Underland A Deep Time Journey

Wow. I never thought I would enjoy reading non-fiction so much, but this book is really inspiring. The book tells the many travel tales the author has partaken around in the world in the pursue of "underland", be it caves, underground rivers and many other things. It's fascinating how little we know about the ground beneath our feet, and he helped me to understand that it's an adventure many of us yet to discover. One star down from five is because sometimes it's too long and unwinding with the description, but it's interesting enough to continue the book til the end!

Beautiful book. You have to slow down to appreciate it, but it’s worth it.

absolutely phenomenal! to be honest, i did not anticipate the topic to interest me a lot but prompted by storygraph's genre challenge and a video essay by jacob geller (where i originally encountered this book last year), i picked it up - and what a delight it was! i was deeply engrossed the entire time and could barely put it away at the end of my lunch breaks and as my bed time came. macfarlane is such a talented storyteller, he truly knows how to represent his travels in an engaging and impactful way. a truly, truly fascinating book. (side note: a fun fact is that this book cited 'vertical' by stephen graham. this book was our key text for my final year of masters. funny how this is the year from my entire course of education that always comes to haunt me. another fun fact, but i read poe's 'into the maelstrom' a couple of weeks ago as part of the british library tales of the weird series, the 'heavy weather' book. of course, the week after, the uk was battered by three consecutive storms. funny how this came to haunt me too. either way, makes it feel like i was truly meant to read this book).

Al principio me costó un montón, pero después me enganche. Me resulto súper estimularte a la imaginación, muy visual.

The closest thing I’ve come to this is Nan Shepherd, who pioneered travel fiction/ mountain fiction. Both have autofiction qualities and are non fiction. But they also describe the world in ways that, while not necessarily fictional, also feel apart from what I’d normally summon in my head if someone said it was nonfiction or autofiction or travel(ogue). More than just being a really engaging writer, the author here also has an uncanny knack when choosing what to talk about. It’s rare that absolutely everything on the page is interesting. Especially when it’s the fictional equivalent of, say, watching Planet Earth, or something. Perhaps if I had read more travel and it’s peripheral lit components I’d be able to talk about this much better. All I can say is that it is by far the most gripping movement of a character has been. It’s educational on specific subjects, including climate change and waste and geological areas. There’s the odd picture in the book that helps with visualization. It’s just riveting how every facet of the world, and how movement especially through the space is captured. I’ll certainly read more from this author. I alternated between book and audio and both were great. No pictures, of course, but the narration was just as good. Highly recommend. Wish I had more experience with this kind of stuff to describe it better.

This was probably one of the most talked about and advertised new releases of the year and it's one of those rare books that actually lives up to the hype and isn't massively oversold. Macfarlane pairs both poetry and nature writing exquisitely and seamlessly. I do think the overall reading experience would've benefited greatly from including coloured photographs because the four we have are black and white and grainy and I didn't feel it added anything at all. It's the perfect autumnal read and Mcfarlane's love for what he does really permeates through the pages.

I was blown away by Macfarlane's lyrical prose. I had to take it a chapter a day. It's natural history, human history, climate history . . . and personal journey/exploration. So good. You'll never think the same way about the ground beneath your feet. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I think it would have done better with 75-100 fewer pages. (Sorry, Robert!)

Al principio me costó un montón, pero después me enganche. Me resulto súper estimularte a la imaginación, muy visual.

Beautifully written. It made me miss the cold and seeing as far as the eye can see as much as it made me want to explore caves and go diving again. Nature. The underworld. What it means to us. The author is so inspiring and did such unbelievable things on his travels. Impressive life!

This one surprised me. A student recommended it (thanks, William!) and I'd never heard of it. Underland is a strange book. Its focus is on humans imagine and experience the subsurface world, and its gets there through various paths. Our narrator visits mines, underground depositories, underground rivers, and cave art sites. He also hangs out with a fisher who obsess over the sea floor, artists who spelunk, and scientists working on subsurface roots and fungus. He broods about large scale human enterprises and how they connect with the subterranean: religion, history, politics, climate change. He also dreads mortality, both for himself and his son. Which sounds very intellectual and analytical, which Underland can be. It's also beautifully written and meditative with savory word choice. We tend to imagine stone as inert matter, obdurate in its fixity.. But here in the rift it feels instead like a liquid briefly paused in its flow. Seen in deep time, stone folds as strata, gouts as lava, floats as plates, shifts as shingle. (17)The book's last line is very moving, and its final word is a fine pun: mine, as in both something I own as well as the underground structure. At the same time Underland has an exciting outdoor adventure element, as visiting some of these locales involves tough hiking, climbing, caving, swimming, and simply surviving. This is viscerally effecting, or it was for me, hunkered down in pandemic. At times the book felt like Jack London channeling Thoreau and Jung, alongside Rachel Carson. Structurally it's a collection of stories, essays about individual sites, with Macfarlane riffing in multiple directions based on each, ranging from Walter Benjamin to prehistoric humanity to contemporary literature. Tropes and themes grow up and weave across very richly. Strongly recommended.

I'm slowly emerging from the cozy and quiet holiday hole I've lived in for the past two weeks. It was good to spend time with myself and listen to my thoughts. It was even better to be in the company of these 10 ppl who I feel closest to and therefore I'm still allowed to see. I've mentioned last time that I was busy finishing some of the books on my ever-growing to-read pile. "Underland" by @robgmacfarlane was one of those and tbh it blew me away. I'm normally not enjoying non-fiction literature. One of the reasons why is that usually it is just poorly written, it lacks both in the language layer, the storytelling and the character construction. Well... "Underland" made me reevaluate my opinion. It made me read slowly, savor the richness of language, the description of the wonders of nature, and the oh so deeply humanistic view on our history and our future. The book is a composition of beautifully constructed essays about all-things under ground: caves, mines, graves, ghosts... As the author says: "The same three tasks recur across cultures and epochs: to shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmful. (...) Into the Underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save". The Underland preserves what it's laid in it for ages. What we place in it now will be discovered by our children's children’s children and that must make us start to think: are we good ancestors to them? Read the book, think, reply, comment! [I'm also reviewing books on my Instagram account: @slowgram_cph]