Customer Reviews:
 Charming, enthralling and poignant December 14, 2007
It's a little difficult to expand on my title for this review.
The author suffered an acute illness in later life and, during this time, his childhood memories came back to him with a clarity that is a cause of envy for those of us with the usual hotch potch of muddied memories of our best times.
He then took the opportunity to record these memories.
Mr Hudson gives an insight into a world distant both in geography and time.
Describing many different aspects of his childhood - from the vast pampas to a strange encounter in Buenos Aries - the narrative is always captivating.
To know that he ended his life "penniless in Bayswater" adds further pathos.
I could - and often do - go on, but suffice it to say that, 1 year after I read this book I still think of it often.
A Lesson in Prosewriting August 11, 2003
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Hudson was a novelist, a naturalist and a founder of the RSPB. He was regarded in his own day as a master stylist by, amongst others, Conrad, Ford and Galsworthy. More recently he has been acclaimed by such luminaries as Borges and Marquez. There is even a statue to Rima, a character from his 'Green Mansions', in Hyde Park. Yet in 21st century Britain he is little known and less read.
This book of reminiscences is a perfect introduction - being an account of the first fifteen years or so of his life, a life spent on the Pampas of Argentina. His natural surrroundings are vividly recreated - especially his beloved birds -as are the Dickensian characters who peopled his childhood and the dramatic events to which he was a witness. Such a scene as the slaughter of cattle by gauchos is chillingly unforgettable. Hudson's prose, unpretentious and exact, is a powerful tool and it is easy to become lost in this long vanished world.
It is important to remember that Hudson grew up in the Victorian era - especially when passing references to race jar on modern ears. The book is partly an intellectual autobiography which reaches a kind of resolution with his introduction, through the good offices of his brother, to Darwin's 'Origin of the Species'.
Unless Hudson's work is revalued and reclaimed by the critical establishment, this will always be a book loved by a lucky few. That would be shame.
Escape to the past May 11, 2003
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read this book in a stuffy flat in Buenos Aires during the fall of the government in 2001. It got me through the stress by transporting me into another, simpler world.W.H Hudson lived on a farm in the province of Buenos Aires in the mid 19th century. His autobiographical narrative rejoices in all things natural, his descriptions of the flora and fauna, and the hardships of farm life are utterly engaging. When he describes the slaughterhouse in Buenos Aires, you can almost smell it. Hudson died, penniless in Bayswater, and the melancholy of his end infuses the story. This is one of the great travel/life story books, written in a simple manner, through which it will bewitch you.
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