Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness
Paul Farley, Michael Symmons Roberts
Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness
Edgelands explores a wilderness that is much closer than you think: a debatable zone, neither the city nor the countryside, but a place in-between — so familiar it is never seen for looking. Passed through, negotiated, unnamed, ignored, the edgelands have become the great wild places on our doorsteps, places so difficult to acknowledge they barely exist. Edgelands forms a critique of what we value as ‘wild’, and allows our allotments, railways, motorways, wasteland and water a presence in the world, and a strange beauty all of their own.
3.9 out of 5 based on 6 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Science & Nature, Travel |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
256 |
| RRP |
£12.99 |
| Date of Publication |
February 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-0224089029 |
| Publisher |
Jonathan Cape |
| |
Edgelands explores a wilderness that is much closer than you think: a debatable zone, neither the city nor the countryside, but a place in-between — so familiar it is never seen for looking. Passed through, negotiated, unnamed, ignored, the edgelands have become the great wild places on our doorsteps, places so difficult to acknowledge they barely exist. Edgelands forms a critique of what we value as ‘wild’, and allows our allotments, railways, motorways, wasteland and water a presence in the world, and a strange beauty all of their own.
Reviews
The Times
John Burnside
"...a masterpiece of its kind... A beautifully conceived work of exploration, by two emissaries to the wilderness who do the wasteland proud."
05/02/2011
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The Evening Standard
David Sexton
"..."Subsuming both of our voices seemed like a good way of getting into this territory," they say, hoping they're "letting the terrain speak for itself". Actually, the book they've produced is fantastically precious, despite the grittiness of the locales. Farley and Symmonds Roberts are the Fotherington-Tomases of the tip, the pit and the dump. They are relentlessly lyrical, not to say winsome, as they enthuse, in highly worked prose, about the beauty to be found in this "debateable zone", if only we can learn to see it."
10/02/2011
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The Sunday Telegraph
Tom Fort
"...eye-opening and hugely enjoyable... It is a shame though that a book so visual in its content, and one that invokes a host of artists and photographers who have interpreted the edgelands, has no illustrations ... But overall this is an original, surprising and rather wonderful addition to our literature of place; and I suspect that no one who reads it with care will ever drive along a motorway, take a train ride, or visit a business park in quite the same way again."
13/02/2011
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The Financial Times
Geoff Dyer
"Two-thirds of the way through, it becomes evident that Edgelands is never going to be more than the sum of its parts — but the parts are often terrific."
11/02/2011
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The Scotsman
Stuart Kelly
"This often haunting, often inspiring book attempts to marry two discrete forms of contemporary writing — the "new nature writing" as exemplified by Robert Macfarlane, Roger Deakin and Richard Mabey and the "psychogeographical" work of negotiating the urban cityscape as explored by Iain Sinclair, Rachel Lichtenstein and Will Self. It succeeds in being something distinctive in and of itself, not least because the two authors, Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts, are both, as they say, "poets in the English lyric tradition ... drawn to the idea of praise, of celebration.""
08/02/2011
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The Sunday Times
Edward King
"Edgelands is not as original as the authors may claim, owing much to the “psychogeography” tradition from which they try so hard to distance themselves. But the book’s strength is its playfulness…"
10/02/2011
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