Book Review - The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane
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Not a ‘road less travelled in sight!’ There are not even many roads in ‘The Wild Places’ by Robert Macfarlane.
A beautifully descriptive collection of travels to places unseen by most, but still within reach of those willing to seek true wildness in the United Kingdom that can capture and captivate your soul.
What’s this book about?
In search of any true ‘wild places’ in the UK, Macfarlane sets off on a series of adventures under, over, through and across caves, summits, moors and forests in his quest to create an alternative map for the country.
Not one as a road atlas, he sees as,
‘The landscape has become so thickly webbed by roads that asphalt and petrol are its new primary elements.’ A representation of the country but void of true wildness. But, one to discover and explore - the moors, the river valleys and the marshes that make up some of the remaining ‘Wild Places.’
He admits, ‘ The map I was making would never attain completion, but I was happy with its partiality.’
What themes does the author explore in this book?
There are still true unspoilt wild places within reach. It requires a spirit of adventure, a willingness to face inclement conditions, a fair degree of fitness and experience, but unspoiled, unchanged and unchanging wilderness is still available to explore.
While many of the expeditions involve travelling from his location in Cambridge, north to the Lake District and to the wilds of Scotland, he begins by climbing his favourite beechwood tree close to where he lives. ‘People don’t generally expect to see a man up a tree!’
He declares. ‘I knew I need to find wild places.’ Needing to find solitude and serenity in the world of academia and the day-to-day demands of life, within a few miles from home, there is wildness available.
Not so for everyone, but I recognise the gratefulness in me that similar within reach of m home, are places maybe not as ‘wild’ as some he would visit, but locations where rarely do you meet another human being among the wildlife of farmed and free animals.
I haven’t yet tried climbing any beech trees, but who knows?
How does writing style transport me to the places they visited?
Recognised as one of the leading writers on nature, Macfarlane doesn’t disappoint in transporting you to the wild places he treks alone and with his good friends. (Roger Deakin, who sadly passed away and who he dedicates the book. I love his description of him being a collector - ‘He collected knowledge, he collected books, he collected friends, and he collected things.’)
In passages that can last pages, identifying each plant in the hedgerow, the sound of singular birds, the identifying movements against his skin by weather, I could imagine what it would be to walk with him across, over and through some of these landscapes. For example:
‘We have come increasingly to forget that our minds are shaped by the bodily experience of being in the world - its spaces, textures, sounds, smells and habits - as well as by genetic traits we inherit and ideologies we absorb. A constant and formidably defining exchange occurs between the physical forms of the world around us, and the cast of our inner world of imagination. The feel of a hot dry wind on the face, the smell of distant rain carried as a scent stream in the air, the touch of a bird’s sharp foot on one’s outstretched palm: such encounters shape our beings and our imaginations in ways which are beyond analysis, but also beyond doubt. There is something uncomplicatedly true in the sensation of laying hands upon sun-warmed rock, or watching a dense mutating flock of birds, or seeing snow fall irrefutably upon one’s upturned palm.’
What insights did I gain or what makes me want to visit the same places?
Apart from thinking about climbing trees, his insistence and willingness to sleep outside in all weathers have planted a seed in me to experience (although perhaps not as bracing as some as he did) a night or two under the stars. I’m going to look on eBay for a bivouac!
Among many themes in the book there was one which particularly gave me much to think about and it was the idea around maps, more precisely, the artistic endeavour of drawing story maps.
Macfarlane describes before it was a field science, cartography was an art. He explains two types of maps:
‘Broadly speaking, there are two types of map: the grid and the story. A grid map places an abstract geometric meshwork upon a space, within which any item or individual can be co-ordinated…
‘Story maps, by contrast, represent a place as it is perceived by an individual or by a culture moving through it. They are records of specific journeys, rather than describing a space within which innumerable journeys might take place.’
He is not advocating for the abolition of traditional grid maps, as he would have used these to traverse the locations he explored, but to not forget the treasure we can find within story maps.
In one section, Macfarlane tells the fascinating story of W. H. Murray.
