I hate the work of Robert MacFarlane.'nI have tried multiple books and not got on with any of them.
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@Taskerland Only at dogs.
@Printdevil @Taskerland New character quirk just dropped @RogerBW
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I hate the work of Robert MacFarlane.
I have tried multiple books and not got on with any of them. I think if you are going to write you need to give people something: A gnarled opinion, a moment of vulnerability. Something.
What MacFarlane delivers is erudition without analysis and affect without emotion. He writes and thinks like the enemy.
@Taskerland "The wild" takes on an entirely different dimension when it's literally outside your front door a few dozen paces in the high arctic (my home in Inuvik was at the edge of town; open our door, walk about ... call it three dozen paces, and you're in the genuine wilderness). Or when it's outside your tent flap on a weeks'-long journey where there is absolutely no visible sign of humanity in any direction in northern B.C.
๐งต
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@Taskerland "The wild" takes on an entirely different dimension when it's literally outside your front door a few dozen paces in the high arctic (my home in Inuvik was at the edge of town; open our door, walk about ... call it three dozen paces, and you're in the genuine wilderness). Or when it's outside your tent flap on a weeks'-long journey where there is absolutely no visible sign of humanity in any direction in northern B.C.
๐งต
๏ธ@Taskerland "The wild" is not some destination you visit to experience "enlightenment" (the Buddhist temple is over there) before returning home to your comfortable middle class lifestyle chomping down on cucumber sandwiches (crusts cut off!) and guzzling tea. It's an entity of its own and if you've ever truly experienced it you'll not write tawdry, flowery, prose about it. You'll write wild, shamanic poetry (Chuci) or tell tales of incomprehensible power (Haida/Tlingit) about it.
๐งต
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@Taskerland "The wild" is not some destination you visit to experience "enlightenment" (the Buddhist temple is over there) before returning home to your comfortable middle class lifestyle chomping down on cucumber sandwiches (crusts cut off!) and guzzling tea. It's an entity of its own and if you've ever truly experienced it you'll not write tawdry, flowery, prose about it. You'll write wild, shamanic poetry (Chuci) or tell tales of incomprehensible power (Haida/Tlingit) about it.
๐งต
๏ธ@Taskerland (Postscript: I may have a bit of a grudge against people who think wandering around well-regulated, carefully-cultivated, artfully-arranged land is somehow "connecting with nature".)
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@Taskerland (Postscript: I may have a bit of a grudge against people who think wandering around well-regulated, carefully-cultivated, artfully-arranged land is somehow "connecting with nature".)
@ZDL Thing is that, in England at least, that is pretty much the only option. MacFarlane writes about the wild but in truth he's just reciting poetry in a National Trust carpark.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland New character quirk just dropped @RogerBW
"Non Ducor, Duco!" He shrieked as the Spaniel hauled him up the road at breakneck pace chasing squirrels.
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"Non Ducor, Duco!" He shrieked as the Spaniel hauled him up the road at breakneck pace chasing squirrels.
@Printdevil @shimminbeg @RogerBW Footage of Robert MacFarlane in Richmond Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSbr0EYYU
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@Printdevil @shimminbeg @RogerBW Footage of Robert MacFarlane in Richmond Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSbr0EYYU
I like the comment "Legend has it he is still running after Fenton"
it's a very spoken over the end of a film line.
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I like the comment "Legend has it he is still running after Fenton"
it's a very spoken over the end of a film line.
@Printdevil Fenton is such a posh name for dog. @shimminbeg @RogerBW
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@Printdevil Fenton is such a posh name for dog. @shimminbeg @RogerBW
My last two were called Tobias and Renfeldt.
But they were both on paper things like "Montogomery Brockleton Twist the II from the House of PansyAuras"
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I am reminded of this excellent piece by Kathleen Jamie https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n05/kathleen-jamie/a-lone-enraptured-male
@Taskerland Is it typical of me to find the idea that the ashes of the dead alter the chemistry of a place the most fascinating bit in that, rather that the point you're making?
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@Taskerland Is it typical of me to find the idea that the ashes of the dead alter the chemistry of a place the most fascinating bit in that, rather that the point you're making?
@Printdevil No. Because that's the bit that really stayed with me too.
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@Printdevil No. Because that's the bit that really stayed with me too.
@Taskerland Even in the midst of a point about MacFarlane's privation from grounded thought, we find a plot in a review.
