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.