Sublime

Aux États-Unis, c’est un héros national, c’est le protecteur de Yosemite, le sauveur des séquoias, le père fondateur de l’écologie politique, même s’il y a malentendu dans ce domaine. Et puis c’est un personnage fantasque et barbu, un vagabond magnifique, libre et plein d’humour, qui a laissé parmi les plus belles pages de nature writing, ce genre

In his book The Crofter and the Laird, the American author John McPhee journeys to Colonsay, the tiny Hebridean island that was the home of his ancestors. Here, he discovers, ‘almost every rise of ground, every beach, field, cliff, gully, cave, and skerry has a name’. The island has only 138 inhabitants, but 1,600 place names.

Joachim-Ernst Berendt, in his book The Third Ear,

Tom had read aloud a Seamus Heaney poem, ‘Blackberry Picking’, and was talking about landscape as a source of allegory, as well as political and social commentary. The challenge was to find fresh ways to describe nature, he said, to see its potential for secrets, for clues.

"I wanted to write about little-bitty people in a great big landscape, the way Turgenev does. I wanted to tell the story of that Northwest region, which I think is so wonderful. Most of all, I wanted to try to give the sense -- because it makes your life so interesting -- of knowing that you are alive in a generation that will die. Because the

His hands were large and expressive, and he had moved easily in his chair, as if he felt it a pleasure to inhabit a body of which he’d never been ashamed – he’d smelt not of soap or fragrance but of clean skin. His lips had looked as if they had ashes on them: ‘He needs to drink more water,’ said Thomas tenderly, ‘or he’ll get headaches.’