The North Pole: The History of an Obsession by Erling Kagge | Book Review | Viking

 

'Much of the history of the North Pole is about men who were not willing to learn from their predecessors' mistakes,' writes Erling Kagge, Norwegian explorer and author of The North Pole: The History of an Obsession. There, I have (or, he has) summed up the book for you - but perhaps stay a while, as the meat of this fascinating book is in the detail.

Kagge is a Norwegian explorer with an impressive track record - the first to reach the ‘three poles’ (North, South and the summit of Mount Everest), and author of several well-known books. In this work, he partly focuses on his record, set in 1990, of becoming the first to reach the North Pole on skis, without any mechanical assistance or animal power, using it as a framework to paint a wandering history of polar exploration.

For me, a work that takes a place, time or topic as its central character - in this case, the North Pole - is true escapism, the epitome of non-fiction, seamlessly combining learning and enjoyment, all the while making the reading experience flow, linear like a novel. Kagge explores a huge variety of sources - literary, historical, zoological, geographical and more. From the world's earliest maps by Ptolemy and Mercator, to the golden age of British polar exploration towards the end of the 18th centruy; from Aristotle and Socrates to Columbus, James Cook, Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen, the character list is numerous and wide-ranging.

Undoubtedly, the history of polar exploration is colourful, inventive and entirely absurd at times. For many years, the predominant theory about the Arctic Ocean was that it was ice-free, if only one could reach far enough - so the attempts in the endless race to be the first to reach the North Pole, more often than not, ended in disaster. It is mind-bending how many journeys were taken by explorers across the globe - sometimes in the name of science or the advancement of human kind, but more often hubris (whether openly admitted or not) - and even more incredible to learn about the disastrous outcomes of most of them. Attempts were made by water, by air, by ice: creativity in this race knew no bounds. 

Another fascinating aspect is where funding for these journeys came from: royal support, family fortunes or media moguls would often back explorers to mount an expedition, with exclusive rights for coverage (as we know, disaster sells). If explorers survived their ordeal, but failed in what they set out to do, they would be shunned. If they died on their journey, they would become heroes. For almost three centuries, the public was entirely fascinated with the life-or-death drama of polar exploration, and only towards the mid-20th century did this begin to fade. Though, as this book shows, some of that fascination is still very much alive to this day.

What's more, to this day, we don't know for sure who, in fact, was the first to reach the North Pole by any means - historical records are dubious at best, and there were no photographs or tangible evidence to prove one's achievement. 

The history in itself is fascinating, but I did find that Kagge's reflections often seemed to mirror the very things he poked fun at - the machoism of explorers, the national pride, the search for improbable challenges, the need to win and impress. He often generalises about some explorers and nationalities, and romanticises others like sages. It's a touch black and white, which becomes apparent in the specific explorers that he chooses to dwell on, and which explorers he chooses to gloss over (I was personally offended by the lack of detail about the Franklin expeditions, for example).

There is also an undercurrent, a suggestion throughout the book, which feels a bit 'woe is me', that polar explorers overwhelmingly have daddy issues: most of the adventurers he dwells on (including himself) were abandoned by their fathers, were left by them quite young, or were simply ridiculed by them, spurring them on with a burning need to prove themselves.

I won't dwell on the fact that I think only two or three women are mentioned in the book in total. 

This book is romantic, but through male perspective-tinted glasses. If you can put that aside and simply enjoy the history presented - which is well done indeed - this will prove to be an enjoyable, educational read. 

The White Ladder: Triumph and Tragedy at the Dawn of Mountaineering by Daniel Light | Book Review | Oneworld Publications

 

Perhaps even those only remotely interested in the history of mountaineering have heard the names of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine who (as the debate still carries on today) may or may not have been the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest, shortly before disappearing into the clouds and never seen alive again.

But what makes The White Ladder: Triumph and Tragedy at the Dawn of Mountaineering by Daniel Light thrilling is that it uses the fateful 1924 British expedition as its endpoint – something the narrative builds up to, starting from the very early days of mountaineering and giving a panoramic overview en route. As Light shows in vivid, involving detail, summiting wasn't always about glory and fame; in fact, mountaineering wasn't even always about summiting. The how and why of modern mountaineering turns out to be absolutely fascinating.

The White Ladder is a truly novel-like history. What especially fascinates me is how the initial interest in climbing mountains – purely scientific – evolved into sport, conquest and global power. From surveyors to naturalists, young aristocrats, rich protégés and even the odd occultist, the cast of mountain literature is as colourful as any novel, and Light gives an easy to follow chronological history of the evolution of high-altitude exploration. All the while, it is engrossing, written in a way that makes the reader feel like they are there with these great men (and even a woman), lighting pipes, breathing in the chill mountain air, eating Irish stew straight from the tin when the stove wouldn't light, 'slowly melting the lumps of white frozen grease in our mouths, and then swallowing them'.

Light doesn't just recount records, names and dates, but looks at key developments too, such as the gradual discovery of mountain sickness, the invention of crampons and using supplemental oxygen for the first time – small details that add colour and life to the cold upper reaches, and all in vivid, theatrical detail. I am so drawn into the book, in fact, that I don't want it to end: it truly allows me to live vicariously, with each chapter telling the story of a single person or team, and an expedition that moved the development of mountaineering forward, one way or another. Notably, I believe failed attempts actually outnumber successes, making it feel like a fuller, more realistic narrative.

It's a complete surprise to read about Fanny Workman Bullock, one of the most decorated Himalayan mountaineers – man or woman – of her time (though of course, the truth is that, as Light describes her, she was an 'ugly extension of British colonial rule' in attitude towards the locals, which may explain why she isn't as celebrated today as she might be). Equally, the eccentricities of late Victorian climbers are always a delight: from surviving on nothing but 'champagne and Danish butter', to Aleister Crowley arguing with Oscar Eckenstein about bringing his hefty poetry volumes to the top of K2 with him, because 'I would rather bear physical starvation than intellectual starvation'. 

Light doesn't shy away from sharing the often repulsive truths behind the glorified expeditions, including beatings, starvation, death and ugly gossip. But all that adds up to an intriguing history, one that pokes gentle fun at the white masculine heroism of the time, all the while giving credit where credit is due. It is thoroughly researched, very well written and highly recommended for anyone looking for an armchair escape into the cold peaks of the Himalayas. 

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews | Book Review | Preface by Kathleen Jamie | Reaktion Books

 

[Review originally published on Bookmunch: View Post]

How many female writer-walkers can you name? We think of Dorothy Wordsworth (though we also instantly think of her brother); we think of Nan Shepherd (mostly thanks to her sudden popularity over the last few years); perhaps we think of Cheryl Strayed or Raynor Winn. But how can these women compare to the fame of the Lake Poets, the flâneurs, D. H. Lawrence, John Muir or Henry David Thoreau?

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews (introduced by Kathleen Jamie) makes a strong case for remembering that there is a reason behind the history of walking coming to us from an overwhelmingly male perspective.

In this collection Andrews rounds up some of the most well-known (and some less well-known) writer-wanderer women who, for one reason or another, were passionate walkers throughout their lives. So much more than an anthology, each chapter is dedicated to a single woman and a meditation on the role that walking played in their lives. Through their walking habits (and what these habits inspired), Andrews paints vivid characters rather than presenting biographies, yet gives plenty of insight, and shows intimate knowledge of the backgrounds and output of her chosen examples.

