Landmarks

Landmarks is a pleasure to read, and lovely to dip into for random new words. I'm a blatant logophile, and living as I do on one of the Scottish islands I'm aware of both the specialist vocabulary that lingers on in such places, and of all the words that must have been lost down the years. I wander hills that are plotted on maps, and I think about how every tor, and every rushy hollow must have once been named. Without the words, such places become hazy - the big hill, the broad valley - and we lose the magic of place. To name the world is to enter fully into it - words genuinely have power. I'm delighted that amongst the treasures Robert Macfarlane visits is Nan Shepherd, whose elegiac portrayals of the Cairngorms are an especial favourite of mine. She, too, knew the value of the right word in the right place. "O burnie with the glass-white shiver/singing over stone". It wouldn't be right without the precise word for that stream in that place. If I have one complaint about Landmarks, it's that it's too unwieldy (and too lovely) to shove into my pack and take out among the hills, where the right word might be needed for a note, or a quick poem. If only the book were formatted differently - say, along the lines of The Jolly Postman - with pockets filled with little books; each of the glossaries as a tiny, pocketable book, preferably in a weatherproof material! Still, it sits permanently by my bedside, so that before I lie down I can open its pages and enter briefly into the mystery of place - see in my mind's eye a hazy hover of haar on the horizon, or pick up a chucky stone to tuck into the interstices of a tumbled bothy wall - an image to carry me down into sleep.

A perfect book if you enjoy the countryside and enjoy the English language. By enjoying the countryside, I don't mean a nice day out but an interest that can identify some birds and insects, can spot a track in a field or a gap in a hedgerow, and always takes home litter and shuts gates behind you. By enjoying the English language, yes, it is wonderfully written with scholarship and originality, but I am referring to regional and dialect and specialised words for things or activities relating to the countryside, from yesterday and today, with a view to which might be retained in the future. With words such as 'acorn’ and ‘buttercup’ being dropped in favour of adding ‘broadband’ and ‘cut and paste’ to the Oxford Junior Dictionary, and flora and fauna being endangered or extinct annually, this book is a treasure. I don't like the quality of paper and print in my paperback so I may treat myself to a hardback.

The previous books by Robert Macfarlane have been enticing reads with a natural progression that flow well, and have been beautiful lovely page turners. This is a rather different tome, more academic, probably easier to dip into now and again for reference, and I found it hard going at times reading it through from start to finish in one go. It is a more academic treatise, I found it sometimes a bit too clever for comfortable reading. I felt the structure was all a bit stop start, with the glossary at the end of each chapter a bit random in the way it was organised. There also seems to be a rather patchy geographical coverage, with some areas rich seams of local words, but others nearby were notable by lack of entries, it does not seem comprehensive, but rather a work in progress. There are 11 chapters, each relating to a different landscape or ecological niche, with a focus on a main previous author who had excelled in exploring each habitat in depth . Some of these worked for me well and gave a fascinating insight, such as writer Roger Deakin on Woods and Water, that Robert met and got to know well and build a close and symbiotic relationship with. Others are historical so secondhand accounts, like John Muir who was responsible for establishing the first National Parks in the world in the United states through his endeavour and influence on politicians, still fascinating and influential. However ,some of the other authors featured in some chapters I did not find so likeable, or interesting, and at times I found the text slow going and dense, lacking the sparkle in previous books that marked them out as truly something special. I can respect the research that has gone into producing this, but it is not a book that I loved reading and enjoyed in the same way as his earlier books that I thought were stunning and truly special. For me personally, overall I ended up feeling rather disappointed and frustrated, and it was a bit of a struggle to get through this. Some of his found words are lovely and intriguing, but there also seems to be a lot of minor variation on a theme. A bit of a curate's egg, good in parts, but marred for me by a disjointed structure, and a more academic treatise that at times did not flow well and got bogged down in detail and rather convoluted. This is probably a reflection on my own intellectual shortcomings and attention span, but I hope this book is a bit of a side project and he returns to more readable accessible love of the British landscape for future books. By no means bad, there is still a lot to admire, but it was certainly not my favourite book by this author .

A beautifully produced and written book. A call to arms against the loss and deadening of language. Each chapter reminded me of or reintroduced me to a writer/book I wanted to explore - in words and on the ground. Macfarlane's poetic, thoughtful and adventurous excursions, putting language back 'on the ground', earthing or rooting it, as it were, is a fascinating and inspiring read. I relished the lists of words from local and dialect sources, but had also to use the dictionary to extend my knowledge of words in more general, if somewhat learned, usage.

