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. 

Nights Out At Home by Jay Rayner | Book Review | Fig Tree

 

A lot of my book buying is carefully planned. Often I'll have a running list of books I want to read (in my head or on my phone, say), and each time I visit a bookshop, I can run my finger down that list, looking for a title that would fit the current mood, the current need, the current wish for my next read. Which is why I think people who take out book subscriptions are quite simply masochistic, depriving themselves of the pleasure of choice.

My point is though that sometimes I'll go a bit rogue - and although with Nights Out At Home by Jay Rayner, I did have a notion that this would make a good read, I hadn't made a conscious decision to purchase it. It just found me the other day, and here I am, having devoured (. . .) Rayner's first cookbook in just a few days.

This is, by all accounts, a solid choice for any food enthusiast, and even though I don't read Rayner's column religiously (nor casually, to be honest), I am well aware of his standing and skill as a restaurant critic. I had no doubt I would be in good hands.

Nights Out At Home skillfully balances a two-pronged identity, being full of amusing anecdotes and mouth-watering recipes. The real skill is that, even though the recipes do take up most of the real estate in the book, one still ends up reading this cover to cover, because the introductions to each - as well as the step-by-step instructions themselves - are so entertaining that it would be a shame to skip anything. See All the roast chickens: 'Take a photograph and send it to your friends or they won't believe what you've done.' Or the Deep fried apple pies: 'Serve with whipped, sweetened cream. Because you don't get that from bloody McDonald's.' Or I wish I could remember which recipe included an instruction along the lines of 'Or don't. I'm not watching, I'm not your dad.' 

The point is, Rayner makes a conscious effort to keep things simple, dialled into the needs of a home cook. No fancy chicken stock? Get the cubes. Don't have Chingkiang vinegar? Sub in the balsamic. One recipe calls for (I'm not making this up) one packet of Frazzles, one packet of Scampi Fries and 30g Pickled Onion Monster Munch. It's incredibly user-friendly, and the variety of recipes is just as surprising: from recreating Michelin restaurant dishes in a manageable way, to cooking up home alternatives of high-street favourites, it's a wonderfully eclectic selection. And though, if I'm honest, I'm still unlikely to make a lot of these, unless someone else does the washing up - as much as I wish to eat incredible-sounding Louisiana cracklins, I have seen the picture of what the kitchen will look like afterwards - you never know. I'm glad to have these recipes on the shelf, just in case. And I will be making, among many other things, crispy cauliflower with salt and pepper; the ultimate cheese toastie; and a Malaysian chicken curry, just to name a few. The point, anyway, is not the actual cooking, but the delight of daydreaming of cooking these things, and the blood, sweat and tears that Rayner clearly put into bringing these recipes to us.

Interjecting essays, on everything from the life of a critic to anonymity to body image, add to the fun, and these again are written with Rayner's writerly flourish, full of humour and saliva-inducing memories. 'I like being alive,' he shares at one point. 'I've concluded that the best way to stay alive is by not dying and that's what I'm attempting to do. So far it seems to be working. Unless you're reading this after my death. In which case, boy did I have fun...'

But perhaps my favourite bit is the very beginning: Advice to readers. Any writer who advises me to rustle up a jazzy Bombay mix to snack on before I begin reading has my eyes, ears and mouth. I feel seen. 

The book is a beauty to behold, and while I wouldn't want to get my greasy fingers on it - so perhaps not strictly speaking a cookbook in the usual sense - it is a gorgeous read for any foodie and cook out there. Glad it found me. 

Aesthetitcally pleasing markers in an aesthetically pleasing book

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.

An Alphabet for Gourmets | M.F.K. Fisher | Book Review | Daunt Publishing | Introduced by Ella Risbridger

'There must, for me at least, be a faint nebular madness, dignified no matter how deliberate, to a dinner that is exquisite.' 

Reading M.F.K. Fisher's books is like taking a plunge into some non-existent nostalgia, memories I've never had. Perhaps better referred to as daydreams: friends sat around tables heaped with exquisite food, good wine that's matched perfectly, perhaps on a French hillside (or Swiss, like Fisher's), overlooking a French (or Swiss) sunset, orange rays painting the vines, seemingly endless across the green hills, ripe grapes sagging. Rituals: a drink before dinner, perhaps a dry Martini or a 'rye', Scotch and soda for the men; starters, soups, salads (never after main), dessert, coffee – not too strong so as not to lift the post-dinner reverie. 

