Going out

    

    The books I've been reading recently have all been heavily populated. They have contained action and introspection, dialogue and drama, and the overall effect - felt once I take a step back - is of crowded reading.   

      The Wild Places, by Robert Macfarlane, has been the perfect antidote to those densely peopled stories as it's almost empty of humankind. It is an open space of a book, and there's a freedom about the writing which is refreshing to encounter. Macfarlane journeyed around wilderness areas of Britain, following W.H. Murray's urging: "Find beauty; be still" and creating "a prose map" of landscapes described with a poet's store of language.

     Exploring mountains and shores, woodland, rivers and islands, he walked usually alone, often at night, sleeping in the open, bathing in lochs, rivers, rockpools even, and the acute sense of place he discovered and describes makes this a very valuable and very beautiful account of fast disappearing country. His references to geology, history, physics and literature (he is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge) are never intrusive and always illuminating, and his empathic response to the land and the elements which shape it is eloquently set out.

     At each location, Macfarlane collected a memento in the form of a stick, a feather or a stone - a "mineral postcard" - which would recall what he'd experienced and observed, but it's his hoard of gathered reflections and perceptions which are so powerfully but gently expressed here that will endure.

     A line from John Muir quoted at the beginning of the book is telling: "I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in". Whether out or in, Macfarlane is the best of guides and companions, and he deserves a wide readership.

Comments

[Nan]

I went to amazon uk and read about the book, which sounds great. I suspect I am not the only American who thinks the English, Irish, and Scottish go for weekly "tramps" and holiday "treks." And from the writeup at amazon my sense is this is not happening so much, and that people are getting out of touch with nature. It makes me sad. If you are interested in books such as this, but not new, there are a couple from over here that you might really like. One is Henry Beston's The Outermost House, and the other is A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. Back to Scotland - I just bought a book last year by David Yeadon called Seasons On Harris. And I've been wanting to buy Adam Nicolson's Sea Room for a while now. I understand exactly how soothing and necessary these sorts of books can be.

[Peg]

I love the term 'mineral postcard'. I love stones - spent a year or more collecting a basket of 'Easter Egg' stones! I often have stones in bowls, boxes, as paperweights and now holding some 'paperwhite' bulbs in a vase! I must look up this gentleman's book!

[Peter the flautist]

Nan posts an interesting comment. Although I live in London I spend quite a lot of time each year in a small cottage in Central Scotland. I have been going there regularly for 40 years and a lot of my hillwalking is done in the area I can reach just by leaving my front gate. What I can say is that 30 years ago you would probably not have seen another soul whereas these days I might pass as many as four or five groups of walkers on a relatively short 10km walk. So my experience (also true of other places in Scotland and England I have walked) is that there are many MORE people on their "weekly tramps" than in my youth (1970's).

Dark Puss

[Barbara MacLeod]

To pick up on Peter's point ... and furthermore you do not have to go very far off the beaten track to find that there is nobody else out there! (This also includes sailing on the west coast of Scotland.)

[Equiano]

This was a Christmas gift this year, although I haven't started it yet - just moved up my TBR pile with this post!