Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: nature writing, rachel cooke, robert macfarlane, the new nature writing, the old ways, walking
There is an excellent interview with Robert Macfarlane by Rachel Cooke in The Observer today here. Macfarlane’s new book The Old Ways is now out and I look forward to reading it (it’s on my list for next time I get a book token). Macfarlane writes like a dream and has certainly reinvigorated British nature writing (“the new nature writing”) … yet for me there is a nagging doubt somewhere. I’m not sure I agree with his conclusions and assertions. What do others think? Am I being fair? But certainly read his books at all costs.
An update: there is a blog post in gestation on pilgrimage, living and some of the difficulties of society now. Things are busy this week with lots of good things – not least Weoley Castle and Bartley Green Older Peoples Forum tomorrow, so please be patient. There will be one or two quotation posts first.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: John Clare, kiwi nomad, robert macfarlane, the solitary walker
Here is a midsummer cushion that I hope may nourish your soul.
The poet John Clare records the custom of making a midsummer cushion of flowers. This excellent website gives you his poetry. Jonathan Bate’s biography of Clare is scholarly and moving.
Margaret Kiwi Nomad has started a new blog that gives some beautiful meditations on the Camino (and of course the fact that she quotes from this blog is merely coincidental …)
The Solitary Walker has blogged on Robert Macfarlane and reminded me of this series of Guardian essays on our major nature writers.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cotswold way, cotswolds, robert macfarlane, walking
Robert Macfarlane’s BBC Natural World film The Wild Places of Essex is available to watch on iplayer (click here). I really enjoyed its exploration of the juxtaposition of people and nature. The photography is particularly good. A barn owl hunting in daylight and ancient salt-poisoned oaks stick very much in my mind.
I’m very fond of Essex. I visited it a lot as a child to see family friends and then was an undergraduate at Essex University. It is certainly a very different place from its popular image of raucous London overspill.
Macfarlanes’ book The Wild Places is also worth reading (although, to my mind, the film is better – I didn’t want to argue with it all the time) and is a key part of the British New Nature Writing.
I’ll try to write more when I have time on the importance for me of wildness, solitude and nature – while at the same time affirming the importance of cities and people. I spent yesterday walking 14 or 15 miles across the Cotswolds with Mike. We walked from Broadway to Chipping Camden via the beautiful isolated hillside church at Saintbury and then back to Broadway along the Cotswold Way. One of our aims for the coming year is to walk the entire Cotswold Way in daily sections.
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