W. H. Murray would spend days exploring the wildness of Scotland before WWII changed his life. He would serve in the part of the Libyan desert known as the Cauldron. Fighting infantry advances against Rommel’s Panzer divisions. Hunkered down in fear of battle, Macfarlane recalled,
‘He was overwhelmed by a sudden access of memory of the mountains and moors over which he had ranged, and the people with whom he had done so. The memory came to him whole, in an instant’s flash - the mountains... charged with a beauty not theirs pouring through them.’
Murray survived many battles until they took him prisoner. In several camps he wrote what would become Mountaineering in Scotland: The first of W. H. Murray’s great classics of mountain literature.
Macfarlane writes,
The writing Murray did there was a kind of dreamwork: a casting back and a summoning up of the open spaces of Scotland, its ‘rock, snow and ice, as well as the high plateaux and long ridges and wide moors’, from within his confinement.
There is something for Murray of a story map in the recollection. The memories of his wandering on ‘roads less travelled’ sustained him in that experience. It brings to mind many of the themes I identified in Gathering Rosebuds in Kerala and the importance of experiences to sustain us in later life.
Does it remind me of any places I’ve been, or stories to tell?
In thinking through and reflecting on some of my travels, the greatest wilderness and wild place I’ve experienced was sledging across Lake Inari, the largest lake in Sápmi in Finland, pulled by a pack of French-speaking husky dogs.
The silent beauty of night skies unpolluted by light, serenaded by concussions of ice cracking all around me, there is beauty when there is nothing to see but whiteness.
There were times too, when walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. On one particular day, because of getting lost, I would spend the day wandering across the wilds of a rocky mountain utterly alone. As the day progressed, it was more a fear of not finding a place to sleep that night, to regain the track that occupied my mind, perhaps more than the beauty of the surrounding wilderness.
Maybe I should’ve packed a bivouac with me and I’ve spent the night under the stars?
What have I learned about me, writing, life, or travel from this book?
I enjoyed the detailed historical and geographical sections where Macfarlane goes into great detail following his observation and experiences on his journey. For example, the passage about phosphorescence was striking.
‘By two in the morning the fire had dulled down to a pyre of embers, which pulsed black and orange with the light wind. The night was moonless and tepid. It was then that I saw the glimmering of the water. A line of blinking light - purple and silver rimming the long curve of the beach. I walked down to the edge, squatted, and waved a hand in the water. It blazed purple, orange, yellow, and silver. Phosphorescence!… Every movement I made provoked brilliant swirl, and everywhere it lapped against a floating body it was struck into colour,… I found that I could fling long streaks of fire from my fingertips, sorcerer-style, so I stood in the shallows for a few happy minutes, pretending to be Merlin, dispensing magic to right and left.’
Using the formula - Day dreaming about X, I remember Y, the most Z that happened.
His style of facing a storm, describing it, then describing the storms others have faced.
The stories of people he meets, or historical figures like James McRory-Smith - ‘Sandy.’
What music comes to mind or embodies the mood or themes of this book?
What specific passages or quotes resonated with me the most?
‘Rooks haggling.’
‘Sky faded to milk at the edges.’
We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T. S. ELIOT.
Being buried in an unmarked grave in the wild would be a ‘Good place to spend eternity.’
It was a ‘two song’ drive away - a wonderful way of explaining time/distance.
Should You Read It?
There were no ends of roads (and paths) less travelled, with certainly no end in sight but only journeys to experience. An excellent choice for reading about places in the world you may never travel.
For those seeking to travel to such wild places through the pages of a book, I would thoroughly recommend Macfarlane’s work. A writer to return to and read other works of nature writing.
Photo by Kourosh Qaffari on Unsplash
Reading Around The World - Books that transport me to places, people and cultures I might never travel to see.
As a passionate traveller, I dream of visiting every corner of the globe and immersing myself in the diverse cultures and unique landscapes the world offers.
Unfortunately, we’re not always able to turn our wanderlust into reality, are we? But that’s where the magic of writing and literature comes in. With each turn of the page, I can embark on a journey to distant lands, discover new perspectives, and explore the world in a whole new way.
In each post on this section of the blog, I’ll be sharing a book that I’ve recently read and taking you along with me as I delve into my thoughts and impressions of it. I’ll also be asking a few thought-provoking and unusual questions to help you explore the book in a new way. Whether you’re a traveller at heart, or simply someone with a curious mind, join me on this literary journey as we explore the world one book at a time and wander off beaten paths, to roads less travelled.
