Going rogue with Robert Macfarlane

It's usually around March or April every year that I start craving for green. This is when I start planning mini-getaways: as far from the city as possible, usually to remote UK villages with only one pub and, if I'm lucky, a shop. It's normally a really strong feeling as is, but after reading The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane, the feeling has tripled to never-before-seen heights, to the point were I almost feel desperation.

And I guess that's exactly what you'd expect from one of the most well-known and established nature writers. Robert has written several books on travel, adventure and landscape - this was the first book of his that I picked up. He also collaborated on two films and one of his books is currently being turned into songs. He is often mentioned alongside Barry Lopez, the author of Arctic Dreams (my next read), a book for which he won the National Book Award.

The Wild Places describes Robert's search for the remaining wild, hidden gems in the UK. But the most fascinating aspect of the book is how his definition of 'wild' shifts throughout the narrative. He starts out describing it as we would do so too, presumably: a place where no cars are to be seen, no roads to be crossed, where humans haven't built houses or erected lamp posts or opened a Londis corner shop. And he does, in the first third of the book, travel to these places: on Ynys Ennli (The Island in the Currents in Welsh), he sleeps under the stars imagining the monks who braved the currents to travel to this faraway point, between around AD 500 and 1000. In the valley of Coruisk on the Isle of Skye, he bathes in the untouched loch and gazes up at the sky as it merges with land.

But as he travels more and writes down his thoughts, he comes to appreciate the wild at its smallest - from grand-scale, hidden corners of the world he comes to appreciate his own backyard as a place that is somehow also wild. This journey from grandiose to minuscule is what really hooked me, because he makes the inaccessible - the places I can only dream of - accessible.

The book is broken down into sections about individual travels, and no two are the same: from Island to Moor, to Storm Beach to Saltmarsh. All natural wonders in their own rights, and as he travels alone or with friends, he writes about their geography, flora and fauna so vividly we can almost smell the sea air or shiver with the cold that chills him to the bone at night.

Robert's writing is subtle, beautiful and insightful. He translates natural imagery and relates it to everyday concerns; he shows the bad and the good of human efforts, mourns the losses of the truly wild but points out what we still have. And although we're clearly doing more bad for the planet than good, there is still so much for us to grasp - and that's the positive message of The Wild Places.

It breaks my heart that I am tied to the rail network in terms of what areas I can reach. The UK has so many fantastically beautiful national parks, moors, valleys and peaks to explore, but as I haven't been practicing my driving, I can't get further than my millennial rail card can reach. Thanks to Robert, I know how to appreciate even the little wildness I'm allowed within the limits of London, too - but I have to admit I would give my left arm sometimes to be able to leave the city behind for good.

I'm really glad I discovered Robert's book, and with him a whole network of nature writers whose work he mentions and that I will be reading through. Back when I read Kings of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth I knew I wanted more of that. Now, here it is.

9/10