The curated selection is colourful and exciting, and their reasons for walking varied. There are those we expect to be included, and those we get to know, perhaps for the first time. Elizabeth Carter, the whimsical vagrant, walked each day for inspiration and health, ideally also enjoying a good drench in a thunderstorm; Dorothy Wordsworth used walking as a way of ‘experiencing both her new-found independence and her new home’ after moving into Dove Cottage. Harriet Martineau, after a prolonged illness that confined her to a single room, rediscovers the joy of living in the act of walking, roaming the Lakes for ten glorious years and rivalling the Lake Poets as a writer-walker in her time. Virginia Woolf paces her novels into existence, while Anaïs Nin – diarist and writer – explores her sexual desires and creativity on the streets of Paris and New York.

What becomes clear from these essays is that walking can be a lifeline or a source of creativity; it can be a form of memory, and can transform a city or landscape into a vast spider web of lives lived in parallel.

Andrews also explores the limitations on women’s walking – not everyone is permitted, or is able to walk, and not freely in any case. Most women in this collection have some reason to fear, whether that’s judgement, assault, or household and family duties that husbands historically extricated themselves from. These women didn’t have the liberty to walk where and when they might have wanted and, arguably, women today often still don’t. With these essays, Andrews raises a rallying cry against giving up on a pastime that, as Rebecca Solnit writes, is a ‘portion of our humanity’.

Each chapter is bookended by a short piece by Andrews – some recounting personal experiences of walking, and some offering reflections on these extraordinary women. It’s a perfect balance, and the structure works very well in tying all the chapters together.

It’s not so much a history of walking as a historical tracing of a line, a trend often overlooked. It is a much-needed case to be made, and Wanderers sits proudly unique amongst the many walking anthologies that give a mostly male perspective.

Overall, Wanderers is more than history, more than anthology: with an excellent selection of case studies, it is a love letter to walking, and highlights time and again how this simple act can be true freedom.

Climbing Days by Dorothy Pilley | Introduced by Dan Richards | Book Review | Canongate

 

Ever since I read Climbing Days by Dan Richards, I have been intrigued by Dorothy Pilley. Dan's great-great-aunt was a pioneer mountaineer, and someone that the last few decades have somehow allowed to fade into some obscurity. Having finally had the chance to read her original account, Climbing Days - here republished in a stunning edition by Canongate, and introduced by Dan Richards - I am surprised and saddened that this book isn't one of the canons of British climbing literature.

But saddened no more! Here, again, is the book in all its glory, and what a surprising, delightful and exciting read it is. Tracing Dorothy's climbing journey from her very first forays in the UK all the way to her pioneering ascent of the north-north-west face of the Dent Blanche in Switzerland, this is a complete and satisfying climbing journey that takes all the great climbs in its stride. Equally though, it is tender escapism, inspiring dreams of distant mountains many of us will never see. Mountains of the mind, and all that. 

Climbing Days takes in the Lakes, Wales and the Isle of Skye - with Dorothy expressing equal amounts of awe as anyone doing the same today will experience - and then further to Switzerland, France and Spain for adventures in alpinism as her skills, confidence and social circles grow.

One must constantly remember (with both awe and horror), when reading this fine piece of mountaineering literature, that what we think of today as 'climbing' took a very different shape in the 1930s, when this book was first published. I often felt a thrill when remembering that when Dorothy says 'abseil', she means wrapping a rope around her thigh and shoulder and lowering herself just so. No Grigri, no belay or rappel device, just a rock with a rope slung around it to hopefully keep one safe. Equally, climbing looked rather different: there is no mention at all of harnesses, and though carabiners were coming into fashion around this time, they weren't widespread yet. Pitons - metal spikes to drive into the rock and use as a step or anchor - were more common, but falling, generally, still wasn't a safe option, just something hopefully avoided or mitigated mid-air. 

In the same vein, reading about rescue operations she occasionally took part in is fascinating. At the time, there was no official mountain rescue - just a handful of (hopefully) experienced climbers, who happened to be staying in a nearby hut, and were gracious enough to go looking for a missing colleague who hadn't returned. She shares tales on hut etiquette, rationing and packing (for example, how they slowly moved away from carrying heavy tins to spartan rations), and even her first close encounter with a crevasse. In a way, Climbing Days is a beautiful glimpse into the development of mountaineering and alpinism in the early twentieth century.

But then, so much more too: I am so pleasantly surprised by how funny Dorothy is. Considering Climbing Days was first published in 1935, it reads as easily as any modern climbing memoir, and her often tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking yet awe-filled rememberances fill the pages with life. Not always plain-sailing; sacrifices had to be made. 'I haunted second-hand bookshops for climbing literature,' she writes, 'going without a new hat or sacrificing lobster salad for a bun and coffee lunch.'

Lyrical, too; developed from her diaries that she kept throughout her entire life, Dorothy had plenty of material to draw on and develop into vivid descriptions of landscape and experience.

'After supper I went outside, wrapped in blankets, to watch the moonlight moulding the backs of a sea of clouds in the valley and cutting the upper glacial world into heraldic simplicity of sable and silver.'

The two Climbing Days - that of Dorothy Pilley and that of Dan Richards - are a brilliant match, and if any of this appeals to you, I would advise reading them both. The order doesn't matter, though Dan's book is perhaps a great contextual introduction to Dorothy's work. I am just glad that, to my ever-growing library of badass, inspiring female climbers' memoirs, I can now add this wonderful account.

 

Cairn by Kathleen Jamie | Book Review | Sort of Books | Author of Findings, Sightlines and Surfacing

 

Cairn by Kathleen Jamie

What a delight to be reading Kathleen Jamie again. Her return with her new book, Cairn, is masterful – in this new collection of short pieces and poems, she exceeds herself, the format enabling her to chisel each piece to perfection until what is left of a rough stone (though beautiful to begin with) is its shimmering centre. She brings all of her grace and poetic mastery to this collection, one that deserves reading and rereading often.

The introduction sets the scene with a somewhat bittersweet tone and self-mocking note, gently making fun of Kathleen's own earnestness of youth – now writing to us from the other side of a threshold of age, where one becomes 'more hander-on of the world than its inheritor'. How lucky for us to have honest notes from someone who observes and sends letters, to let us know what it's like. This handing over, this changing of the guards runs through the book like an undercurrent, through climate protests and summit trips. Her fear for the future, and future generations is palpable throughout. But it is also a sort of taking us by the hand, pulling us forward, gently into action.

Her short-form writing is beautiful, like a collection of trinkets on one's windowsill, and on my first read I already read everything twice. In fact, I pick up other books to intentionally slow my pace. I don't want to read it all at once, and I know it's not enough, anyway; I return to reread it all, not in order this time, in and out of sentiments and snapshots of images beautifully conjured in such few words. 

A sense of mourning lingers in these fragments, farewells to the departed and especially to one's young self. Kathleen is such a wonderful weaver, connecting with ease the muddy hillside springs ('if even they had run dry, what then?') to an all-encompassing sense of loneliness, 'like a five years bairn again, blythly venturing toward the edge of the known, but with no-one left alive to call me home.' 

