Will I love Ghostways?

I've loved Robert Macfarlane's work, but this book has stayed with me. It's both lyrical and deeply unsettling, modern myth-making about a spit of land called Orford Ness. The first section, Ness, braids together voices from the land, from the Cold War era nuclear scientists who conducted tests there, with the overarching image of the Green Man. The second section, Holloway, looks at the ancient tracks by man and beast that have worn deep, deep "hollow ways" into the landscape of the British Isles. These are unquiet places, haunted places, a record of man's impact on the land even as… show more.

Ness and Holloway make up the two pieces authored or co-authored by Robert MacFarlane – one of my five favourite writers – collected in Ghostways.

Ness, which I believe is meant to be read aloud, is neither quite poetry nor a play. It explores Orford Ness, a shingle spit in Suffolk—a place I know as a birding site and nature reserve, but one that has another deep, layered, secret history. Both disturbing and haunting, there are echoes for me of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.

 A holloway is a deeply worn, ancient path, sunken into the landscape. The… show more.