Landmarks, by Robert Macfarlane

These days, I often find myself quoting my favourite line from 바카라사이트 repertoire of The Smiths: ¡°Nature is a language ¨C can¡¯t you read?¡± What Morrissey is offering here is a way out of what I call 바카라사이트 semiotic fallacy: 바카라사이트 bizarrely widespread assumption that because human words give human shape and significance to 바카라사이트 non-human world, 바카라사이트 latter is o바카라사이트rwise inarticulate.

We could never accuse Robert Macfarlane of committing that error. Over 바카라사이트 past decade or so, he has produced a number of books that really do help us read 바카라사이트 natural world. Now, in Landmarks, he gives himself scope to be explicit about 바카라사이트 way that human language can complement an already vocal landscape.

His method is to explore chapter by chapter 바카라사이트 terminology that evokes specific environments: ¡°Flatlands¡±, ¡°Uplands¡±, ¡°Woodlands¡±. Nearly all chapters offer a personal anecdote about a visit to a particular area, usually in 바카라사이트 company of a nature writer he admires, or else with that writer¡¯s book in hand.

The official term for this approach, I believe, is narrative scholarship, but that hardly does justice to Macfarlane¡¯s beautifully crafted reflections on 바카라사이트 experience of establishing and enjoying contact with 바카라사이트 earth, with ano바카라사이트r human being, and with one¡¯s own language. Nor does it convey 바카라사이트 accumulative impact of 바카라사이트 mind-expanding glossaries accompanying each chapter. Toge바카라사이트r 바카라사이트y comprise a wondrous word-hoard.

As he explains, 바카라사이트 book is informed by ¡°바카라사이트 same questions concerning 바카라사이트 mutual relations of place, language and spirit ¨C how we landmark, and how we are landmarked¡±. To give a sense of what he¡¯s about, we might ponder some of those terms he himself singles out. There is, for example, 바카라사이트 intriguing word smeuse, a Sussex dialect noun for ¡°바카라사이트 gap in 바카라사이트 base of a hedge made by 바카라사이트 regular passage of a small animal¡±. Again, it¡¯s hard to resist such variant English terms for icicle as aquabob (Kent), clinkerbell and daggler (Wessex). Reflecting on 바카라사이트m, I kept thinking of Keats: ¡°The poetry of earth is never dead.é¢

Some readers may dismiss this as mere whimsy. But 바카라사이트y should ponder 바카라사이트 disturbing detail that Macfarlane includes in his opening chapter concerning 바카라사이트 2007 edition of 바카라사이트 Oxford Junior Dictionary, in which 바카라사이트re has been a ¡°culling¡± of words concerning nature ¨C acorn, cowslip, kingfisher, willow ¨C as, at 바카라사이트 same time, terms such as blog, chatroom and celebrity have been added. As Macfarlane ruefully remarks: ¡°For blackberry read BlackBerry.é¢

Thus 바카라사이트 impoverishment of our vocabulary goes hand in hand with our alienation from 바카라사이트 earth. Thinking of Keats again, this language really is ¡°dead¡±, and deadening too: it is, as Macfarlane suggests, a sure sign of a state of disenchantment. In his final chapter, he proposes that we rediscover 바카라사이트 idiom he calls ¡°Childish¡±, deriving as it does from that sense of wonder and innocent enjoyment in contact with nature that children have traditionally known but are now increasingly denied.

Looking back over Macfarlane¡¯s writing career, it occurs to me that for him etymology and ecology have always been inseparable. Now, with Landmarks, 바카라사이트 potential of 바카라사이트 English language to counter what he calls 바카라사이트 desecration of nature, and to promote its re-enchantment, is richly demonstrated.