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rjtifft's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
rebel_rocketman's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
3.75
juliusiv's review against another edition
2.0
Mostly descriptions of the English countryside and birds. The "dissolving of human self" wasn't very clear, so really this is just a lot of the same thing over and over and over.
variousfictions's review against another edition
5.0
The Blackwater estuary between Maldon and West Mersea, where J. A. Baker observes and documents the daily movements of his decade-long obsession, is a place not too far from where I live. In under an hour, I'm wading through the same network of mudflats and saltmarshes while staring up at the swathes of sky that bore witness to the routine majesty and violence that Baker captures in his spellbinding diary.
"The oaks of the two woods were maned with spiky gold. A green woodpecker flew from the wet grass and clapped itself to the bole of a tree as though pulled in by a magnet. Above the moss and mustard of its back, the crown of its head smouldered vermilion, like scarlet agaric shining through a dark wood."
The book is littered with other such passages, and what struck me is how Baker finds ways of describing similar scenes with endless variation. He has a knack for wonderfully evocative similies embedded in sentences with the same poetic and feverish quality throughout. It's a joy to read.
"At two o'clock a crackling blackness of jackdaws swept up from the stubble and scattered out across the sky with a noise like dominoes being rattled together on a pub table."
You feel the Peregrine's looming presence in every moment, even when (perhaps most acutely when) its whereabouts are unknown. The behaviour and calls of the other birds alerting Baker to the Peregrine's proximity, when suddenly he spots it, silhouetted in a tree or atop a pylon. Watching. Waiting, before making its move to attack; stooping towards the ground at breakneck speed and lancing its target through the heart with a razor-sharp talon, or striking a blow with murderous velocity before returning to pick the bones clean in the killing fields of the now desolate landscape. There is death on almost every page. We are made profoundly aware of the brutal and unforgiving world these creatures inhabit.
But what is this book about really? I think Robert Macfarlane sums it up best in the foreword to the NYRB edition: "The Peregrine is not a book about watching a bird, it's a book about becoming a bird." Baker becomes the hawk and by the end of its reading, I defy anyone else not to have become it too.
"The oaks of the two woods were maned with spiky gold. A green woodpecker flew from the wet grass and clapped itself to the bole of a tree as though pulled in by a magnet. Above the moss and mustard of its back, the crown of its head smouldered vermilion, like scarlet agaric shining through a dark wood."
The book is littered with other such passages, and what struck me is how Baker finds ways of describing similar scenes with endless variation. He has a knack for wonderfully evocative similies embedded in sentences with the same poetic and feverish quality throughout. It's a joy to read.
"At two o'clock a crackling blackness of jackdaws swept up from the stubble and scattered out across the sky with a noise like dominoes being rattled together on a pub table."
You feel the Peregrine's looming presence in every moment, even when (perhaps most acutely when) its whereabouts are unknown. The behaviour and calls of the other birds alerting Baker to the Peregrine's proximity, when suddenly he spots it, silhouetted in a tree or atop a pylon. Watching. Waiting, before making its move to attack; stooping towards the ground at breakneck speed and lancing its target through the heart with a razor-sharp talon, or striking a blow with murderous velocity before returning to pick the bones clean in the killing fields of the now desolate landscape. There is death on almost every page. We are made profoundly aware of the brutal and unforgiving world these creatures inhabit.
But what is this book about really? I think Robert Macfarlane sums it up best in the foreword to the NYRB edition: "The Peregrine is not a book about watching a bird, it's a book about becoming a bird." Baker becomes the hawk and by the end of its reading, I defy anyone else not to have become it too.
gwit's review against another edition
5.0
Best read aloud.
Over the course of days and pages, sense and perspective shift, refract and reflect: terra firma to firmament, human to avian, observer observed. Literal ecstasy.
Over the course of days and pages, sense and perspective shift, refract and reflect: terra firma to firmament, human to avian, observer observed. Literal ecstasy.
alonelyreader04's review against another edition
5.0
For a bird, there are only two sorts of bird: their own sort, and those that are dangerous. No others exist. The rest are just harmless objects, like stones, or trees, or men when they are dead.
vanessauwu's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
4.75
8797999's review against another edition
4.0
A very beautifully written book on the Peregrine and nature and I can see why it is held in such high regard. Harking back to a time where there was less urbanisation of the rural areas, I'm sure the places described in the back are now part of a commuter belt. The writing is very good and lyrical and superbly written, as the afterword says such a highly regarded author with only 350 pages published across two works.
The only gflaw to the book is well it is real but seems somewhat stretched with the truth given how the author sees so many kills and remains of kills. Most people who have been out in the countryside and bird watchers would say it is incredible rare to find a dead bird let alone log 600 of them, even for the most ardent of bird watcher. It all sounds too implausable to me.
A wonderful account but blurry between fact and fiction regarding poetic license.
The audiobook is a treat narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
The only gflaw to the book is well it is real but seems somewhat stretched with the truth given how the author sees so many kills and remains of kills. Most people who have been out in the countryside and bird watchers would say it is incredible rare to find a dead bird let alone log 600 of them, even for the most ardent of bird watcher. It all sounds too implausable to me.
A wonderful account but blurry between fact and fiction regarding poetic license.
The audiobook is a treat narrated by Sir David Attenborough.