She mourns and fears for the future and the planet, and writes tender reminiscences of an age where this mourning didn't yet penetrate our every waking thought. 'Envy us, infants in an undisfeatured world.' In phone wires and raindrops, she sees our entire past and future, and this is what makes her writing so exceptional. Her perspective, too; in 'Peregrines', she becomes the predator, her eyes zooming into the small detail and zooming out again, experiencing being the one with the threatening aura. In 'The Mirror', from a fallen mirror, to a Pictish stone, to a lakeside, back to the mirror again in one fell swoop, somehow changed. 

Every description is worth cherishing, and I enjoy them immensely for their singularity, their rejection of sentimentality: 'The flash of gold is the same blaze of winter sunset mirrored in a puddle. The flare and die, the feathering dark.' And, often, a wry smile, an aside firmly rooting us back in reality: 'Suddenly we're stood watching a big fat metaphor.' Her tone of darkness and humour, so well intertwined, is what makes me love her even more. She raps her own knuckles. The truth is, no one out there writes quite like this.

There are pieces of poetry too, which add to the feeling of the cairn: the placing of stones of various shapes and sizes, on our way to somewhere. They complete the collection that reflects Kathleen deeply, personally.

This book feels as much a piece of literary mastery as a plea or prayer or warning. Kathleen doesn't want to settle comfortably in beauty. A piece about a simple flint, another about avian influenza makes me well up. 'What use is the summer sunlight, if it can't gleam on a gannet's back?'

'We can't stand around like innocents, slightly unsettled, scrolling on, wishing things were "back to normal"', she warns. So, perhaps, Cairn is a marker of a path, an invitation to follow on – or even just to set out and peek around the next bend.

Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter by Kat Hill | Book Review | William Collins

 

'And come I may, but go I must, and if men ask you why,
You may put the blame on the stars and the Sun and the white road and the sky.’
(Gerald Gould: Wander-Thirst)

My first bothy experience was Dubs Hut in the Lake District. I was hosting a group of women as part of a hike organised by Gutsy Girls, and after a day of relentless rain (and I mean relentless), we arrived to Dubs Hut soaked, but delighted. There was a fire, and so warmth to dry our drenched clothes; there were hot drinks and boil-in-the-bag dinners, and extreme pride for having walked who knows how many miles in the pouring rain. I didn’t end up sleeping inside, though; having carried my tent all the way up, I figured I might as well use it.

Whether you sleep in them or around them, bothies are really quite magical: the crudest of shelters in secluded spots, just enough of a roof over one’s head to feel a little bit safer, a bit more out of the elements than in a tent. What Kat Hill does very well in her new book, Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter, is to evoke all the feelings that a bothy awakens. Comfort, community, the simple joy of shelter (the smell of drying socks).

But Bothy is a strange book: it's not history, it's not really travel narrative. Instead, each chapter is an essay on a theme linked to bothies, be it how to live a good or simple life; romanticism and mythology; conservation or the concept of wilderness. And Kat's writing is meditative. As soon as we head into a chapter, I can settle, knowing that we'll ramble over literature and history, nature and philosophy. 

The book starts with a rather refreshing prologue: Kat is entirely conscious of the dangers of tipping into the romantic with her chosen topic. She sets the record straight, straight away. Bothies didn't 'heal' her. 'Wilderness' didn't 'heal' her. It's a process, gradual, where bothies are 'a place to start'. And isn't that just enough?

Initially, she shares quite a lot of personal details about her life in quick succession, but these are barely revisited later in the book. It feels like she has unloaded her reasons in her prologue, and thus freed, moves on. Instead, she meditates on simple questions like what do we need (in a bothy or otherwise); what constitutes adventure; our need for hideaways, even as adults.

In her writing, she wanders; on her Penrhos Isaf trip in Wales, for example, she starts out by recounting the history of gold mining in the Welsh hills (something I've never read about) before winding her way to meditating on the marks we make as humans, on leaving no trace – or what to do with the traces we do leave. 'Humanity,' she writes, 'is now grappling with the problem of how to cover the tracks of our existence where we have already caused damage.' This kind of meandering, or weaving, works most of the time, though in some chapters I question the relevance of some of the explorations. We often get quite far from the bothy itself, and it must be said that the link back at the end doesn't always work. Her in-depth research as an academic and historian is laudable, of course, and the book is full of learnings, from the history of the Mountain Bothy Association to Highland clearances and climate change. I just question if it all builds a cohesive narrative. 

A stand-out chapter for me, Maol-bhuidhe (chapter six) considers the freedom of walking. Kat finds and highlights the childish joy in just putting one foot in front of the other, and crafts a beautiful love letter to walking. This is the part of the book that really makes my feet itch, lyrically exploring how walking can be hope, freedom, distraction; how walking can make talking easier, and how, at least temporarily, it can move anxieties a step further away.

So what is this book really about? It's difficult to say. Bothies form a vague structure – each chapter a trip to a different one – but I would struggle to sum it up. It's meditation. That's the best I can think of: as if the author wrote down each thought following the next as she treads. So it's not travel writing, not completely nature writing either. A strange mix of research and personal narrative, though the author's personal life stays somewhat at arm's length. It’s less of a connection to the author than seeing through her eyes, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But if nothing else, it’s certainly a warm invitation to seek out a bothy, if you haven’t done so yet.

Four Mountaineering Books Everyone Should Read | Dorothy Pilley, Catherine Destivelle, Helen Mort & Alison Hargreaves | Rock Climbing Book Reviews

I want to tell you about the four mountaineering books I've read recently. This chain of events wasn't intentional, quite haphazard in fact; but the outcome, and this thread that I've followed (and can hopefully keep following) have been very satisfying indeed.

They're all about, or by, women; again, not planned, but I'm quite happy it turned out this way. They are all heroes in their own right, who broke unimaginable limits and went way beyond expectations. Whether you're a climber, hiker, walker or armchair traveller, these books, I believe, are full of inspiration and evocative landscapes that will delight you. 

I'll go chronologically.

Climbing Days by Dan Richards

I reviewed Climbing Days earlier on my blog, but this was the book that started me off on a quest for mountaineering literature. Its focus on a pioneer of British mountaineering, who also happens to be a woman, was a great hook. I loved reading snippets of Dorothy Pilley's adventures and those of the author, Dan Richards – both transported me, as a reader, to the places I dream of. The Lakes, the Alps, Welsh crags, the great outdoors, powerfully evoked throughout.

The upshot of reading Climbing Days was a short trip to Wasdale Head, where climbing as a sport first began (at least in the UK), with Walter Parry Haskett Smith's solo ascent of the Napes Needle. It is also the home of the Barn Door Shop, supplier of all the gear that hikers have forgotten to pack, as well as plenty of great literature of local interest. I came away with my next two reads...

Rock Queen by Catherine Destivelle

I started reading Rock Queen by the lounge fire of our cosy Wasdale Head B&B, whisky in hand, legs aching from a full day of hiking. It was perfect, and Catherine's no-nonsense, straight, driven narrative was a pleasure to read from the very start.