If you like words, nature and the Great Outdoors you'll enjoy this little gem. MacFarlane unearths all sorts of words for different natural occurrences and introduces us to some of his favourite nature writers. He rails against the loss of nature vocabulary to the point where the mainstream has been left with dull generic terms like field, hedge, wood, hill etc. There is a rich body of words out there from sailors, farmers, shepherds, trekkers and country folk and Macfarlane's aim is to document these before they are lost forever. One of the words I've taken from it is 'smeuse' - a Sussex term for a small worn away tunnel or entrance in a hedge caused by a creature going back and forth. MacFarlane makes the point that by giving things a name we are more likely to notice them, look out for them - meaning the way we experience nature is enhanced. A truly enjoyable, life-affirming work

I've enjoyed Robert MacFarlane's books for many years, since finding "The Mountains of the Mind" in a second-hand bookshop not long after it came out. His writing has improved since then to a coruscating point where it sparkles, inspires and leads me down strange new paths of place and literature. But I found this book a bit fragmented and disappointing. Let's start with the structure. This book is ostensibly about the word-lore for landscape in Britain. Eleven essays are separated by small lexicons of words on specific subject areas, from the languages and dialects of Great Britain (Ireland would seem not to be included). The writing in the essays is definitely up to his usual standards, and draws some interesting new threads togerther, but much of it (e.g. on Nan Shepherd, Roger Deakin & J. A. Baker) is recycled in part or wholesale from earlier book introductions etc.. Moreover, when I stop to think about it, most of the prose is digression into writing about writers (which MacFarlane undeniably excels at), rather than the ostensible subject of landscape lexicography. And whilst the chapter on John Muir is excellent, it's surely out of scope in a work about Britain. It's good to see him writing about Robert Skelton, who has done much wonderful work in this area, but this was one chapter where I felt he could have gone deeper. My biggest problem though is with the word-lists. These alphabetically mix up Gaelic, Welsh, Norn, Scots & English dialects, Anglo-Romani & even some Jèrriais with technical and official terms from various fields. They feel sloppily presented and arbitrarily selected. For example, having the official definitions of heavy rain, light rain etc. seems pointless here, and I'd have preferred the source dialects to be segregated in the sections. More importantly a bit more detail would often have brought the terms to life. Pronounciation guidance, not just for the Gaelic. Literal translations where appropriate. Thalweg is a good example here - I happen to know that it's German for "valley way", and without that context (and associated pronounciation) the word is reduced to a collection of letters to which it's hard to associate a meaning. Some more random issues: - cognate words from the different language sources are not dealt with in a systematic way. In an extreme example, esker (English) and eiscer (Gaelic) are in completely separate glossaries. - pingo is a wonderful word but I thought of it a specifically Artic landform. It turns out there are some in the Breckland (but this doesn't get linked when the Breckland is mentioned) More fundamental issues: - It seems odd to include Scots Gaelic but not Irish, or Anglo-Irish (although 'boreen' creeps in, disguised as "Hiberno-English") - It's very patchy in its coverage. For example, I don't remember seeing any words from the rich Mercian dialects, which J.R.R. Tolkien and Alan Garner have both mined very effectively in their writings. - There's a whole category of land-use words missing (e.g. pannage, estovers, turbary, haybote) - Whilst there is an index, the glossary words aren't included in it, so finding them again is challenging, especially as the themes of them overlap. A word-index and internal thesaurus for them would have been very useful. So overall I'm feeling disappointed and short-changed by this book. It's a really important and interesting subject, and Robert MacFarlane is someone who could have really brought it to life in a wonderful way. But this isn't that book.

Great book for anyone interested in the old ways and how things were done

Anyone who is already familiar with MacFarlane's work will know what to expect here and as such you will not be disappointed. I admit to being a huge fan, so don't count on me for an unbiased view but even a critic must surely find something to like here. Taking various aspects of landscape, from mountain to urban, he explores them himself in short chapters whilst evoking the words and language of writers varying from John Muir to Iain Sinclair with a special chapter devoted to an obvious heroine of his, Nan Shepherd. What makes this book special though is the acknowledgement of local and slang terms for landscape, weather, and the human impact on the land which form glossaries at the end of each chapter. I suppose a minor criticism is that some of this ground has been previously covered on other forms but even so, this book acts as an excellent compendium of travels in, and those who write about, the landscape.