Or perhaps feasting on a tray of oysters in Manhattan (or are we crossing over to Consider the Oyster?), at some swanky restaurant with velvet booths and dimmed lighting, where the maitre d' comes to say hello, tops up our Champagne (which has been carefully chosen, the perfect age and would never overpower the food). 

Or even enjoying a 'rained-on burger', as Fisher puts it, but still with a cinematic quality somehow – perhaps we've had a horrendous day, and just on the verge of desperation, a burger truck shimmers in the half-darkness, the pouring rain. Salvation by a sloppy patty.

Oh, I love spending time with M.F.K. Fisher – from the first pages she is unashamedly her; an almost forceful grab of my hand, and we're off. By the time we reach 'C' for Caution in this alphabet, we're exploring Calf's Head à la Tortue, which is by and by the most complicated and terrifying dish I've ever heard of. There are oysters, of course, 'en caisses', though neither her nor me know what that means. Oysters, nevertheless, and buttered paper in pots to keep the steam in, and 'whole peas fragrant as flowers'. And sauces! So many sauces in one dinner, and wines paired with each dish. That, as I say, before we've even passed 'C'.

And oh, to have a meal in such style, pre-ordered, as it is, by this gourmet of gourmets, whom people are too afraid to entertain in their own home, lest their simple tastes offend her (though it breaks one's heart to read how much, in fact, Fisher pined for such invitations. Although whether she would actually enjoy the meal, or just the romanticism of it, remains unanswered): 'smoked salmon, a small rack of lamb, potatoes Anna, Belgian endive salad, and a tray of Langlois Blue, Rouge et Noir Camembert, Wisconsin Swiss, and Teleme Jack cheese; Scotch or sherry first, and then Louis Martini's Gamay Rosé.' 

I relish and revel in the atmospheres she evokes, though I've never experienced them myself – therein lies the power of her writing. Of an egg sandwich, prepared by neighbour Aunt Gwen (not an aunt at all), the recipe makes one drool; but she also lists physical and spiritual ingredients ('equal parts of hunger and happiness'), and under Prescription, she directs the egg sandwich 'to be eaten on top of a hill at sunset', and 'preferably before adolescence and its priggish queasiness set in'. 

In this abcedaria, she touches on all the crucial aspects of life, from wooing someone with food (and whether that's even possible), to being hosted by good-willed but incompetent cooks, to Xanthippean gastronomy (i.e.  food served at home with an unhealthy dose of complaining, whining or accusing by a sour wife). There is also the question of squabs (young pigeons), how food can taste better on an Atlantic cruise, how to best cook trout, and a long treatise on the value of salt. Just to name a few.

So now, reader, hand me a sizzling casserole so that I may toss hot buttered spaghetti in it, topped with humble parmesan and generous gratings of black pepper! A bottle of Zizerser, to be opened at altitude, otherwise the pink champagne will not froth! Or even just bread and 'sweet' butter (as she always calls it – doesn't it sound much better than just 'butter'?), a simple omelette cooked with care for half an hour, or anything cooked in consommé and fat, 'for hungering people who have had no fat at all for too long a time become moody, shiver easily, and grow sick.'

God forbid!

Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Love and Making a Life | Amy Key | Book Review | Vintage

 

Is Arrangements in Blue a memoir? Is it poetry? Is it a free-flowing meditation? Perhaps all of those, and none. Using Joni Mitchell's album, Blue, as her starting point, Amy Key opens up her heart and mind about what life feels like when romantic love has eluded you. The gushing reviews on the cover suggest a seismic shift in modern-day thinking about romance; a book that will resonate, no question. I would argue that they hinder the beauty and art of this hard-to-classify book.

It's not what I expected, but perhaps I wasn't sure what I expected anyway. I am not single, yet this book called to me: maybe because I was instantly drawn to Amy's courage to open up in this way. Arrangements in Blue is no manifesto: what it is instead, thankfully, is a brutally honest exploration of one person's innermost life – a license to spend time inside someone's head. That this person is Amy Key is lucky for all involved, because her thoughts are elaborate, honest, personal and curious. I revel in the fact that the book has no obvious structure: it is loosely centred around a certain theme in each chapter (more precisely, a lyric from Blue) but they all read like streams of consciousness, freely following each line of thought, wherever it may lead. It's the type of book one genuinely needs to get lost in, give over the controls to the author. I did so with pleasure.

