Helen Macdonald: Vesper Flights (2020, Penguin Random House)
English language
Published Dec. 21, 2020 by Penguin Random House.
Inevitably there is a sense of loss and sadness here ( how can there not be in nature writing today) but Macdonald retains her sense of wonder as well. I enjoyed these essays.
Written by a naturalist and historian, the book is mostly about birds and, at the same time, about everything. With scientific rigor, the natural world and complexities or human existence are compared and evaluated.
Do not simply file this away as feel-good animal stories. Macdonald is clever, challenging, and posses a devastating brilliance that cuts through, well, everything.
Macdonald is also a brilliant writer. This work is just one jaw-dropping turn of phrase after another.
The final set of essays are the most personal and at times feel like the loosest, and least focused. But for all the profundity of the early essays, these are the ones the scrape through grime of the world to see something glittering underneath.
Do read this one.