I didn't know it then, but Catherine is something of a legend in climbing and mountaineering circles, having completed first (often solo) ascents of some of the hardest rock faces and routes in the Alps and beyond, as well as being climbing world champion at a time that was the very beginning of competitive climbing. She began her climbing career while still at school, escaping to Fontainebleau and beyond each weekend. After she became world champion, she realised it wasn't what she wanted: her true passion lay in mountaineering, and so she turned her back on competing once and for all. It is so brilliant to read how she gave it all up to follow her own path.

It's hard to believe a bigger publisher didn't snatch this book to put out in English. My copy is from Hayloft Publishing, and albeit the translation and spell-check falter a little towards the end of the book, it is still a fascinating read about Catherine's life and genuinely jaw-dropping achievements. It made me want to try trad climbing for the first time in my life (the discipline where you place your own protective gear as you progress up a rock face).

A Line Above the Sky by Helen Mort

This was my second purchase at the Barn Door Shop, for a mixture of personal reasons, and also having seen Helen's name many times before. I felt it was time. 

This book is beautifully written, and is a poetic reflection of Helen's journey into motherhood. She is a climber and a fell runner, and although she yearned for it, being a mother didn't immediately feel natural for her. From the beginning, it made me sad.

A 'glass moth, a metal butterfly ': the first stirring of a new life in her. If I wanted reassurance that in motherhood, one can still have it all, I was disappointed – but Helen writes beautifully of the duality of a need for freedom and an even more desperate need to cling to her newborn. 'This is the purgatory of motherhood – perhaps of the human condition altogether – to want or need something else and then, as soon as you have it, to need the opposite.'

Throughout the book, she also traces the life of Alison Hargreaves, also a mother and accomplished climber who, six months pregnant, climbed the notorious North Face of the Eiger. She looks to her like her own mother figure, an example to her like I'd hoped Helen might be for me. In fact, the title of the book is that of a climb named by Alison's son, Tom Ballard. Which led me onto my next read, of course.

Regions of the Heart: The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves by David Rose & Ed Douglas

Reading Alison Hargreaves' biography was a very different experience from Helen's tender reflections, but perhaps that's a good thing. Alison was a driven, outstanding mountaineer and climber who struggled against the unfair cards that had been dealt to her all her life. It was another heartbreaking read, this time because such a brilliant talent was being kept down by an abusive husband and her isolation from the climbing community. (Catherine Destivelle often crops up in the narrative as Alison jealously read about her achievements in the press.) She was never quite able to break out and make a name for herself to the extent that she wanted to.

Nevertheless, Alison's achievements are mind-blowing, though one may not appreciate their full force on paper: perhaps the most oustanding one worth mentioning here is being the first woman to climb Everest unsupported, carrying all her gear and without bottled oxygen. By this time, she had two children.

Alison died on K2, way too young. She had already completed the ascent and was on her way down when a storm enveloped her. The narrative of the book is sorrowful: it felt as though she was finally ready to leave her husband, to start a new life with her children, somewhere new. But it was not to be.

It is a deep look at the life, drive and passion of an excellent mountaineer who deserved so much more recognition than she got. I am surprised and somewhat outraged that I had to buy this book second-hand from some dodgy website.

I'm currently reading The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer – where shall I go next? Please leave your best mountaineering or climbing recommendations in the comments, so that I may continue my escapist reading frenzy...

Climbing Days by Dan Richards | The Story of Dorothy Pilley | Book Review | Faber & Faber

 

I've read Dan Richards a few years ago; specifically, his 2019 book, Outpost. For some reason, at the time, it didn't make a huge impression on me, though I found the book enjoyable enough. Dan also collaborated with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood on Holloways, into which I've never taken the plunge. (Yet, anyway.) Don't ask me why. I'm sure we all get those books that are constantly on the list, but for some reason or other are just never bought, never read. It's almost like you believe you don't need to read it to know it (which is a false assumption, obviously).

I wasn't even going to review Climbing Days; I didn't take notes throughout (hence this flapping review). But whether it's the book itself, or a combination of the book and timing, it swept me along so fast that I finished it in just a few days, and enjoyed it immensely.

In Climbing Days, Dan goes in search of the history of his great-great-aunt, Dorothy Pilley: a pioneer woman mountaineer, and a pioneer mountaineer in her own right. With her linguist-cum-mountaineer husband, endearingly referred to as I.A.R., they find their happiness in the mountains of the UK, Switzerland and beyond, and spend the best part of their lives doing so. They travel the world in search of great ascents and traverses, making life-long connections with guides and locals and communities everywhere. 

Dan has never met Dorothy, being as they are separated by a generation, so he speaks to living relatives and friends who share their recollections, and trawls through letters and diaries in dusty archives to get to know Dorothy as a person. He also follows in her footsteps, in the Alps, in Wales, in the Lake District and even in Spain. In doing so, he manages to evoke a complete person by the end of the book: as readers, we feel as invested in his discoveries as he is. 

And how wonderful that someone as deserving of fame as Dorothy is being pulled from the shadows to place her firmly in the forefront of public consciousness! Her most well-known achievement, making a first ascent of the North ridge of the Dent Blanche, makes her a very important figure in the history of mountaineering; and if that wasn't enough, her incredible love for the mountains and adventure is something to aspire to. During a time where being a housewife was all that was expected of women, she firmly refused to be classified; she wore a skirt over her knickerbockers just until she reached the start of her ascent, neatly tucking them in her backpack as soon as it was decent to do so. And even after a car accident damaged her hip to the extent where she couldn't climb mountains any more, she still found ingenious ways to be able to enjoy them - whether that's a horse or a chaise, she would make it up there.

Throughout the book, Dan finds a good balance between asserting his point of view and letting the histories speak for themselves. It is refreshing to see how humbly he writes: he candidly admits to things he doesn't know, and as mistakes happen in the mountains - as they so often do - he doesn't shy away from them either. Although during short intervals he dips into the lyrical descriptive to the extent that I can't understand every word, he maintains a musicality that is enjoyable in itself. He is incredibly evocative though, without needing long descriptions, and paints vivid pictures of frozen landscapes and cloud-crowned hills. And, there's no other way to say it: he is funny. He has a cheery persona and doesn't take things too seriously, and that makes for entertaining reading indeed - especially in a genre where authors often fight to the death to pretend they are well-versed in anything and everything.

I loved the book and, surprisingly, I even loved the appendices. Included, amongst obituaries, is an essay by I.A.R. titled 'The Lure of High Mountaineering', and far from the dry treatise I expected to read, it is a powerful reflection on why people climb mountains. I recognised plenty of similarities with why I like bouldering: there is the careful planning; the joy of feeling your experience take hold; the physical challenge combined with the mental. 'To go lightly up a rock wall,' he writes, 'when the only hold is the friction of the forearm pressing against the sides of a vertical crack while the feet push gently yet firmly upon roughness not much bigger than a thumbnail is an achievement which allows a good deal of innocent self-flattery to develop.' The essay leaves your head reeling, suddenly craving the mountains, the beyond.

This book found me when I needed it most: when a lack of inspiration was taking a freezing chokehold. And now, in two weeks' time, I am making my own pilgrimage, following in Dan's footsteps to the Lake District. He has managed to awaken my dormant love for adventure, and I am extremely grateful. 