Amy recounts, in uniquely crafted language, the ups and downs of her life; romantic involvements (some harrowing, some just like any other teenage romance), friendships, loves and losses; and works through them forensically. It's a sort of evaluation, overthinking, unpacking, asking questions. But the thoughts and events that do resonate, the moments where I find the connection, are powerful. She made me remember the joy of moving into a flat by myself, making decisions and being completely in control of my happiness; but then I remember I was already buoyed by having had a couple of dates with my now-husband. To be perfectly candid, her book made me smug, and I apologise whole-heartedly. No, perhaps not smug, because it's not at the expense of anyone else that I feel this way – perhaps she just reminded me of my luck, and I'm grateful.

Is it self-indulgent? Sure. Sometimes overly so. Perhaps it could have been edited down slightly. But perhaps that's the point. Amy often takes us through her emotional cycles, feeling joy, then empathy, then suddenly anger, jealously, resentment – and it's something like that to be her reader. You cycle through emotions, most often empathising, sometimes thinking you would never do what she did, how terrible, how embarrassing. But ask yourself: wouldn't you? And if, like me, sometimes you sigh in annoyance while reading – 'get over yourself' – notice if you're talking to her, or yourself. If you wrote down your innermost thoughts for a week, a month, a year, wouldn't they look just like this?

I salute the publisher who put this book out, because it is needed in a world of polished things. It isn't a novel, it isn't a self-help book, it isn't a wildly revealing biography: it's quiet meditation on life, happiness and self-worth. And if you're anything like me, and spend at least 60% of your waking hours thinking about your worth, your future, your next steps, it'll be just as comforting to you as it was for me. This book is a companion, a friend you can sit with and have a glass of wine while ruminating.

I admire Amy's courage to put these notes out into the world. I feel it somehow creates a psychic connection with every reader so that, even though we've never all met, we feel connected somehow. 

Perhaps we should organise a big Amy Key meet-up. Imagine the buckets of tears, the empathy, the comraderie. What a world it could be.

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...

Antoni Gaudí by Michael Eaude | Book Review | Critical Lives | Reaktion Books

[Review originally published on Bookmunch: View Post]

I knew nothing about the life of Antoni Gaudí as I dove into this book. I did, however, remember visiting the Sagrada Família when I was young, and being blown away by architecture for the first time in my life. It is a magnificent building, truly unlike anything – with mythical figures and melons and coffee beans, decorated with glass and pottery shards, piled on top of spires like 99 Flakes, bursting with colour. It’s enough to take a quick glance at the Güell Pavillions Dragon Gate, or the Casa Batlló, to see what I mean.

I know even less about architecture, but it does strike me as unique that Gaudí was a ‘total architect’: he didn’t just design the brick-and-mortar structures, but also the interiors and, in some cases, even the furniture. Every nook and cranny, painted bird, cast-iron leaf or coloured glass shard came from him. His influences, presented in the book in good detail, are fascinating in their global scale: William Morris and John Ruskin, the Arts and Crafts movement, Persian and Orientalist flourishes, mudéjar (the work of Muslim craftsmen under Christian rule, a style still very prominent throughout Spain) and Gothic styles – despite travelling very little himself and learning mostly from the books he found in his university library.

The man behind all this dreamy colour, however, was not at all what I expected.‘There were three main strands to Gaudí’s thought: he was extremely right-wing, a fervent Catalanist and a militant Catholic.’

The depths of his fanaticism emerge in detail, including a fasting period during his midlife crisis that felt more like a hunger strike in its seriousness, and religious extremism in every aspect of his life.

He was brusque, often rude, haughty and rebellious but, inarguably, outrageously talented. He had no time for leisure: ‘In his pockets he usually carried bags of biscuits … stamped with a cross, which he nibbled frequently and distributed to whomever he was talking to. Formal meals used up too much valuable time, he thought.’

