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This was loaned to me by a dear friend who thought I might like it. Turns out they were right :)
Landmarks is a book about the language we use to describe the landscape, how that language informs and shapes our relationship with the landscape (and how it shapes us), and a plea that we pay more attention to both. It's also a collection of glossaries of words from across the British Isles that describe the landscape; words from the various languages and dialects spoken here, as well as some jargon terms.
Macfarlane tells of his own experiences of the landscape, particularly of the Cairngorms and Cambridgeshire; and describes his motivations for trying to build up a word-hoard of terms for our landscape. He's trying to preserve a part of language that is drifting out of use as we move away from the countryside and into cities; to him, being able to describe precisely or poetically the landscape means that we are attentive to that landscape, and it becomes more than just "the countryside", an abstract thing to be paid little mind.
He then turns to a number of authors who have engaged deeply with the landscape and written in depth about it. A number of these are authors he's met (in which case we hear stories of his times spent with them); in any case, he describes how their writing relates to the landscape and how they related to the landscape and were changed by it. Sadly, not all the books he discusses are readily available any more. I think a theme of his is how familiarity need not breed contempt, but rather a deeper awareness - he would have all our lockdown walking round the village be an opportunity to learn its intricacies and the turn of the seasons, not a boring exercise of tramping the same fields again and again.
His prose has a lovely turn of phrase to it, and often leans poetic. Perhaps inevitably, this does shade into pretension sometimes; and I'm inclined to see his bewailing the increased use of screens in the same way that people use to bemoan the rise of reading the newspaper on the train. And while the loss of words for the natural world from a childrens' dictionary in favour of computing terms is a sign of the times, I think one needs to think hard about what words one should remove, given the need to make additions to reflect the internet age (whilst keeping the selection of similar overall size).
All of which said, I think he does make a good case that seeking out the right words for the landscape can be helpful in engaging with it more closely; and tracking down the particular word for a feature (and the history behind it) can be very interesting. I have found myself paying a bit more attention to my surroundings when out and about since picking up Landmarks, and that feels like a good thing.
The glossaries are fascinating - both in seeing the range of dialect terms for the same thing (a suprising range of words for sheep droppings, for example!), and for moments of "oh, I didn't know there was a word for that". And I enjoyed seeing words like "chossy" appear in a "proper" list :) It's a real shame there was no pronunciation guide, though (even just IPA) - I doubt I'd get all the dialect words right, never mind the Irish, Gaelic, and other non-English terms. Also, the font for the head words was poorly-chosen, in that 'b' and 'h' were far too similar; in a glossary of unfamiliar terms, this is unhelpful!
Still, definitely recommended :)
Landmarks is a book about the language we use to describe the landscape, how that language informs and shapes our relationship with the landscape (and how it shapes us), and a plea that we pay more attention to both. It's also a collection of glossaries of words from across the British Isles that describe the landscape; words from the various languages and dialects spoken here, as well as some jargon terms.
Macfarlane tells of his own experiences of the landscape, particularly of the Cairngorms and Cambridgeshire; and describes his motivations for trying to build up a word-hoard of terms for our landscape. He's trying to preserve a part of language that is drifting out of use as we move away from the countryside and into cities; to him, being able to describe precisely or poetically the landscape means that we are attentive to that landscape, and it becomes more than just "the countryside", an abstract thing to be paid little mind.
He then turns to a number of authors who have engaged deeply with the landscape and written in depth about it. A number of these are authors he's met (in which case we hear stories of his times spent with them); in any case, he describes how their writing relates to the landscape and how they related to the landscape and were changed by it. Sadly, not all the books he discusses are readily available any more. I think a theme of his is how familiarity need not breed contempt, but rather a deeper awareness - he would have all our lockdown walking round the village be an opportunity to learn its intricacies and the turn of the seasons, not a boring exercise of tramping the same fields again and again.
His prose has a lovely turn of phrase to it, and often leans poetic. Perhaps inevitably, this does shade into pretension sometimes; and I'm inclined to see his bewailing the increased use of screens in the same way that people use to bemoan the rise of reading the newspaper on the train. And while the loss of words for the natural world from a childrens' dictionary in favour of computing terms is a sign of the times, I think one needs to think hard about what words one should remove, given the need to make additions to reflect the internet age (whilst keeping the selection of similar overall size).
All of which said, I think he does make a good case that seeking out the right words for the landscape can be helpful in engaging with it more closely; and tracking down the particular word for a feature (and the history behind it) can be very interesting. I have found myself paying a bit more attention to my surroundings when out and about since picking up Landmarks, and that feels like a good thing.
The glossaries are fascinating - both in seeing the range of dialect terms for the same thing (a suprising range of words for sheep droppings, for example!), and for moments of "oh, I didn't know there was a word for that". And I enjoyed seeing words like "chossy" appear in a "proper" list :) It's a real shame there was no pronunciation guide, though (even just IPA) - I doubt I'd get all the dialect words right, never mind the Irish, Gaelic, and other non-English terms. Also, the font for the head words was poorly-chosen, in that 'b' and 'h' were far too similar; in a glossary of unfamiliar terms, this is unhelpful!
Still, definitely recommended :)
(no subject)
(no subject)
I'm trying to save phrases from my childhood in my mystery novels. Since the books take place in the South and the main character is from an old Southern family as I am, it enables me to have him tossing out phrases that he would have heard from his parents and grandparents. Also some of the old superstitions will get into the books. (Like making an X on your windshield if a cat passes in front of your car.)
(no subject)
This sounds like a great book! There's some interesting research on the way having a vocabulary for a concept changes the way you think about it. For the multi-lingual, your thinking on a topic will differ based on the language you're thinking in, and all the values, norms and perspectives that are baked into that language. Very cool.