Neither do I really understand how or why I might know something in a particular place and then somehow not know this thing if I move to a different place. The idea that a place can somehow know me makes no sense to me at all. I should say from the outset that I find this aspect of Macfarlane’s work difficult to relate to. Although not wishing to claim to be a mystic he nevertheless sounds mystical when he thinks we should be asking of any strong (sic) landscape “What do I know when I am in this place that I can know nowhere else? And then, vainly, what does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself”. He lives in a world (inhabited, too, by writers past) that in walking ancient paths one might “slip back out of this modern world”. It is his imagination that makes his writing most distinctive as he explores ghosts and voices which he feels haunt ancient paths. The author describes the subject of the book as “the relationship between paths, walking and imagination”. He has published four books in this area to date: Mountains of the Mind – A history of a Fascination (2003), The Wild Places (2007), The Old Ways – A Journey on Foot (2012) and (jointly written with Dan Richards), Holloway (2013). His research and writing interests include the nature-writing tradition and travel writing – mostly about walking. Robert Macfarlane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge with a post of Senior Lecturer in Post-WWII Literature in English. Paperback edition here at Amazon for £6.99!
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