The book provides good historical context for some basic understanding of Gaudí’s motives and historical setting, and will be of interest to anyone who has seen, or is planning (or hoping) to see, some of his work. Notably, Eaude writes very accessibly: as and when he uses jargon, he is quick to explain in layman terms before one could even start panicking. Everything gets sufficient context, which is surprising for such a slim volume. Adorned with 57 illustrations and/or snaps, though black and white, it feels a complete picture of the man and the myth (though for a fuller experience, it is worth seeing the designs in colour).

The format of the book is doing it no favours, though. On first appearance, I was baffled by my own wish to read this – the small type, the glossy pages, the elongated paperback format all screamed academia. Luckily, I actually started reading it, and quickly realised looks could be deceiving. It turned out to be a very enjoyable and interesting read. (Admittedly, upon further research, the TLS said the series contained ‘very short critical biographies whose main target audience is likely to be undergraduates, but that will also do nicely for a general audience.’ So clearly I'm just a nerd.)

The book finishes on the question of what Gaudí would have made of his stellar success today. He is personally responsible for driving mass tourism to Barcelona, attracting more visitors annually than the Prado Museum in Madrid or the Alhambra in Granada. Eaude proposes he would have ‘taken reverence and admiration of his talent as his due … And would have fulminated against the irreligious, money-making mass consumption of tourism’.

A classic case of biting the hand that feeds, reminiscent of Thomas Bernhard’s literary prizes. It’s a complicated legacy, but the value of Gaudí’s revolutionary buildings and unique architecture is rock solid.

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.

Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication | Arik Kershenbaum | Book Review | Viking

 

[Review originally published on Bookmunch: View Post]

In the 1920s and ‘30s, Nobel Prize-winning Nico Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch began an investigation into the foraging habits of honeybees. The most important of these was the honeybee ‘dance’: von Frisch eventually succeeded in decoding this ‘language’, deducing that bees flew in a special pattern and performed specific movements upon finding nectar in a flower, helping to lead other bees to the nectar.

Their contributions to ethology – the science of animal behaviour – elevated the field into the popular consciousness, and helped lift the veil on human exceptionalism that was prevalent in all animal experiments until the 20th century.

Arik Kershenbaum’s new book, Why Animals Talk, is an in-depth exploration of animal communication, taking six case studies to investigate various components of language to discuss some fundamental questions. Before we even consider the why, we consider the fact: do animals talk? Is communication the same as language? And if so, do they communicate like we do? Do they have things to say beyond what we know?

Our tendency to anthropomorphise animals means we hope we can eventually just ‘translate’ animal language into ours. This type of thinking can lead us to genuinely believe dolphins are telepathic, or that chimpanzees simply prefer not to talk to us. In effect, what Kershenbaum highlights is that the various, distinct ways that animals organise their societies are all pillars of language, even if the concept is a vague one: ‘It is definitely not the case that dolphins don’t build machines because they don’t have a language. Rather, they don’t have a language because they don’t need to build machines. That is the point of this book.’

Interestingly, it turns out quite a lot of animals use syntax (or at the very least, their communication is organised by some kind of logic). Generally, it seems the development of language is more often than not governed by evolutionary logic and pressures: the more complex a society the animal lives in, the more requirements they have to communicate complex messages. Wolves howl for specific reasons (though one of these reasons is for pure pleasure and peer pressure, which I love); chimpanzees have an ability to conceal the truth.

The case studies included are surprising and varied. Some, we expect to be included, such as the chimpanzee or the dolphin. Others, like the wolf or the hyrax (a small animal not dissimilar in looks to the quokka) are perhaps more intriguing. Yet as one proceeds with the chapters, key similarities become apparent. This conclusion of the chapter on chimps could apply to any of them: ‘They have what they need: no more, no less. No matter how similar to us, their communication is not “like ours” – it’s precisely “like theirs”. As it should be.’

For the most part written with the casual reader in mind (except perhaps the final chapter on humans, which delves deep into linguistics), Kershenbaum provides more questions than answers – which I like to think is the best approach for any investigation into what he calls a ‘relatively young science’. Nevertheless, this idea is cemented: that language is a complex concept, and that we all communicate differently. The many questions raised demonstrate just how varied, exciting and complicated animal societies are, and while we as humans exist in our bubbles, hundreds of thousands of smaller, independent societies exist out there in jungles, on mountain tops, in forests and in oceans, almost completely unknown to us, existing and functioning in their own way.