As for the amazing Dorothy, her book (confusingly also called Climbing Days) is getting a reissue this year from Canongate, and I am very much looking forward to reading it.

Crow Country | Mark Cocker | Book Review | Jonathan Cape | Vintage | Nature Writing

 

I picked up my copy of Crow Country by Mark Cocker in an antiques shop in Brighton while there house sitting back in October. Inside, I found two publicity clippings about the book, as well as an old, green (!) leather bookmark from Salzburg. It added something to the magic of the copy I held – noting also that the edition was bound in see-through plastic to protect the dustjacket. It makes one wonder, if someone put this much thought into preserving the book and its marks in the press, why part with it? And to whom did my copy belong?

Besides the many physical treasures inside, this turned out to be a book genuinely worth preserving. I actually haven't read 'nature' books for a while. I don't know if it's me being out of the loop, or the sheer number of new nature books appearing at all times. Perhaps it is also due to being distracted by easy fiction during my injury and also the 60+ books on the backlist of Notting Hill Editions that I want to get through. Point being, this was a refreshing and exciting return to the genre.

'Watching those rooks in their planetary-like revolutions above the trees stirred the very foundations of my birding self, and life has never been quite the same since.'

And so begins an adventure into the secret life of rooks: Mark Cocker is an avid birder and naturalist who, having moved into the vicinity of the Yare Valley, becomes fascinated with the huge rookeries surrounding his home. Day by day, for over six years, he watches the rooks gather at dusk to roost, and separate again in the morning. He looks at them from all angles: that of the naturalist, the folklorist, the curious tourist, the insider. He gets to know the rooks intimately, becomes attuned to their daily habits, and witnesses some truly amazing sights – such as thousands of rooks coming together overhead.

The joy of this book is in the applying of that most enjoyable traditions of nature writing: getting to know one's immediate surroundings inside out. Cocker writes beautifully about the history of the Yare, the green fields that were once sea, painting film-like visual images of sediment settling and becoming flint, the disappearence of the water, the appearance of the arable fields that are so flat, so empty – yet he finds enjoyment in them. This is something we can all take away from reading Crow Country: that no area is too grey, too urban, too empty to completely lack interest. Nature always finds a way, be it in a mushroom growing on a city bin, an owl hooting outside my window on a busy road, or pigeons preening high up in the trees above the bustle (all of which I've recently had the pleasure to notice and enjoy, thanks to this book).

And yes, rooks: another family of birds that gets overlooked due to overfamiliarity, like the poor pigeons I always feel the need to defend from being deemed pests. 'Don't be put off by any sense of familiarity,' Cocker writes. 'Rooks are enveloped in a glorious sky-cloak of mystery. They're not what you think they are.' And as you turn the pages, hundreds of mysteries unfold about these beautiful, black birds. (Though admittedly, I still couldn't tell a jackdaw from a rook if I saw one.)

I hope you've noticed 'sky-cloak of mystery', or enjoy his description of a robin as 'a tiny breeze-ruffled brook of notes'. Cocker takes special care with his writing, carving words until they're shaped just so, without ever tipping into the cliché. To keep doing so for over 200 pages is an art form, and to read him is pure delight. It isn't all sentimental descriptions either: he presents the perfect combination of personal reflection and extensive reference work, so that one learns and enjoys simultaneously.

'Don't be put off by any sense of familiarity. Rooks are enveloped in a glorious sky-cloak of mystery. They're not what you think they are.' 

One of the highlights of the book for me is the penultimate chapter that is an exploration of curiosity. Cocker makes a case, a plea for passion, questioning why cool detachment is the norm, and why we single out and ridicule those with a dedicated passion for something (be it 'rooking', acting, the Beatles or any other obsession). He argues that to be curious, to investigate is an essential part of being human, and biophilia – a love of life or living things – can give meaning to life when none seems obvious. It's nice to see that in some corners of the world, emotion and feeling are still valued. It's what makes us human, isn't it?

Personally, Crow Country didn't just bring back joy in reading good nature writing: it also brought back my curiosity. Having moved to a new home recently, I feel inspired to get out and get to know the birds and the trees and forest walks that are on my doorstep. It makes me want to witness the natural wonder of a rookery's dusk gathering, falling silent before flying up again and eventually settling together in the depths of the trees. I'm even listening out for my local rooks and jackdaws now, hoping I can follow them one of these days to their evening resting place.

Treasures found in Crow Country

Entangled Life: The Illustrated Edition | Merlin Sheldrake | Book Review | Bodley Head & Vintage

 

[Review originally published on Bookmunch: View Post]

By his own admission, from a young age, Merlin Sheldrake’s superheroes ‘weren’t Marvel characters, they were lichens and fungi’ and from the incredible knowledge, research and insight that is reflected in Entangled Life, it is clear he isn’t just being dramatic.

The book was first published in 2020 in a traditional hardback format, and Sheldrake dazzled readers around the world. He revealed in fascinating detail the world of fungi, who wear so many hats that it would be almost impossible to name them all. They form the core of the ‘wood wide web’; they influence the weather; they can alter our minds; they even played a role in the decline of the Roman Empire we apparently like to think so much about. But it is the ever-present mycelium – the network of fungal threads underground – that steals the show, with just one teaspoonful of healthy soil potentially housing anywhere between 100 metres and 10 kilometres of these threads invisible to the naked eye. Sheldrake refers to mycelium, in turn, as ‘a body without a body plan’; ‘polyphony in bodily form’; ‘one of the first living networks’; and ‘a sticky living seam that holds soil together’.

Mushrooms and mycelium

There is a quality of joy in Sheldrake’s writing, turning phrases that sound like song, as when ‘trilobites ploughed silty seabeds using spade-like snouts.’ He is incredibly knowledgeable yet writes modestly, employing a casual throwing-in of almost inconceivable facts, such as ‘Globally, the total length of mycorrhizal hyphae [fungal branches, in crude terms] in the top ten centimetres of soil is around half the width of our galaxy’. Now read that again.

For those here to confirm their conspiracy theories after watching The Last of Us, stay tuned: various types of ‘zombie fungi’ do indeed exist, with some versions living within the bodies of insects, able to alter their hosts’ behaviour for their own benefit. ‘Once infected by the fungus,’ writes Sheldrake,

‘ants are stripped of their instinctive fear of heights . . . In due course the fungus forces the ant to clamp its jaws around the plant in a “death grip”. Mycelium grows from the ant’s feet and stitches them to the plant’s surface. The fungus then digests the ant’s body and sprouts a stalk out of its head . . .’

The text-only version of Entangled Life reads like a shock of pure electricity, giving insight into this most mysterious of organisms (and one must note the stunning cover design of the original hardback). Now, the illustrated edition, finished to an extremely high standard by Bodley Head, arrives to shelves just in time for Christmas and, although I’m not normally one to fall for sprayed edges or ‘special’ editions, I instantly fell in love with this. One hundred images add a whole new layer of enjoyment to this mind-blowing book, bringing all that rich detail to life in vivid colour. Fungi, lichens and mycelium glow on the pages, and their look is as surprising as their various abilities.

