Sunday, July 12, 2020

Robert Macfarlane, Landmarks ****

This is a book about the power of language – strong style, single words – to shape our sense of place.
I have picked up Landmarks in book stores several times in the years since it was published (2015), but knew that I'd need to be in the right state of mind to appreciate it. Sheltering in place in our backyard on a quiet summer afternoon: perfect.

The book doesn't have a narrative or complicated argument, just precise natural descriptions in colorful language. ("Even in high summer, snow still lies in the deepest corries, sintering slowly into ice.") Each chapter describes a piece of idiosyncratic literature that shapes the way people perceive a particular type of British landscape (moors, mountains, waterways, farms), and is followed by a glossary of regional terms related to that landscape ("didder  of a bog: to quiver as a walker approaches  East Anglia"). The glossaries can be as entertaining as the prose chapters, with their combination of fun-sounding words, vivid definitions, and technical terms alongside dialect.

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