Book Review: The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane - Page 2

Lyrical elegance and passion? Uh, no. Yet, because this scene is just what it is and the writer is not trying to evoke emotion, saves it from being mawkishly trite. Instead, the above writing doesn’t do much of anything but act as filler. There are a number of times when his description dulls with obvious word choices and predictable phrasings, yet he does have some nice moments. Here is a scene where the author describes himself when he’s up in a tree:

If I remained still for a few minutes, people out walking would sometimes pass underneath without noticing me. People don’t generally expect to see men in trees. If I remained still for longer, the birds would return. Birds don’t generally expect to see men in trees, either. Blackbirds fussing in the leaf litter; wrens which whirred from twig to twig so quickly they seem to teleport; once a grey partridge, venturing anxiously from cover.

This is better than the previous quote, the description is more memorable and the words have a nice music to them. Still, although The Wild Places is a good, solid book, what keeps it from being a great book is that Macfarlane lacks (at least from what I’ve seen) that Keatsian sense of Negative Capability - or those illogical leaps, in his writing. His essays, while pleasant, are still somewhat predictable, and I always know how they’re going to end. Never once, while reading, was I presented with something done in a new way. For a book that is celebrating the wild, it is ironic that these essays seem to be bundled up in cages. Moments do escape, like the previous one quoted above, but then predictable modifiers and obvious description pull the essay back in. “Moon was pouring its light,” “ringing like a bell,” "cold, clear rainwater,” “dark valley,” “shadows cast.”
How is any of this “lyrical elegance and passion” much less a “bewitching evocation of wildness”? Of course, most critics would not notice boring word choices, since so much of writing today is so flavorless.

The end of the book lists some of the author’s personal reading selections, yet I am baffled how he can recommend a crap poet like Ted Hughes under his “Wild” category and not list a great one like Robinson Jeffers? Or how Loren Eiseley could have gone ignored? I was surprised to find that the author and I are only six days apart in age - we’ll both be 32 this month. Yet the reason for my surprise is not because the book is rife with insights well beyond his years, but because he can come across as a bit old manish at times. (He’s a professor so that explains the didacticism and his affinity for bad and mediocre poets). In fact, it wasn’t until he spoke of his good friend Roger dying when he seemed to finally lead on that he had a pulse. When reading this, you’ll wonder if the author (given the dangerous circumstances he puts himself into, such as nearly freezing to death on certain summits) has ever muttered a curse word in his life. Fuck if I know.

Article Author: Jessica Schneider

Jessica Schneider is the Austin Cultural Events Examiner for Examiner.com. She writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer and has worked as the book editor of Monsters & Critics as well as being a co-founder of www.Cosmoetica.com

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