made “the temporal ground beneath my feet... suddenly gave way” and send him “plummeting back three quarters of a century.” Arthur is a gifted observer, and these finely crafted essays will surprise and delight. (July)

Publishers Weekly

The voice that speaks in all his work is quiet, yet lyrical, both self-effacing and slyly self-conscious. . . . [W]hat Chris Arthur has done here is show us, in the pressing of his thoughts to paper, how the individual life takes flight each time we snatch it from the air and stamp it to the page.” —Northwords Now
 

“In Chris Arthur’s masterful, elegant essay collection Hummingbirds Between the Pages, expansive and granular meditations on time, language, nature, mortality, and Northern Ireland capture wonder in the everyday. . . . Through singular phrasing and meticulous descriptions, these essays return again and again to the unlikely miracle of being alive.” —­­­Foreword Reviews
 
 
 

“The essay, in Chris Arthur’s hands, proclaims its outsider status, its subversive momentum, its effortless inclusivity and freedom from trammels of the imagination, attaining an embodiment which is civilized, idiosyncratic and rare.” —Times Literary Supplement

"Together these essays take on a near-cosmic view of how we got here and where we are going. It's a stunning collection that reveals a depth and nimbleness of thinking that is a joy to read."  —Shelf Awareness

“Arthur is proof that the art of the essay is flourishing.” —Publishers Weekly

 "Arthur is a gifted observer, and these finely crafted essays will surprise and delight." —Publishers Weekly

“Among the very best essayists in the English language today.” —Robert Atwan, founder and series editor of The Best American Essays

From the Publisher