This book flies to extraordinary places. Among its sources seem to have been journeys across Salisbury Plain and visits to its ancient stone remains. Though silent they have a kind of power to speak. Rhode has, I think, wanted to hear their voice.

He describes a visit to the neolithic stone circle at Avebury. This has a radius so large it cannot be taken in by the eye as a whole. The village of Avebury sits across the perimeter of the vast circle. Some of the stones have been cannibalized as building materials so that circle and village, dating from several thousand years apart, intersect and are, at that point, entangled. We are left with something like an instance of reversible perspective. At one moment we see a stone circle (with a village sitting incongruously on its path). The next moment we see a village with ancient stones scattered beyond it.