Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Combination of beautiful, imaginative, repetitive and irritating August 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I started this book it seemed to be beautiful, imaginative and intelligent. Unfortunately it became rather repetitive and irritating. The additional material - literary and historical was mainly interesting but then he talked about some rather odd folk who devoted a lifetime to wave patterns and sand dunes!!
I also began to dread him being near water because I knew he was going to strip off and jump in - not necessarily for a swim - on his winter night in Cumbria he got in and sat in the freezing water gasping up to his neck - why?????
I began to wonder what was the point of the book. It seemed to be trying to be something it wasn't, especially when compared with Mountains of the Mind which was excellent. I suspect it was the influence of Roger Deakin (Waterlog, Wildwood), a friendship that had developed after writing Mountains of the Mind. Whether deliberately or unconsciously I think he may have been trying to be similarly philosophical, one with nature, 'wild', rejecting conventional modern lifestyle etc Perhaps even more so since Roger died before this book was finished. I ended up skimming over the last chapters.
 A book to savour - poetic, reflective and precise July 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book really imaginatively engaged me and brought to life the wildness of many of the landscapes of the United Kingdom. Macfarlane's precise writing evokes these places so well - the weather, plants, minerals, animal life and people. He also has the uncanny knack of bringing in his reading in English literature, nature writing , history and science in ways that seem entirely right and never forced. Casting a moving shadow over the book is the death of a friend, which also helps make this so much more than a travelogue.
Best ever June 17, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I think this book is the most enjoyable I have read in my 89 years. Irs word pictures and linked thoughts are superb.
rootless April 19, 2008
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
This collection of essays is not in the same league as the wonderful 'Mountains of the Mind'. The writing is often sharp and lyrical, and Macfarlane frequently makes unexpected connections with ideas and writing that cause the reader to think in new ways.
However, there is a lingering sense of 'urban tourist' to my mind. Ironically, for a book which tries to examine place and belonging, there is a strange rootlesness that tends to look at the world in an almost colonial way. This is most obvious in the sections which deal with Scotland, Ireland or Wales, all countries with combine a strong sense of 'place with indigenous literature and language. Macfarlane never really seems to get to grips with this, and seems to see these countries as variations of a type of 'Englishness' that are seen through the prism of the English literary canon. He makes little acknowledgement of the link between landscape and landscape (Gaelic (Scots and Irish) and Welsh) and the fact that there is a long cultural tradition that predates and has a very different worldview from that of the Romantic poets who 'discovered' and idealised wild landscape.
In summary, this is an interesting but flawed collection of essays.
A real treasure April 12, 2008
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
I cannot speak highly enough of this book, which tells the story of a fascinating series of journeys to wild locations around the British Isles.
It is written with obvious love for those places - the author's experience on the summit of Ben Hope being a single possible exception. The writing is superb - words are chosen and sentences are crafted in much the same way Macfarlane selects fascinating pebbles or birds' feathers from a shoreline and proudly displays them back at home.
The book is also very moving. It recounts tragic episodes from history in the Highland clearances and the Irish famine. But Macfarlane also writes about fellow author and environmentalist Roger Deakin - first of their experiences of joyfully exploring the wild places together, then of Deakin's untimely death from a brain tumour. Macfarlane's grief is palpable.
But this is, above all, an uplifting book and a reassuring one. Macfarlane comes to the conclusion that the wild places are not only in the extremities of Scotland, Ireland etc, but can also be found where we live.
For me, this is one of those books I will lovingly treasure and give pride of place on my own mantelpiece alongside the interesting shell and the fascinating pebble.
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