A Stone's Throw: The Enduring Nature of Myth

Naomi Brun is a freelance writer and a book reviewer for The Hamilton
Spectator.

“At the beach near our house, on a warm day in early autumn when the
tide is low and gulls coast on the blustery breeze, my son scours the
shore for a skipping stone. He finds one, thin and smooth and black,
that precisely fits his small hand.”

This simple summertime family scene opens A Stone’s Throw. The rock
in the little boy’s hand leads the reader backward to discover ancient
places, ancient peoples, and ancient stories. That one stone becomes the
pyramids, then transforms into the foundation stone of the Temple Mount
in Jerusalem before taking on the shape of the Parthenon, among others.
Moving forward in time, it also stands for the graves of fallen
soldiers, his grandfather’s jewellery store, and the World Trade
Centre that was destroyed so famously on September 11, 2001. In a sense,
the stone on the beach links the past with the present, and by using the
stone as metaphor, Laird teaches the reader how to see myth in the stuff
of everyday life. According to Laird, “[t]his is a book about stones
and memory, about what we preserve and what we discard, about the claim
of the past on the present.”

Any intellectual would welcome Ross Laird as a friend. Part professor,
part storyteller, and part poet, he treats the world as one giant
classroom. A skipping stone on the beach, for example, reminds him of a
highly skilled people more ancient than the Hebrews, Egyptians, or
Greeks. At first glance, Laird absorbs the history and geography of
whatever he sees, and then takes time to consider how those elements are
influencing our society right now.

This book is about much more than stones. In truth, A Stone’s Throw
is a conversationally written, highly factual treatise on myth and
meaning. Read carefully, it has the potential to change the way we view
our world.