Sarcodes sanguinea

While one can see why the abridgement was necessary, it must be noted that this, in turn, is a somewhat different book from the original work. The images line up nicely with the content, but often we will have a line of thought per page, which makes the text lose some of its captivating narrative that wound its way through the unabridged version. This edition caters more to the casual reader: it is put-downable and pick-uppable at leisure, but is nevertheless a unique coffee table book (offensive as that label may be to this impressive work) that is actually worth reading. It is great to see a brilliant piece of non-fiction get this kind of royal treatment in a book world often biased towards fiction.

Strangers by Rebecca Tamàs | Essays on the Human and Nonhuman | Book review

Strangers by Rebecca Tamàs first grabbed my attention when I saw it exhibited as part of The Nature Library at one of their locations in Glasgow. Our shared Hungarian background immediately obvious from her name, I was pleased to recognise a writer who, despite coming from my much-despised and begrudgingly admitted to birth country, creates and thinks in English. What's more, it was clear from a variety of aspects - the design of the book, the first few pages, the location where I was encountering it - that she wrote deeply, interestingly, informed. 

Strangers is a collection of essays, pleasingly formatted and designed throughout this short book, with a focus on the connection between human and nonhuman entites, the climate crisis, nature and existence. In a nutshell. (Naturally, from the very beginning of the book wakes a lurking feeling of guilt for having given up my vegetarianism.) But it is also a book that reaches further than its covers, inspiring thought without piling you with information. 

The first three essays in the book - On Watermelon, On Hospitality and On Pansychism - are very strong. They set the mind buzzing immediately.

On Hospitality, for example, discusses a novel, The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector, regarding an encounter between a human and a cockroach. 'What G.H. reaches in her experience with the cockroach is an understanding that human ideas of reason and progress are only casings around the unspeakable purposelessness of existence. ... Purposeless, but not pointless. Into this ambient purposelessness comes an understanding of our radical interdependence and intimacy with nonhuman forces; viscerally and urgently alive in a space of constant becoming.'

What is interesting about this recurring idea of the interdependence of human and nonhuman beings is that only one side is consciously aware of it, and this same side is consciously trying to suppress the other's existence. Is the bargain then equal? Or rather than trying to simply accept our interdependence with all living ('living' the key word) beings, should we also be aiming to become guardians, leaders for a positive coexistence? Or is that too 'blue sky'?

'Can anyone really deny that thought and thinking comes from the outside as well as the inside? That when the outside is terribly damaged, the inside will be also?'

Simple idea, yet reading On Pansychism, I feel the metal bands of my mind popping as they expand. The image of a lake driven insane, or the simple fact, presented plain and simple, that the world isn't just a bakcdrop to our lives: it is part of them, influences them, drives them. And yet, nonhuman beings exist on the outside of our infinite feedback loop. This idea reminds me of Robert Macfarlane's thoughts about the indifference of mountains to our struggle to climb them, similar to the river is quoted in this book, not as a metaphor to the author's feelings, but as an indifferent, cool entity - and it is that detachment that ultimately helps soothe the author's soul.

Then follow two essays which are more deeply art criticisms or analysis, introducing the artworks of Ana Mendieta and a poetry collection by Ariana Reines. The latter feels slightly weaker in that it gives less insight, I felt, into the work, but Mendieta's work, upon Googling, is hauntingly beautiful. An essay on climate grief versus climate despair quietly meditates on the difference. And the final essay, On Mystery, remains just that - it feels like reading a stream of consciousness, surprisingly well crafted nevertheless.

My copy of Strangers happened to be an uncorrected proof, which meant I had to contend with typos and guesses throughout - something that added to the strangeness, perhaps. It was a pleasure to come across a book that discusses unusual questions around the climate crisis, and offers a completely fresh perspective on human and nonhuman existence on Earth. Somehow this book manages to inspire without sounding the doom alarm too much, and it left me with fresh thoughts and feelings about my own role in changing the world a tiny bit.

I certainly look forward to reading more from Rebecca Tamàs.

The Nightingale | Sam Lee | Book review

I first came across Sam Lee's work in April 2020. We were a month into our first lockdown, when most of our evenings were spent on Zoom quizzes (remember when those were still fun?) and drinking lots of wine to forget the bleakness outside. (Okay, we still do the latter.) It had only been a month, but I was already itching for the outdoors, desperately watching the start of camping season - my favourite time of year, really - slip away.

And then I came across 'Singing with Nightingales', organised by the Nest Collective. A live stream, free to access through YouTube: an evening with live nightingale song, side by side with contributions from artists, musicians, poets, writers and singers. All combining to create something truly magical. Hosted by Sam Lee.

That night is honestly one of my fondest memories of 2020: starting to listen to the session out on the balcony, watching the lights go off one by one - the live stream stretches well into the night - then migrating to bed, drifting off to the sound of birds singing and the occasional piece of song or recital. It was magic.

So when I found out that Sam was collating a book on nightingales, I was delighted. This before even knowing what the book would entail exactly, or just how beautiful the item itself would be.

Notes on a songbird

The subtitle of this book doesn't do it justice. It's a very modest approach to all the knowledge, years of research, detail, love and passion that is clearly contained within these pages. Instead of a simple piece of non-fiction (if you're after that, I'd suggest the RSPB), Sam's book combines stories, songs, poems and tradition to paint a picture of this strange and unique bird both as a living thing, and as a symbol that we created by projecting our own emotions onto it.

The focus is very much on the history of the nightingale in our collective consciousness. From the captivating story of how Beatrice Harrison, 'the woman who played with nightingales', brought the bird's song into livingrooms through the BBC, to the traditional tale of how the nightingale got its voice, the book creates a colourful, vivid and fascinating image. There is also occasional 'supporting material', including a list of the different names of the bird in different languages, as well as more practical sections - such as where to go, and when, to hear their song yourself.

The writing is often tongue-in-cheek, gently mocking. There's lots to smile at. I particularly enjoyed a disagreement about the bird between Milton and Coleridge, the latter of whom "thankfully, took up this mantle to protect the nightingale from drowning in doom. His 'The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem (1798) corrects Milton's 'Most musical, most melancholy' tag (from his Il Penseroso) and roots the bird in its nature."

Global fame

It is difficult to summarise just how global the reach of this little bird is - the more I read about all the different traditions and imagery surrounding it, the more astounded I was. From Persian music and poetry, through Turkish folk songs and lamentations, to Russia, Greece and France, the nightingale makes an appearance in almost any tradition. 

It sings to emperors and it is 'spring's messenger'; it is a witness to love and a singer of sorrow. In the UK, the nightingale tends to arrive sometime around these very days in the first few weeks of April, and so it has been linked with the bringing of good weather and the May Day traditions across the country. It has even laid its roots in places where it was never known to nest. 

Is it the strange, almost mysterious trait that it is the only nocturnal songbird? Is it the special song they practice through winter and perform in spring? What makes this bird so attractive for our stories and songs?

Good night, nightingale

It cannot be ignored that this beautiful species is under dire threat. The combination of climate change and human activity means their habitats are disappearing (and actually, they're fairly picky birds when it comes to habitats). It means that within the next 30 years, they could completely disappear from the UK. 

