{"product_id":"the-image-of-a-drawn-sword","title":"The Image of a Drawn Sword","description":"The calm of Reynard Langrish's quietly predictable life is shattered when, on a night of rain-swept storm, a stranger - a young soldier called Captain Archer - appears at his remote Kentish cottage. He takes Langrish to an ancient hill fort and introduces him to the men under his command, all of whom share a mysterious tattoo - two snakes entwined around a drawn sword - and are engaged in preparations to defend against a nameless menace, referred to only as 'the Emergency'.As the dreamlike narrative rapidly accelerates into Kafkaesque nightmare, Langrish is drawn into a world where illusion, paranoia, and reality unite with lethal consequences, and disorienting shifts of time and perception culminate in a terrifying moment of pure horror.Originally published in 1950, The Image of a Drawn Sword is steeped in the themes and images that occupy much of Brooke's writing - the relentlessness of time, suppressed homosexuality, condemned love, self-hatred, and futility; and, above all, an England that was both real and uniquely his own, a mystical, half-known natural world.'In its way not inferior to Kafka . . . [it has] a haunting, sinister quality' - Anthony Powell'Seldom have naturalism and fantasy been more strangely merged' - Elizabeth Bowen'He is subtle as the devil' - John Betjeman'The skill and intensity of the writing made peculiarly haunting this cry of complaint on behalf of a bewildered Man' - Pamela Hansford Johnson, Daily Telegraph","brand":"Bello","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57607463731526,"sku":"9781509855858","price":22.71,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0852\/3081\/3510\/files\/f761d07538fd06779b98efde6ffb6edb349ffbc42e0cea67f32f226b655eac76.jpg?v=1792126711","url":"https:\/\/www.averdo.com\/products\/the-image-of-a-drawn-sword","provider":"Averdo","version":"1.0","type":"link"}