I WAS at The Hill of
Content bookshop in Bourke Street a while back, holding a precious book voucher
in my hand, desperately looking to spend it wisely, hungry for a nourishing
book, hoping to find an elusive good novel, having read a few dissatisfying
ones in a row. Books that lacked something, that failed to ignite or charge the
soul.
I saw ‘Landmarks’ on the
shelf with the lovely blue cover design. The author is the British travel
writer, Robert Macfarlane. I challenged myself to discover something new. A new
approach to reading. Non-fiction, travel, landscapes, language, the natural
world.
I dipped into it briefly
before lights out. I thought about returning it. Am I going to enjoy this?
I dipped into it again the
next night and read a whole chapter. Result? Hooked.
Part of the fascination is
England and Scotland, two countries I love. Then there is the remoteness of the
places visited, and how the idea of remoteness and paths scarcely travelled
hold a fascination. Then there is the earnestness, and poetry in the writing.
Then, as I discovered as I read on, so much more.
The first line of the book:
‘This is a book about the power of language.’ Macfarlane is a wordsmith, he
loves language. He writes of the ‘astonishing lexis for landscape.’ There is a
glossary of language at the end of each section. Local dialect for earth,
waterlands, edgelands, underlands, woodlands- the list goes on. As fascinating
and extensive these lists are, and this is a very valuable lexicon to have (one
wonders how much he might enjoy a glossary of Australian aboriginal dialect),
this isn’t the aspect which captured my imagination the most.
This is a book that
contains so many interesting references and observations about the natural world,
and done so poetically and intelligently, that you wish you had underlined, or
at least placed a removable mark like a sticky label next to all those great
expressions you encountered as you read along (I did do this once with the
Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, the best text I have read that screamed
out a need to do this.)
The best way to represent
the joy of this book is with quotations.
1.
Quoting John Muir on the
power of observation, ‘The surface of the ground, so dull and forbidding at
first sight…(in fact) shines and sparkles with crystals: mica, hornblende,
feldspar, quartz, tourmaline…the radiance in some places is so great as to be
fairly dazzling.’ Macfarlane has clearly learnt from Muir when he finds
involvement in the natural world right beside the upper Thames in Essex next to
a power station (‘The Wilds of Essex’, BBC2).
2.
Quoting Nan Shepard (The
Living Mountain): ‘Beech-bud sheaths, blown in tide-mark lines along the edge
of the roads, give a glow of brightness to the dusty roads of May.’
3.
Quoting his (deceased) friend Roger Deakin, (the) ‘park-bench green’
of a pheasant’s neck; a hornet ‘tubby, like a weekend footballer in a striped
vest.’
4.
Quoting (birdwatcher) J A
Baker, ‘Edney Wood was quiet but frighteningly beautiful. The sodden glow of
the millions of leaves burnt my eyes. But after sunset it was just a desolate,
deserted slum of trees.’
5.
Quoting Baker (again) on
animals’ fear of man: ‘A poisoned crow, gaping and helplessly floundering in
the grass, bright yellow foam bubbling from its throat, will dash itself up
again and again on to the descending wall of air, if you try to catch it.’
6.
Quoting John Muir (on
Silver Pines): ‘Colossal spires 200 feet in height waved like supple goldenrods
chanting and bowing low as if in worship, while the whole mass of their long,
tremulous foliage was kindled into one continuous blaze of white sun-fire.’
7.
Muir again, on observing
the trousers of a fellow traveller: ‘…pine needles, thin flakes and fibers of
bark, hair, mica scales and minute grains of quartz, hornblende, etc; feathers,
seed wings, moth and butterfly wings, legs and antennae of innumerable
insects…flower petals, pollen dust and indeed bits of all plants, animals and
minerals of the region adhere to them and are safely imbedded.’
The book is a mixture of Macfarlane’s
travels, his meetings of mutual admirers of the natural world, his tributes and
reminiscences of former naturalists and landscape historians and various
dictionaries or glossaries of landscapes, seascapes and weather.
One of the most interesting
things for me has been to do some research, and look up the various obscure
places in England and the United Kingdom that offer so much joy to this
traveller and travellers of the past.
There is Brock Barrow, the
Esk Valley and Muncaster Fell, the Rhinogs, the Wells of Dee, the Cairngorms…
the list goes on. And it is endlessly fascinating to look these places up to
discover their geographical location and wonder about the places that have
provided writers with a sense of wonder.
It seems to me to be a
wonderful thing to spend years on a book, filled with earnest research and
plenty of first hand observation and experience, on such a topic as this, the
fascination of the natural world. Macfarlane’s journey is full of respect as
one’s pilgrimage to Mecca might be, or the places explored by a famous painter
or photographer. Macfarlane is as careful with his language, beautifully
poetic, as his mentors or heroes are, and as any poet or painter might be. One of
the best chapters is about Roger Deakin, and his visit to Walnut Tree Farm. He calls
Deakin a ‘water man’, and a ‘film-maker, environmentalist and writer.’ Deakin taught
Macfarlane that one’s approach to open water should shift, from a place where
one should fly over, drive around, or stop at, to one in which one should enter
or explore. Macfarlane has the utmost respect for Deakin (and became his friend
before Deakin died). Macfarlane especially enjoyed Deakin’s book ‘Waterlog.’
There must be people out there whose favourite book will become ‘Landmarks’,
and hold the kind of genuine awe and respect for Macfarlane, that Macfarlane
has for Deakin, and Nan Shepherd, Richard Skelton, Richard Jefferies, and John
Muir, and many others.
The clip below is testament to Macfarlane's ability to discover natural beauty in the most unlikeliest of places.
No comments:
Post a Comment