When one of Wales's leading thinkers puts pen to paper to reflect on a long life full of intellectual challenge, poetry, music and mountain climbing, the result is inevitably something out of the ordinary.
More than a memoir, John Llewelyn's Departing from Logic is a memorandum. It has to do with the heart understood literally, but also metaphorically, as the pulse animating the author's desire to say thank you.
Begrudged a claim to Welshhood by his self-confessed inability to sing, he nevertheless lifts his voice here in a hymn of joy over his discovery that through learning the Welsh language he may find a way to lay claim to his birthright.
His journey begins with his family, friends and teachers in Gwent and Ceredigion and traverses some of the most fascinating landscapes of mind and mountainside – to places, indeed, where the unprepared may momentarily find themselves lost.
Welcome to the uncharted territory of psycho-physio-philosophy. But also welcome back to the land of our fathers and the ancient language that sang itself through their throats. Croeso yn ôl i Gymru ac iaith y nefoedd.
