Book Review: Underland by Robert Macfarlane
I decided to have more peaceful mornings. Simple as that. I don’t have fixed hours but 9am gnaws at me like loads of other made up rules. Well 9 is just a number, so I’ve changed it to 10 (or 11🤭) and I’ve been getting just as much done and feeling happier and more alive. It seems so luxurious to finish washing, getting dressed, making and eating brekkie and to then have time to go for a walk or just sit down and read.
After being literally put under a spell by Entangled Life, I felt like staying in that world of darkness and soil, so I bought, Underland by Robert Macfarlane. I didn’t know that much about it, but, “an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory and the land itself” sounded good to me.
It was. The amount of work and care put into making this book is vast. It is incredibly moving, poetic and terrifying. And educational. I kept saying, “oh my god!” out loud and having to read bits to Domenique. “Babe do you know what a WIMP is?” “Oh yeah, a weakly interacting massive particle”. Told!
I would never dream of crawling headfirst in the catacombs of Paris where I couldn’t stand up, climbing snowy mountains in gales on my own, or descending into cursed nazism-infested sinkholes, but I am so thankful that this person did, and wrote about it, in such a respectful and thoughtful way.
The book takes you in all directions, geographically and temporally, and the language is careful and vivid, it pulls you along. I most enjoyed travelling in Bjørnar’s fishing boat, on the still water in the sunlight, whilst he explained about the success of his anti-oil campaigning in Norway that literally brought him into trances and breakdowns. Learning what even seismic testing to decide where and if to drill, has done to the whales and fish.
Reading Underland, climbing up glaciers, becoming familiar with words like meltwater, calving and moulin, you can literally feel the ice caps melting. The glaciers slipping. Your feet get wet and cold. You turn blue. The effects of the damage we are doing to the planet become inescapable and less abstract. Not in a finger pointy way, but with delicate beauty and hope.
I could keep saying stuff. I honestly feel like typing out the whole book if it means I can share it with you faster. The last thing I want to say is how much I loved the multiple mentions of crying. Of COURSE you would sob after putting your life at risk for days on end, before finally reaching the red dancers, painted in a cave by people thousands of years ago. Adventure storytelling (and a lot more than that) without the toxic masculinity.
Grateful. What an important book. Masterpiece.