Towards the end of the book, Sam recommends a range of things we can all do to try and reverse (or at least slow) this, and his work with Extinction Rebellion is very inspiring to read. I did feel that the chapter on conservation and taking action was a little rushed - understandably, he wanted to get a lot of information and inspiration into a few pages. His worry for this beloved bird comes across crystal clear though. 

Oh hark, how the nightingale is singing

If you've never heard a nightingale sing, you are in for a treat. Not only are there wonderful soundscapes both on YouTube and Spotify, it also happens to be April - the very month that nightingales arrive in the UK. To get the comprehensive list of where you might find them, I'd urge you to buy this book - but I'm sure the RSPB also has some tips.

But most excitingly, the Nest Collective is actually streaming three live sessions this year on the 14th and 22nd of April, and one on the 1st of May (a dawn chorus no less!), so I'd definitely recommend tuning into at least one and giving yourself over to pure magic. You can find all the details on the Nest Collective website.

And as for this marvellous book - if you're like me and hope to keep a sense of wonder and curiosity that doesn't disappear with age, buy this, read this, read it again. And it's only the beginning of the journey. With so many songs and stories to discover, you can go on your own nightingale 'pilgrimage': seek out the songs, seek out the birds, organise your own nightingale journey. 

I certainly plan to.

Horizon | Barry Lopez | Book Review

 

When the film 'A Life on Our Planet' with David Attenborough came out in 2020, it was signposted as his witness statement. Horizon by Barry Lopez is very much in a similar vein.

I first came across Lopez's writing through Robert Macfarlane, who considers Lopez a 'friend and inspiration', and through buying a copy of Arctic Dreams. Of similar length to Horizon at over 500 pages, it is a beautiful exploration in the Arctic, and any and all life within it. It reads, indeed, like a dream, covering so much territory and offering beautiful, intimate glimpses into this remote world. Lopez was always drawn to the most remote places of the planet, and held a special place in his heart for Arctic landscapes - something that is crystal clear from his writing, whichever page you happen to open Arctic Dreams on.

Horizon is slightly different in that it seems to carry a warning that cannot be ignored. Its deep dive into certain places, peoples or histories all look to the same issue - of climate change and the imminent threats we are facing if we don't change our ways. And yet it still offers respite every now and again through its lyrical, often tongue-in-cheek but always humble descriptions of breath-taking scenery and sights. 

I am nowhere near qualified to review, let alone completely understand all the deep ideas and thoughts that have gone into the creation of this book. But I hope I can give you a glimpse, and hope that you come away from reading this piece with at least one reason why you might pick up Horizon.

"To triumph. To win."

In this last message to us, Lopez doesn't circumvent difficult topics. He questions governments, our constant drive towards betterment, our refusal to stop and consider. He asks whether progress really is the only, the ultimate and at the same time unachievable aim for humanity - whether there's not so much more that we should be, and need to be, focusing on. "... are these questions now thought to be anachronistic, questions no longer relevant to our situation?" he asks. 

There is often a desperation that comes through his writing, grown out of many years of travelling the world - over 80 countries in his lifetime - getting to know its peoples, and observing first-hand the hand- and footprints that humans are leaving on the environment. Cultures disappearing, knowledge evaporating, and the value of those he refers to as 'elders' no longer taken into account. "History tells us," he writes, "that with every great empire comes great barbarism, that the two are inseparable ... This forces the question of what, really, civilization brings to people that they did not already have. And why is civilization so hard on the people who turn it down?" This is a recurring idea throughout the book, from observing the forced extinction of certain species on the Galápagos Islands to revisiting the prisons of Port Arthur and considering its living history that many would be all to happy to bury and label as 'of the past'. Lopez, on the other hand, makes the connections that are too uncomfortable to point out - those to modern-day concentration camps, of arms sales, of how little we have changed on certain fronts to this day. History, he argues, isn't to be buried. It is - and this, I think is the central plea of the book - to be learnt from.

The humility in his writing is comparable to none, and it inspires reckoning within ourselves too. He is all too conscious, at all times, of his privilege, his outsider status, and tries to handle this with as gentle a hand as possible. He never exempts himself from the philosophy he is exploring. And this connectedness, the idea of us forming part of one large community rather than being islands on our own, cuts especially deep during his time spent camping near the Turkwel River in Kenya, looking for fossils in the ground. Where his team, five Kamba men and himself, meet representatives of the Turkana people, ancestral inhabitants of the land. The clash of the modern and of ancestry come into sharp focus during a short exchange about the team's right to camp. "He [a member of Lopez's team] listens patiently while the other man explains the tenets of traditional hereditary land ownership among the Turkana people ... One senses he and his ancestors have been losing this argument for more than a hundred years now." He finishes the section: "The only ethics I really needed to probe in this situation, anyway, were my own. What were my own reasons for not asking permission? For not having knocked?"

And why don't we, dear reader, tend to knock?

"We are darkness as we are, too, the light."

Besides the philosophy, of course, the scenery is breathtaking. Lopez travels from near his own home at Cape Foulweather to the Canadian High Arctic, to Africa and Australia, to the Arctic circle and the Galápagos. He dives under sea ice, assists in archelogical efforts, visits zircon crystals dated as over 4.27 billion years old, and lays eyes on an immense emperor penguin colony on a polar expedition. These unbelievable sights, sounds and experiences are carefully intertwined with his musings on human history, often taking the examples of well-known explorers - Cook, Amundsen, Scott and Darwin, to mention but a few. His extensive reading and knowledge of these lives gives a deeper shade of colour to the ideas and images presented to us, helping to leave a lasting impression.

A long-term view

"What if the perspective you could imagine for yourself, the foundation for your ethics and your politics, was not the condescending now of right now?" Lopez asks. This is what this book can do for you, what it did for me - it looks forwards and back, it brings the then into the now to give a better perspective on today. Why is the history of our species' development relevant here? How does an encounter with a bear, observed through an indigenous perspective, give us better insight into the knowledge we are losing?

Lopez helps shift our focus and questions the obvious to change our priorities. It's as if he's placing a virtual reality lense on our eyes, giving us sight, sound, experience as if we were in it - and in reality, we're reaching into the void around us, helplessly. 

This is a vital call to action, a stark reminder of our place in the universe, written in gorgeous, lyrical language and composed almost like a piece of music. 

It is best read slowly.

Underland by Robert Macfarlane | A Deep Time Journey | Book Review

 

I've waited for so long for Robert Macfarlane's Underland to come out in paperback. Several times I'd wander through bookshops in the past 18 months, longingly picking up the hardback but ultimately putting it back again. Soon, I figured.

There are many reasons for my waiting. It was a huge and heavy book. I have all of Robert's other books in paperback. I could delay the pleasure of reading his latest by working my way through his backlist first. But finally, after more than a year, here I am.

In a recent interview on Front Row, it was pointed out that Robert started his writing up in the peaks and slowly made his way down over time. From Mountains of the Mind, through The Old Ways and The Wild Places, he has finally descended into the Underland: a 'deep time journey' into the deepest, darkest recesses of the world. And I, reader, finally got to follow him down into the dark.

