A LAND

by Jacquetta Hawkes ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Inevitably this will be defined as a book which does for the land what Rachel Carson did for the sea in The Sea Around By. To some extent this is true, but fundamentally it is an unsound premise. True, in that here again science (geology) is treated imaginatively and at times poetically. Unsound, in that A Land is specifically Britain, and this is the story of the millions of years that formed her land masses, and the effect of the structural development and changes on her people once life came into being. It is a fascinating study, dramatic and vivid and informed. As one reads, one has a sense of the infinitesimal part man has played in the past reaches of time; of the march of natural forces, the slow development of seasonal differences, of color, of fixed (even now to a doubtful degree) character of the land, the hills and mountains and lakes, the interrelation of sea and land. There are digressions, such as the chapter on the feeling for stone, the part it has played in building, which takes one beyond the British Isles; but in the main, the focus is on the structure of Britain, the developing lines of human settlement. A more difficult book to read than the Carson one, and for those who know nothing at first hand of Britain, it has a sort of remoteness. But in its way it is a challenge and of absorbing interest.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 0807085111

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories: NONFICTION