Just Arrived: “Underland” by Robert Macfarlane
Just before lockdown cut in (although in fact post is still an essential service) a new book arrived on my TBR table.
This one is Underland by UK author, Robert Macfarlane. I’ve been aware of the author for quite some time via Twitter, noticing his tweets regarding etymology and aspects of the natural world, all of which are always fascinating.
So I was naturally intrigued when his latest book, Underland, subtitled ‘A Deep Time Journey’, was published last year, to considerable public attention.
I knew it was nonfiction, and probably “creative nonfiction” at that, i.e. nonfiction that uses the style and devices of fiction to add depth and interest, while still maintaining a factually accurate narrative. (Deep breath!)
I figured, too, that Underland’s subject matter was something to do what what lies beneath in terms of the natural and physical world—but the inside cover blurb (there’s no backcover blurb) also indicates that myth and literature also play their part:
“Into the underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save . . . ‘
Underland is an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory and the land itself … From the vast underground mycelial networks by which trees communicate to the ice-blue depths of glacial moulins, and from North Yorkshire to the Lofoten Islands, Robert Macfarlane traces a voyage through the worlds beneath our feet. He reaches back into the deep history of the planet, through the layers of rock and ancient buried objects, and forward to the future, the legacy of the anthropocene and the world we bequeath our descendants. Underland is Macfarlane at his dazzling best – the lyrical, the political and the philosophical come together in this profound exploration of the relationship between landscape and the human heart.”
Although I said there was no backcover blurb, which is true, there is a fabulous backcover quote, which I’ll leave you with until I report back on my reading experience:
‘The way into the
underland is through
the riven trunk of
an old ash tree…’
Cool, huh? I have to say, I am pretty keen to start reading…