The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

Product Information

Then there's Finlay MacLeod, "a fierce opponent of those he considers his fierce opponents", who rightly views geography and history as consubstantial (147): I have long been fascinated by how people understand themselves using landscape, by the topographies of self we carry within us and by the maps we make with which to navigate these interior terrains. We think in metaphors drawn from place and sometimes those metaphors do not only adorn our thought, but actively produce it. Thought, like memory, inhabits external things as much as the inner regions of the human brain. When the physical correspondents of thought disappear, then thought, or its possibility, is also lost. When woods and trees are destroyed -- incidentally, deliberately -- imagination and memory go with them. W.H. Auden knew this. 'A culture,' he wrote warningly in 1953, 'is no better than its woods.' ”

The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane | Waterstones

Robert MacFarlane is a Cambridge professor of modern English literature. However, he happens to be much better known for his secondary profession- his travel writing on the interactions between landscapes and human personalities. He is interested in how we are affected by the landscapes that we travel in and, even more so: The Old Ways confirms Robert Macfarlane's reputation as one of the most eloquent and observant of contemporary writers about nature' Scotland on Sunday We tend to think of landscapes as affecting us most strongly when we are in them or on them, when they offer us the primary sensations of touch and sight. But there are also the landscapes we bear with us in absentia, those places that live on in memory long after they have withdrawn in actuality, and such places -- retreated to most often when we are most remote from them -- are among the most important landscapes we possess.” Macfarlane explores the meditative aspects of being a pedestrian not so much a travelogue as a travel meditation, it favors lush prose, colorful digressions if you ve ever had the experience, while walking, of an elusive thought finally coming clear or an inspiration surfacing after a long struggle, The Old Ways will speak to you eloquently and persuasively. The Seattle Times

Creative Play

We are adept, if occasionally embarrassed, at saying what we make of places - but we are far less good at saying what places make of us...” But even despite my poor reading plan the power of his passion was enough to carry me through, as he tells us over and over to take one more look, just one, at what we have around us, and does it with such a lovely passion that it is usually not a strain to listen one more time: A wonderfully meandering account of the author’s peregrinations and perambulations through England, Scotland, Spain, Palestine, and Sichuan…Macfarlane’sparticular gift is his ability to bring a remarkably broad and varied range of voices to bear on his own pathways and to do so with a pleasingly impressionist yet tenderly precise style.”—Aengus Woods, themillions.com

The Old Ways - Penguin Books UK

Sublime... It sets the imagination tingling, laying an irresistible trail for readers to follow' Sunday TimesBindlestiff: a tramp or a hobo, especially one carrying a bundle containing a bedroll and other gear. A wonderfully meandering account of the author's peregrinations and perambulations through England, Scotland, Spain, Palestine, and Sichuan...Macfarlane's particular gift is his ability to bring a remarkably broad and varied range of voices to bear on his own pathways and to do so with a pleasingly impressionist yet tenderly precise style." --Aengus Woods, themillions.com This is pure magic. The old ways are foot-paths and sea-lanes, mostly around Britain, but in Spain, Palestine and China too for good measure. Macfarlane has a wonderful descriptive style; his similes and metaphors are breathtaking yet never go over the top into the purple prose of Creative Writing. Reading them (and I read a few selections aloud to R for the sheer pleasure of hearing the word-plays and allusions) is almost like reading poetry. Within each chapter, there are digressions into the history behind the ways, and historical figures who were associated with them. So this is not just a travel book about walking (and sailing) but a very literary one too. This is a wonderful book. Superbly written, reflective, illuminating on connections between people, places, journeys and times. A treasure. Every Robert MacFarlane book offers beautiful writing, bold journeys . . . With its global reach and mysterious Sebaldian structure, this is MacFarlane's most important book yet' David Rothenberg, author of Survival of the Beautiful and Thousand Mile Song

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot By Robert Macfarlane |The Works

Just a passing comment, as this is not a concern of the book: I found it a bit odd that someone so attached to the landscape would seemingly have so little concern for environmental destruction or the slaughter of animals. Perhaps he didn't want to be "political" by venturing into that territory. Soren Kierkegaard spoke of every day being able to walk himself "into a state of well-being, away from every illness & into his best thoughts." Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot is a book that endorses the therapeutic value of walking but in particular, following the old & sometimes ancient pathways within the U.K., especially the Hebrides and to points well beyond, including Spain, Palestine & Tibet.A wonderful evocation of Britain’s natural beauty and a reminder of our need to connect with the wilderness”― Times (London) This book took me so long to read because McFarland took me to places I knew nothing about, so I “had to” do a lot of side-reading, a leading indicator on how much I am going to love a book. His sensibilities about place and our interaction with it, being in and passing through a place, putting our being there, were wonderful to share. I highlighted many passages that are quite moving and here is one. “Paths connect. This is their first duty and their chief reason for being. They relate places in a literal sense, and by extension they relate people.” Walking a path connects us to others who came before and those who come after us. I didn't enjoy this book at all. I thought it was as boring as it was well-written. Walking isn't a subject that interests me much, but the location and history of the walks does. There was too much about the minutae of the walks - long lists of every kind of plant and a thesaurusful of synonyms. The author is in love with words for words sake. I'm not, I like the words to go somewhere, and these didn't for me.