Descending

To me, the most gripping aspect of all of Robert's books - and especially Underland - is his ability to see through layers - of time, of rock, of soil. Travel writing, nature writing, adventure writing only really seems to work when there is more to the story than travelling in space, and with every place that Robert visits, there is a clear intention not just to see, but to understand: be that travelling in space and time, too, to Bronze Age burial rituals in Somerset; or exploring the incomprehensible, incredibly remote and powerfully strange locations that hunter-gatherer-fisher people in the Lofoten archipelago in Norway chose to decorate with cave paintings ('made in some of the harshest country in the world'). 

He has an ability to see with such amazement, such child-like wonder and imagination that I feel myself seeing with his eyes, too, as I read his words. His writing reawakens in me the child who believed in magic and relished the strange. He draws on the mystical, hints at the surreal: 'there by the glimmering birches is a figure standing dark on rising ground, where no figure should be'.

Although Landmarks was an ode to the joy of words, Underland puts this joy to use. It is with pure love of language that Robert scatters alliterations and musical phrases: 'Cold sleet on old slate', 'A gravel beach is reached', 'A light is struck, lifted, shifted', and this from the very first passage of the book: 'Late-summer heatwave, heavy air. Bees browsing drowsy over meadow grass. Gold of standing corn, green of fresh hay-rows, black of rooks on stubble fields.' No word carelessly placed, no rhyme or resonance accidental. This is poetry, bringing memories of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

And there, of course, is the fascination with the distant and the remote - in Underland, Robert travels across the UK to places no ordinary person would (or could, perhaps), and then heads north to Norway, Finland and Greenland, spending what feels like months on the remote fjords and glaciers, climbing unnamed peaks and descending into crevasses of deep time in the ice, playing harpoon water-polo in kayaks (as one does). He descends into deep, dark catacombs under Paris, a ghostly mirror image of the city above; and he visits a 'starless river' in the Abyss of Trebiciano. He even ventures into the underlands of Budapest. It is a true journey into deep time from the upper layers of our existence across the globe.

Ascending

Although ultimately uplifting, this is not light reading. Robert spends considerable time on exploring the threats to our existence: climate change, extinction, man-made ruin. He conveys warning messages and rings the alarm. It is not easy nor comfortable to be faced with these truths, and yet I'm incredibly grateful for it here. 

I say uplifting, but it's more of a liberation, a bubbling up of raw feelings that returns again and again throughout the book. After hours spent in a glacier 'Labyrinth', 'One of us cries briefly. We all feel hunted by this ice, haunted by it'. Or here, when locating those remote, painted red dancers in Lofoten: 'Suddenly, unexpectedly, my head begins to tingle and then my back and my chest start to shake, and I find myself crying, sobs shuddering my body in the teardrop-shaped rift, far from another human and so close to these generous figures . . . I cry there, surprised and helpless, deep in granite and darkness, weeping for feelings I cannot name.'

These passages don't leave you for a long while.

There is a masterful art in the structure of this book as it builds towards its conclusion. From Descending, through the three Chambers and finally Surfacing, each section is carefully placed and named, making the reading of this book a journey in itself. Here, again, the mystical and magical is evoked, with chapter names such as The Understorey, Invisible Cities, Hollow Land and the Blue of Time. Broken into three major sections - Seeing, Hiding and Haunting - we go deeper until we make our journey back to the surface, into the security of the light. 

Overall...

In Underland, unlikely as it may seem, Robert is often lost for words, feeling deeply the weakness of language compared to the majesty and all-encompassing presence of nature and the world around us. Writing this summary, or review, or call it what you may, feels that way when it comes to Robert's writing.

I urge you to read Underland if you hate the deep and the dark; if you feel claustrophobia. If you worry about the direction we're heading, but are fascinated with a constantly changing landscape. Read it for escapism, read it for a wake-up call. Just read it.

10/10

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn | Book Review

I was very sceptical about The Salt Path by Raynor Winn when it published last year. I was well into my nature writing reading phase (still going) and once I started paying attention to these books, I couldn't help noticing just how big a trend it really was. That's pretty much when this book published, and for some reason - too sad? Too on-trend? - I decided not to buy it/into it.

Foolish!

I'll admit that I came across this in my local charity shop (along with a Booker winner and a Pulitzer winner, on the same day!) and some kind of intervention from above inspired me to buy it. And I absolutely loved it, and for all the right reasons, too.

The Salt Path tells the true and very recent tale of a married couple, Ray and Moth, walking the South West Coast Path after losing their family home and Moth being diagnosed with a terminal illness. With nowhere to go and no one to turn to, they pack up the little they have and start putting one foot in front of the other in search of self-discovery, an answer, or just a bit of time, really. So yes, doesn't sound like an easy read.

What did I like about it?

Perhaps I can blame the blurb because, let's face it, I didn't exactly sell it to you just then either. But the book is really the opposite of what we expect: it's a tale of optimism, a journey of self-discovery without the New Age bullsh*t with two very loveable and very real people. It's beautiful because it rings true. Ray doesn't try to make anything sound more dramatic than it already is: she keeps the tone of the book down to Earth, realistic and most of all, honest. Yes, it is at times heart-wrenching, but aren't all the best books?

I love that there is no fake dialogue - there is only little direct speech, because there was very little dialogue, understandably (I wouldn't be very chatty either if I was over 50 and walking one of the UK's hilliest footpaths). Often, it isn't even clear whether something is said by Moth or Ray, and it doesn't matter. We understand that these two people are almost one in their love and devotion to each other; we feel what they feel without saying it. We root for them every time they check their bank balance for that tiny income, and enjoy every bite of their last fudge bar with them as they run out of food in the middle of nowhere.

The book shines a direct light onto homelessness and how circumstances can change in an instant. It talks honestly about this couple's experiences, camping in the wild, being ashamed of admitting to being homeless, and the jealousy and occasional feeling of injustice. But the way Ray and Moth see the world is humbling to us as a reader. They will give away half of their money to help a single, good soul, and share their food with those even less fortunate then them.

Ray's writing certainly deserves a special mention. This is her first book, yet it reads like good literary fiction - it shows that nature writing is at its best when it is honest and doesn't try to be too lyrical. At the opposite end of the scale is, for example, How to Catch a Mole by Marc Hamer, which is an overly flowery first book, infused with poetry. So that's a no. (In a sad kind of ironic way, Hamer also experienced rural homelessness.) Ray narrates as she observes: from large scale to the tiniest butterfly, we follow her eyes as they pan the horizon, filling the landscape with her own feelings. "Green, blue. This coast is rugged, rock stacks standing defiantly against the power of the Atlantic." "An ozone wind rushed over the edge, bringing the creatures' deep, sorrowful calls echoing up through the rocks. Their sadness was surely an illusion, a human interpretation of the animals' noise."

Nature, personal history and our inner feelings become one in this narrative, and as a result, it reads beautifully.

What was I not massively fond of?

I will say that perhaps the last one-sixth of the book becomes a bit too long - the days are a bit repetitive at times with silent walking day after day. Not a long section, however, and when the couple reaches the finish line (in more than one way) it is extremely gratifying.

Overall...

I looked at many things differently after reading this book, and it also helps me through this long, dark period where nature and beloved campsites seem so far away. It makes me want to wrap up in waterproofs, grab my backpack and walk, just walk.

Thank you to Ray and Moth who were brave enough to share their true story with the world. I think it is an act of courage and generosity. We would be fools not to welcome them into our hearts.

8/10