Stanley Donwood

I first came across Robert Macfarlane in a book called Lost Words that he created with Jackie Morris. It was beautiful, both visually and wordly. A children's dictionary was removing some words that were hardly ever used and Macfarlane and Morris were horrified. They were words to do with nature. What happens if you can't look up words that are to do with the natural world? Fern, heather, kingfisher, otter, raven, willow, wren. So Holloway held few surprises for me.

Holloways are sunken paths show more or shady lanes, tracks that have been worn over centuries 'landmarks that speak of habit rather than sudden-ness'. Most holloways begin as ways to markets, the sea or pilgrimages and have tributaries and branches. The description makes me think of Watery Lane near me, a covered over track, now tarmaced, that leads down to the sea with branches off that end in housing but would have once led to a singular dwelling, hostelry or other tracks.

Greenways, droveways, stanways, stoweys, bradways, whiteways, reddaways, radways, rudways, halsways, roundways, trods, footpaths, field-paths, leys, dykes, drongs, sarns, snickets, bostles, shutes, driftways, licjways, sandways, ridings, halter-paths, cartways, carneys, causeways, here-paths-& also fearways, dangerways, coffin-paths, corpseways & ghostways.
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Each part of the country probably has their own words for them. I know snickets which my paternal grandparents uses for the pathways around them in Exmouth.

The book is an evocation of two trips by Macfarlane to find a particular holloway in Dorset, once with Roger Deakin and then with Donwoods and Richards. It is a very slim book, but just the right amount of Macfarlane/Richards' writing as I can take. Like a too-rich chocolate cake, his longer books are more than I can take. The writing is poetic, descriptively historic and linguistically rich. I am unsure which parts Macfarlane wrote and which parts Richards wrote or whether the words were created jointly.

Down in the dusk of the holloway, the landscape's pasts felt excitingly alive & coexistent, as if history had pleated back on itself, bringing discontinuous moments into contact & creating correspondences that survived as a territorial imperative to concealment, escape and encounter.
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There is no map of this place, you have to explore, read the landscape and be prepared to slither and slide but once in it you are back in time and still present.

Looking out from the lower turf ramparts of Pilsdon Pen we sight a crescent moon of hills - a vein within a leaf spring - arcing to the coast. Somewhere in there lies our quarry; a lane diving into the dark.

An inky eye ammonite.

A hollow, foot-querned way.
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A quern is a hand-operated mill to grind grain.

What the book also contains is a testament to male friendship. Out exploring and discovering on foot or bicycle, carrying few things other than blunt knives and alcohol but also books of poetry to read out aloud at night by the fire and an openness to soak up what the landscape is telling you.

The illustrations by Stanley Donwood - now there is a surname - show the closed overness, the hidden and the tunnel-like depths and reminded me of altered books created by Alexi Francis.

I loved it. show less

On a shingle island, a figure called the Armourer is at work. He is standing in the Green chapel and is assisted by the Engineer, the botanist the physicist and the ornithologist. He is invoking the Firing song, a dark ceremony that will bring destruction. Five human-like forms are converging on the Green Chapel and are intent on stopping him.

She makes green & green fills the air around her & warps hard into objects within her radiance.

There is Drift, who is a world shaper, He who is water, show more She who is earth, They who are rock and As who is the very air around. They are moving through land, sea, time and space to the Green Chapel where they will become one, where they will become Ness. They want their island back.

Listen. Listen now. Listen to Ness

This is a stunning if slender book. It is part story and part poem, with taut writing that writhes with dark metaphor. Macfarlane takes familiar tropes from folk horror, dystopia, science fiction and drapes them over this unreal landscape to make a thriller that is as troubling as it is surreal. A hagstone allowing a glimpse of the future and the past separate each section. This unreal landscape of shifting shingle and harsh military structures is bought to chilling life by the stunning art from Donwood that captures the eeriness of the place. Very highly recommended. show less

'Listen. Listen now. Listen to Ness.'

Haunting, mesmerising, lyrical, sublime. This is a little gem of a book - prose verging on poetry, wonderfully illustrated, it is a myth-making ode to the stupidity of mankind and the force of Nature.

If you don't know about the history of Orford Ness I would suggest that you do a bit of research before you dive into this, for you will appreciate the 'story' more and see how beautifully the illustrations capture the sense of the place, and the rhythm of show more the words. In such a short book, you will rail at the damage we have done to our planet (plastics, war and bombs) and you will wonder at the beauty and resilience of Nature, rewilding this place and becoming a haven for wildlife.

A timely and hugely moving song to forces stronger and more important than humanity, you must read this book. 5 stars. show less

The word "pretentious" comes to mind, but I feel like even that's giving this empty story too much thought. "Bad Island" feels like Stanley Donwood was having a bad day where he hated the world, looked at a Banksy painting, thought, "I could do that but better!" and then made this book. Except it wasn't better and yet somehow it still got published. There is nothing to enjoy about this book:

-the story is bleak and dark, sure, but not the good kind of bleak and dark- it's just totally show more uninspired bleak and dark. The author follows the thought process of life > dinosaurs > volcano kills dinosaurs > life begins again > civilization develops > humans build factories > humans kill earth > the end. It leaves the reader finishing that book and thinking, "...AND?" Donwood has added nothing to the conversation.
-the artwork is supremely dull. I'm kinda impressed with just HOW dull it is? Maybe on a technical level it's good; like, it has strong lines and a stark use of just black and white and emphasizes what an uninspired story this is, but nothing about it stands out. I'm trying to be objective about this, but I really mean that there is zilch that makes me think this is good artwork.
-I saw someone use the word "gimmicky" in their review and that's the exact word I wanted to use. Super gimmicky and not worth the little bit of time it takes to read. show less