Though it raises more questions than gives answers, Kershenbaum’s book is a great adventure in animal behaviour and linguistics. One mustn’t be disheartened: ‘We can still talk to animals, it’s within us,’ he writes. ‘It’s just a  different kind of talking from the one we think we know.’

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.

Consider the Oyster | M. F. K. Fisher | Foreword by Felicity Cloake | Book review | Daunt Books

 

My edition of Consider the Oyster by M. F. K. Fisher found me on an aimless stroll in Hove, when I came across Cookbookbake, an independent specialist cookbook shop (& demonstration kitchen!). It's a gem, focusing on all things food, so besides cookbooks, they sell food writing and travel writing (best when combined), food-themed knickknacks and gifty things. In other words, bookish foodie heaven.

M. F. K. Fisher's name was familiar from Felicity Cloake's writing (who happens to be my culinary muse since her perfect recipe for a French ratatouille), and she in fact wrote the foreword to this beautiful, shiny, iridescent edition from Daunt Books, which I obviously couldn't leave. And then we haven't even discussed that it considers the oyster.

The thing about reading American food writing from the 20th century, but even contemporary pieces, is there is a glorious admiration, suggestion of expertise (that needn't necessarily be there), and most of all, love, that makes all these books feel like a hug. (I'm especially thinking Julia Child here, but consider of course Anthony Bourdain or even Stanley Tucci.) Could it be that, especially because most foods in US supermarkets are over-processed, over-sugared and mono-flavoured, American foodies assign a dreamy quality to all things proper food in their books? I live in the UK, where things are slightly better with the occasional farmer's market offering beautiful bounty, but where generally the ready-meal dominates, and even I can relate to this pedestal-placing of all things good food.

This collection of essays considers everything from oyster eating (and drinking) etiquette; the life of an oyster; anecdotes and remembered snippets of childhood. Much like her essay on oyster loafs that her mother used to eat at 'midnight feasts' at boarding school ('Those Were Happy Days'), reading Fisher's words, one feels as if these were one's own memories. 'There are stories that in their telling spread about them a feeling of the Golden Age,' she writes, 'so that when you listen you forget all but the warmth and incredible excitement of those other farther times'. And so, although I've never eaten a 'steaming buttery creamy oyster stew' with crackers in wintertime, those mellow flavours linger on my tongue as if I grew up with Fisher in California, and not landlocked Hungary, where oysters were more likely to be a metaphor than actual shellfish. 

Another nostalgia-infused essay, A Lusty Bit of Nourishment, touches on the restaurant to eat Oysters Rockefeller, Antoine's in New Orleans, and the 'inescapable charm of that simple, almost austere room, with mirrors for walls; with the blue gas lamps flickering through all the evening' where 'Huitres en Coquilles a la Rockefeller appear magically, prepared with loving patience for each eager diner as if he were the first and only gastronome' and may I just say, Anotine's still exists and is still serving Rockefellers and is now on my bucket list.

Look at that shine

Perhaps my favourite piece, My Country, 'Tis of Thee, amuses by looking at the various drinks we should or could have with oysters. Pouilly-Fuissé? Guiness? Whiskey? (Absolutely not whiskey, according to Fisher.) But 'Whether they were correctly drunk or not, I was.'

The book does contain recipes, and Daunt have kindly included a conversion table for British readers, and an index for recipes (which, if I may voice a complaint, was seriously needed in Taste by Stanley Tucci), but I don't see myself cooking up an oyster gumbo requiring two dozen (!) of these friendly bivalves, nor taking '300 clean oysters and throw into a pot filled with nice butter . . . ' as a quoted old recipe instructs – as much as I would love to.

Look, I could quote the entire book, because there is a lyrical quality to Fisher's writing that makes a simple supper of bread with sweet butter sound exquisite, and the whaft of oysters simmered in a white sauce reaches me through the pages. Her love of food, knack for writing, experience and indulgence makes this a delightful read, and especially if you like oysters. Note:

'The flavour of an oyster depends upon several things. First, if it is fresh and sweet and healthy it will taste good, quite simply . . . good, that is, if the taster likes oysters . . . Myself, since I was seventeen I have expected all oysters to be delicious, and with few exceptions they have been.' 

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.