I’m interested in the ways in which our minds, and our moods, and our imaginations, and our identities, are influenced by the textures, and the weathers, and the forms, and the slopes, and the curves and the creatures remembered and actual of the places we inhabit
Robert Macfarlane has carved out an important place in nature and landscape literature with his three books Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, and The Old Ways. The first book was an historic account of how our perception of mountains has changed, how climbing is both psychological and passionate, and how not so long ago the Lake District hills were regarded with horror. The second book is a meditation on the nature of wildness and how we can find it in tame locations; small places full of detail rather than alpine grandeur. The style and approach is very similar to the work of his naturalist friend and mentor, Roger Deakin. The third book is an exploration of the history and imaginative power of the network of paths crossing Britain. He’s an English lecturer at Cambridge University and his understanding and personal sculpting of narrative is very apparent.
I’ve had a similar experience myself, as you find in his trilogy of writing. He used to be a mountain climber, risked his life, and lost climbing friends. I used to romp the mountains though as a walker not a climber. More recently – just in the last year or two – I’ve begun to appreciate and enjoy modest areas such as Chorlton Meadows, the nature reserve in Manchester, and consider how they are utterly different from the mountains but nonetheless have some similar features. You see birds, grasses, a river, trees, and few people but when you do they are friendly: we say hello, have brief conversation, which in one instance concerned what I was photographing. I’ve not yet gone the further stage of any fascination with paths as such, worthy of exploration for being paths, but I do understand and enjoy them as an expression of human presence and intent even when the next town is miles away from you. And I still love and walk the mountains whereas I think Macfarlane no longer climbs.
His books don’t quite hit the spot for me in terms of my experience of walking and why I do it because they contain extended detail about name, place, history, inhabitant, flora, fauna, politics, and literature. It gets too far away from the simplicity of the walk and its sensory elemental facts. Which is not to say he doesn’t describe how he feel as he walks, because he does, and in very fine terms. In this respect and others also I find Macfarlane’s books some of the best, for nature writing and walking. It’s wonderfully refreshing to see writing such as this and how it contrasts with the usual, basic, derring do stuff about challenge, struggle, and attaining hard won goals in terms of either height or distance. Peak bagging is rife in Britain, whether the Scottish Munros or the Lake District Wainwrights. Not only rife, but obsessive; and this is completely alien to why I walk and the quality of pleasure it has for me. I enjoy the athleticism of ascent and the hard work of the body and it doesn’t feel right – for example – taking a cable car in the Alps cutting out large parts of the elevation but these feelings are secondary to the beauty of the hills.
Writer Will Self refers to eiotechnical travel which means how the body is the measure of the world and how this capacity is largely absent in our lives. We drive, bus, and fly, and cross apparent distances with the strange, compressed, pseudo environment of the internet. He claims to have walked from his London home to New York because he walked at either end, and transatlantic flights are not actually registered by the body. I don’t think he represents or advocates the landscape as such because he says it’s merely Romantic to enjoy mountains rather than cities: that it’s only an idea we are told that hills are more beautiful than streets. In this respect again, I find Macfarlane the more interesting thinker. Self does, however, articulate very well what is an imporant part of mountain walking: we do it, self powered, with our bodies.
I think there’s a great deal to like in Macfarlane’s books but for me there’s also a large amount of material which is rather boring, stringing out stories where you lose interest. His books are about story and the imagination and I enjoy this hour long lecture without reservation because it’s more direct, colourful, and summarised, getting to the essence of his work with the words:
I’m interested in the ways in which our minds, and our moods, and our imaginations, and our identities, are influenced by the textures, and the weathers, and the forms, and the slopes, and the curves and the creatures remembered and actual of the places we inhabit
I have tried to understand what you have written but im not sure i understand though, it’s a bit difficult to grasp for me i m afraid bec im not a philosopher like you , maybe ^^ But i feel respect for what you write , your thoughts and how you feel about your thought process about walking and stuff though ^^
— Marie Randaxhe · Mar 16, 12:00 PM · §
Thank you Marie. What I’m writing about here is quite a specialised subject, based on three books about walking by Robert Macfarlane. If you don’t know anything about his books – what I say could be quite confusing ^^
The subject though is how we feel when we walk, and how we can even think differently when we walk.
— James Lomax · Mar 16, 01:08 PM · §