Stone Will Answer: A Journey Guided by Craft, Myth and Geology

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It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.

Some of this left me scratching my head. Yet Searle is an excellent storyteller and when she simply describes the highs and lows of her journey, her narrative sings. Stone is the most awkward of materials. As any stonemason will tell you, it is heavy and difficult to move but also fragile and easily chipped. It can be ubiquitous but often differs in quality within one postcode, within one quarry, within even one section of one quarry. It is the byword for longevity but if incorrectly chosen and placed weathering beyond useful capacity within short decades. It demands a polymath knowledge of everything from art and architecture to chemistry, geology, geometry and more, for those of us drawn to it. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t for such reasons that the characters attracted to stone are as uncompromising and hard to define as it is — read Fred Bower’s Rolling Stonemason (1936) or Seamus Murphy’s Stone Mad (1949), two of the foundational works of literary stonemasonry, and you’ll see what I mean. In recent years this slender tradition of stonemasons writing about stone has experienced a quiet revival of sorts with my own King of Dust (2019) and Andrew Ziminski’s The Stonemason (2020) to which is now added Beatrice Searle’s extraordinary Stone Will Answer.Searle is an excellent storyteller... [and Stone Will Answer] make[s] for gripping reading... it's the human spirit that emerges triumphant in this sparky blend of memoir and travelogue... Above all, this is the story of a young woman's astonishing feat of endurance Herald This book is a description of madness in all the best ways. Madness fuelled by self-discovery, a deep and driving inner need and the light of creativity, art and inspiration. Writer, artist and stonemason Beatrice Searle and artist and designer Ellie Orrell reflect on their work and the transformative and healing power of art and craft. Searle is an excellent storyteller... [and Stone Will Answer] make[s] for gripping reading... Above all, this is the story [of] a young woman's astonishing feat of endurance." Herald I say that we are taking this stone to Trondheim. I continue to tell her the story of Magnus and ancient Kings.

A beautiful memoir, travelogue, and meditation on stone and the transformative power of craft, by young stone mason Beatrice Searle.A story of determination and soul-searching... Compellingly narrated, entertaining and thought-provoking... treat yourself to a copy of this book and enjoy the journey Natural Stone Specialist Weaving between the joyful trusting determination of a singular intelligent and interested little girl, in her adulthood she draws her into this story so tenderly, whilst walking into the landscape of facing the peculiar monolithic impressions we live amongst. Storied impressions and whom we feel compelled to wield in the titanic efforts of believing in being human. As we learn with her what it takes, and all it takes along the way, to become a master of stone. The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will. Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.

Stone Will Answer is not only a brilliant contemplation of the spiritual and historical power of stone, but a riveting travelogue through Norway's wilderness. Fans of Raynor Winn, like myself, will love Searle's lengthy and challenging journey through a semi-isolated natural world. Stone does answer, in its own irregular ways and through its unlikely combination of oppositions. It is both the purpose of travel as well as anchor. It is both weight and lightness, surface and depth, stillness and motion. It is sometimes said that stonemasons have a ‘feel’ for stone. This is something that comes from practice, hours spent working it into specific useful shapes. What is less well known is that this is a two-way street: the stone works on you. Searle has taken this relationship out into the wild, tested it in extreme conditions and come to know, unknow and re-learn her stone, which has forced similar processes upon herself. As she concludes, ‘I had thought it was an act of generosity to bring the stone; in the end it was our encounters with those on the path that revealed that I had been seeking and making real my own foundation myths’.Adam Brookes Interviewed by Rana Mitter Fragile Cargo: China’s Wartime Race to Save the Treasures of the Forbidden City Lincoln College: Oakeshott Room 4:00pm Mon 27 Monday, 27 March 2023 See this event

The Power of Art: Stone Will Answer and An Indigo Summer Beatrice Searle and Ellie Evelyn Orrell Chaired by David Isaac Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: Searle wanted to learn the “lessons” stone had to teach her but it’s the human spirit that emerges triumphant in this sparky blend of memoir and travelogue. There is the kindness of strangers she meets on the pilgrim path: fellow travellers who share food, mend trolley-wheels and add their footsteps to the Orkney Boat’s story. There is wisdom to be gleaned from the stories Searle tells about her fellow stonemasons: highly skilled craftspeople who repair and preserve the fabric of ancient buildings using techniques that have remained unchanged for 800 years. That, at least, was the theory. Shortly after disembarking in Bergen, Searle experienced the first of many episodes of self-doubt that would dog her journey. None of the passing tourists seemed remotely interested in her stone and suddenly she found herself standing alone in the pouring rain, wondering what on earth she was doing there. It was a dispiriting moment yet oddly, it was at this point that Searle’s story came alive. These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience – the local community.A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.