快猫短视频

The tradition of the English nature writer is long, proud and distinctly genteel. Its origins lie with the pioneering 18th-century curate Gilbert White, writing from his inherited family home in Selborne, Hampshire. He features in a fine new piece of nature writing, (Doubleday/Transworld) when the author observes that 鈥渢he parson had the time to stand and stare鈥�.

That author, John Lewis-Stempel, also has the parson鈥檚 luxury. A successful writer with a string of nature books behind him, he explores 12 English landscapes, from the Thames estuary to the Cornish coast via a beechwood in Buckinghamshire, a Yorkshire moor and a Norfolk broad.

There isn鈥檛 much of a thesis: the title, 鈥淓ngland鈥�, feels more like an envelope than an idea. He goes to a place, mostly rural, describes what he sees and uses that as a springboard to tell you stuff about nature. And he does it very well. The writing is full of acute observations and striking metaphors. A passing kingfisher leaves 鈥渁n atomic particle of cobalt to die in the air behind it鈥�. A river smells 鈥渓ustral, weedy, dog wet, vital. Hormonal.鈥�

Knowledge of nature

His knowledge, though, is the really impressive thing. Lewis-Stempel knows beech trees are anemophilous (wind-pollinated) and that the lark鈥檚 vocal organ, the syrinx, lacks a cartilage fold called a pessulus, so produces a vibrato. He separates the anadromous salmon (migrating from salt to fresh water to breed) from the catadromous eel (the opposite).

He is also well up on agri-science. He can pick apart the disadvantages, for wildlife, of a silage cut over haymaking, and confidently quarrel with journalist George Monbiot over the sources of the pollution of the river Wye. (鈥淚t鈥檚 the phosphate,鈥� says Lewis-Stempel.) He even cites scientific papers, which is untypical of the Greater English Nature Writer.

All this combines with his seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of every creature and wildflower in England 鈥� and an astonishing degree of luck and skill in spotting them. He sees otters, a seal, an Arctic char (in Lake Windermere), vole babies and adder鈥檚 eggs 鈥� even a dormouse.

There are moments when this omniscience falters. It isn鈥檛 exactly true that grass needs a minimum air temperature of 6掳C to grow in the UK. It depends on the species, and the key factor is soil temperature. Watching his Shetland pony nibbling on a willow tree, Lewis-Stempel repeats the popular myth that the willow 鈥渃ontains aspirin鈥�, and claims that his animals are practising zoopharmacognosy (animal self-medication). While willows do contain the related molecule salicin, this isn鈥檛 quite the same as acetylsalicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin. That said, salicin and other molecules in willow can produce slight analgesic effects, so OK, maybe the pony knows something after all.

鈥楲one enraptured males鈥�

But quibbling with a book so generous with information is too easy. A more serious complaint is that the encounters with nature documented are rather idealised. They are also solitary 鈥� the mess of human existence is mostly out of frame. Lewis-Stempel, in short, is one of those white, middle-class 鈥渓one enraptured males鈥� evoked by poet Kathleen Jamie in a review of another title for the London Review of Books. He even mentions a waxed jacket, a Labrador (called Plum) and family who fought at Agincourt. There is also his column for and his landholdings 鈥� the 40 acres in Herefordshire he has written about so brilliantly in the past, plus the farmhouse in France.

Why we need to be honest with children about the brutality of nature

It can be hard to explain the realities of the natural world to children, but we need to acknowledge the suffering of wild things, says Richard Smyth

None of this matters a jot, except that it forms part of a package with a vision of England some will find comforting and others excluding 鈥� and which I found unoriginal. When he celebrates a particular kind of chocolate-box English village as 鈥渉ow you think of England鈥�, it assumes a lot about who you are.

Such objections aren鈥檛 inverted snobbery. Thoughtful writers like Richard Smyth (a distinctly Northern, working-class voice whose favourite bird, splendidly, is the pigeon) have skilfully traced the links between conservation and conservatism, the wilderness ideal and colonialism, and the folk tendency and nativism. Lewis-Stempel doesn鈥檛 confront uncomfortable thoughts. For him, 鈥渢he countryside of England is the greatest work of art in the world鈥�.

A different take on nature

It can look different to people whose ancestors didn鈥檛 fight at Agincourt. Michael Malay has just won the prestigious Wainwright prize for nature writing for his Late Light (see box, below), describing his love for the English outdoors despite feeling 鈥渟elf-conscious, aware of my out-of-placeness鈥� as an Indonesian-Australian immigrant. For a radically different view, there is Australian Richard Flanagan in his astoundingly original memoir, (Chatto & Windus/Knopf). He called the English countryside 鈥渁 long-ago poisoned land, domesticated and dead, full of the sounds of diesel and the odour of chemicals鈥� 鈥� a place local people, inexplicably, 鈥渘evertheless regarded as bucolic and Edenic鈥�. People like Lewis-Stempel.

To be fair, England is anything but ignorant of environmental problems. Lewis-Stempel has harsh words for agri-business and knows more than most about its unfriendly wildlife practices. After rhapsodising about swimming in the Wye as a child, he admits given today鈥檚 pollution, he 鈥渨ould not go into long stetches of its flowing waters in chest-waders鈥�. And at a downbeat moment, he stares glumly out of the train at 鈥渟pavined diesel-dosed bushes of buddleia. Creeping bramble, as bad as barbed wire. Not much to see.鈥� But then that鈥檚 Urban England. Not the Countryside.

In Lewis-Stempel's encounters with nature, the mess of human existence is mostly out of frame

You don鈥檛 have to look far for less comfortable perspectives. Publishers have fallen over themselves to find and promote a more diverse range of authors, and the result, in environmental, landscape and nature writing, has been an efflorescence.

Where to find the best new nature writing

There are plenty such writers at work in the UK beyond Malay and Smyth. Try Jamie鈥檚 new book, Cairn (see box), or her (Sort of Books). There is also Jini Reddy, who explores belonging and otherness in (Bloomsbury Wildlife) and (Bradt Guides). Dara McAnulty, a neurodiverse young writer from Northern Ireland, is another Wainwright prizewinner. Or Noreen Masud (see box), whose haunting A Flat Place tackles English landscapes in the context of post-traumatic stress disorder and the legacy of a postcolonial age, melding memoir and nature writing in a startling way.

Internationally, cross-genre writing has proved fecund, often in the context of activism. There is Nemonte Nenquimo鈥檚 , with Mitch Anderson (Wildfire/Abrams Books), about the Amazon. Robin Wall Kimmerer鈥檚 2013 book Braiding Sweetgrass (see box) is still a beacon for exploring scientific and Indigenous plant knowledge. And we must mention feminist-environmentalist Rebecca Solnit for her wonderful (Canongate/Penguin Books) and , (Granta Books/Penguin Books), which explores the English relationship with nature.

尝别飞颈蝉-厂迟别尘辫别濒鈥檚 England is richly informed and beautifully written. It is deeply rooted. Indigenous, even. But, sometimes, outsiders have more interesting things to say.