Book Review: The Gentle Art of Tramping by Stephen Graham

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to make of a book. And reading Stephen Graham’s The Gentle Art of Tramping, in which he advises the would-be “tramp” (or long-distance walker, as we’d now describe it) on how to go about their business certainly gave me pause for thought.

Don’t get me wrong. On balance I think I liked it. But the truth is that some book are timeless and some books can become dated, and this is definitely one of the latter. So how do you judge it? As a historical piece, a window into a mindset of the time between the wars? (It was first published in, I think, 1926.) Or with a modern eye, a social conscience that can’t help twitching at some of the post-Imperial, overly-class conscious observations?

Graham makes a clear distinction between types of tramp — there are those like him, middle-class and seeking to escape the rat race, and there are the good-for-nothing hobos who can’t be trusted. (When the former helps himself to an apple from your orchard, by the way, it’s scrounging; when the latter does it it’s theft.) This is the problem I had — that a number of his attitudes and observation made me cringe, as if I’m listening to that old uncle complaining about the old days and how much better they were.

On reflection, though, I’ll judge it for its original intention. It captures a desire for freedom and communing with nature. It’s shaded with the echoes of the First World War, its end less than a decade old, and the restlessness of the new world comes through. It’s very readable and Graham’s whimsical humour appeals as he offers advice on what to take, where to walk and how to avoid getting into trouble in the less salubrious parts of the world.

As a book it describes a wider restlessness, a frustration in which one was “identified by one’s salary or by one’s golf handicap”. For all its occasional crassness (to modern readers at least) I enjoyed it.

Thanks to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Book Review: The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

Content-wise Sara Collins’s The Confessions of Frannie Langton has just about everything — drama, passion, violence, murder, opiates, illegitimacy, mixed-race relationships (a big no-no in nineteenth century London), lesbianism (ditto) and more. It was a whirling dervish of a journey from Jamaican slave plantations to Newgate Gaol via luxurious London mansions and the whorehouse. 

If I had to pick a single theme from it I couldn’t. It touches on education, on racism, on scientific ethics, on forbidden love, on the oppression of women regardless of their race or class, and on more besides. It’s rich and it’s complex. In summary, the story is that of Frances Langton, mulatto maid to a London couple, on trial for their murder, and the story unwinds through her confession, the story of her life. Frances can’t defend herself because she has no memory of the events that led up to the crime and it’s only by unpicking her life that she comes to understand.

I feel in my head that this is a very good book, but somehow my heart just didn’t buy into it. Perhaps it’s because it’s so complex that it becomes bewildering, or perhaps it’s because I found the central part of it slow. And while the characters were all brilliantly drawn — no, exposed — I didn’t find any of them likeable. Even Frannie herself, a strong woman and a heroine I feel I should be rooting for, was someone I couldn’t quite engage with as much as I wanted to. 

There’s a lot to commend the book. The writing is powerful, though I thought it could have been pared down in certain places, and the scene-setting is lavish, bringing the smell of the burning sugar cane plantation into my nostrils, the sweaty claustrophobia of Newgate prison into my living room. The issues are important. But somehow, for me, the chemistry wasn’t quite there and the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

But don’t be put off. I think it’s a better book than I’m giving it credit for. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books for a copy in return for an honest review. 

Book Review: Underland by Robert Macfarlane

There’s no getting away from it: Robert McFarlane’s Underland is a book as rich and complex as the underground world it describes. 

In many ways it’s an extraordinary book, a fascinating exploration of what lies beneath out feet. Some of the world he explores is man-made, some of it is natural; some of it is good and some of it quivering with evil like a Bond villain’s lair. 

“From the vast below-ground mycelial networks by which trees communicate, to the ice-blue depths of glacial moulins, and from North Yorkshire to the Lofoten Islands,” says the blurb, “he traces an uncharted, deep-time voyage. Underland a thrilling new chapter in Macfarlane's long-term exploration of the relations of landscape and the human heart.”

I loved it. I’m a fan of nature writing at the best of times, though sometimes it can be a bit slow. There are a couple of Macfarlane’s other books that I haven’t quite finished — not because they aren’t good but in much the same way as it’s sometimes hard to finish an incredibly rich dessert, so rich that you just can’t manage to eat any more, no matter how much you want to. 

Underland doesn't fall into this trap, largely because the worlds he describes are so powerful in themselves. He visits some worlds I’ve heard of and others I had no idea existed. He looks at cave paintings and the crazy urban life of the explorers of the Parisian catacombs, he goes scrambling down crevasses in melting glaciers and into mines and cave systems. 

There are, admittedly, one or two places where the writing felt a little pretentious and I really wanted him to stop listening to the sound of his own voice and get on with the plot (because although it’s non-fiction it definitely had the power of a story). But overall it’s a compelling read and I would recommend it to anyone. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books for a copy of this book in return for an honest review. 

A Hero on Mt St Helens by Melanie Holmes: Book Review

Anyone who has any real interest in volcanoes will know of the cataclysmic eruption of Mt St Helens in 1980. I have a bit more than a passing knowledge as my academic background is one of Earth science, so Melanie Holmes’ A Hero on Mt St Helens is a book that immediately resonated with me.

It’s a biography of David Johnston, a volcanologist with the United States Geological Survey, who happened to be on duty on a ridge overlooking the volcano when it erupted, killing not only Johnston but but fifty-odd other individuals unfortunate enough to be within the danger area (which turned out to be far beyond that which the USGS had forecast).

The book is a biography of Johnston, calling on memories of his friends, writings from his diaries and so on, and in a way it’s a strange book. Johnston, risking his life to monitor the volcano was a hero by chance. A day later, even a few hours later, and someone else would have been in his place. Then I might well be reviewing a biography of someone else entirely.

On that basis you can argue that Johnston wasn’t heroic, but in a way he is Everyman. He represents all of those who take on such a dangerous task to protect us from potential natural hazards, and although much of his life is unremarkable it’s the very ordinariness of his background that helps to show how easily, and by chance, ordinary, dedicated scientists can become heroes. 

In addition to to the minutiae (I would even say trivia) of Johnston’s life, the book contains a wealth of information about Mt St Helens and other volcanoes, about volcanic hazards and the personal stories of other volcanologists.

Because I’ve studied something of the discipline and keep myself up to date on what’s going on in the field, much of this wasn’t new to me. But for anyone who is interested but doesn’t know much about the topic, the story of David Johnston, an accidental hero, is fascinating, informative and in the end, useful. I thoroughly recommend it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the University of Illinois Press for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.