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Graham Swift

Graham Swift Books

Film writer

Waterland

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Shuttlecock

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Ever After

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Tomorrow

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“Once upon a time, before the boys were killed and when there were more horses than cars, before the male servants disappeared and they made do, at Upleigh and at Beechwood, with just a cook and a maid, the Sheringhams had owned not just four horses in their own stable, but what might be called a 'real horse', a racehorse, a thoroughbred. Its name was Fandango. It was stabled near Newbury. It had never won a damn thing. But is was the family's indulgence, their hope for fame and glory on the racecourses of southern England. The deal was that Pa and Ma - otherwise known in his strange language as 'the shower' - owned the head and body and he and Dick and Freddy had a leg each. 'What about the fourth leg?' 'Oh the fourth leg. That was always the question.”

FamilyBoysHorsesServants
Book:Mothering Sunday
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“Pillow talk. It's how you know, it's how you tell, that something different, something special is happening: that this might even be the most important night of your life. Some day -some night- I hope you both may know it, with whoever it may be: the wish, stealing up on you, not to just merge bodies, but all you have, all your years, all your memories up to that point. And why should you wish to do that, if you haven't already guessed that your future too, will be shared?”

IfsKnowsShouldYearsMayImportantDifferentBodyMightNightWishMemoriesSpecialHavensHappeningsStealingYour FuturePillowSomething Special
Author:Graham Swift
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“Children, only animals live entirely in the Here and Now. Only nature knows neither memory nor history. But man - let me offer you a definition - is the storytelling animal. Wherever he goes he wants to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space, but the comforting marker-buoys and trail-signs of stories. He has to go on telling stories. He has to keep on making them up. As long as there's a story, it's all right. Even in his last moments, it's said, in the split second of a fatal fall - or when he's about to drown - he sees, passing rapidly before him, the story of his whole life.”

KnowsMenWantChildrenLongSaidWholeMomentsStoriesLastsFallMemoriesSpaceAnimalBehindsGoes OnOffersEmptyLet MeDefinitionsWhole LifePassingPassingsStorytellingSplitsTrailsComfortingHere And NowChaoticTelling StoriesEmpty SpaceMarkersBuoys
Author:Graham Swift
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“Realism; fatalism; phlegm. To live in the Fens is to receive strong doses of reality. The great flat monotony of reality; the wide empty space of reality. Melancholia and self-murder are not unknown in the Fens. Heavy drinking, madness and sudden acts of violence are not uncommon. How do you surmount reality, children? How do you acquire, in a flat country, the tonic of elevated feelings?”

ChildrenSelfCountryFeelingsRealityStrongSpaceViolenceEmptyMadnessMurderDrinkingHeavyWideAcquireFlatsRealismDoseUncommonEmpty SpaceMonotonyActs Of ViolenceFatalismHeavy DrinkingDose Of Reality
Book:Waterland
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“There’s this thing called progress. But it doesn’t progress. It doesn’t go anywhere. Because as progress progresses the world can slip away. It’s progress if you can stop the world slipping away. My humble model for progress I the reclamation of land. Which is repeatedly, never-ending retrieving what it lost. A dogged and vigilant business. A dull yet valuable business. A hard, inglorious business. But you shouldn’t go mistaking the reclamation of land for the building of empires.”

IfsWorldHardLostProgressLandBuildingModelsHumbleValuableDullEmpiresSlipsNever EndingSlippingVigilantSlipping AwayReclamation
Author:Graham Swift
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“Structure that really pays off is all based on emotion. I don't write down an elaborate plan. It's really done by feel. It's one area of my writing that I think I've got surer at as I've evolved. In my work you often get an abrupt shift in time, a jolt. But the emotional logic will take the reader on. I hope. I trust. After all, our memories do not work with any sequential logic.”

ThinkingFeelsWritingDoneMemoriesPayEmotionPlansEmotionalReaderAreasLogicStructureOur Memories
Author:Graham Swift
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