Roger Deakin: Wildwood

I just read Roger Deakin’s Wildwood: A Journey through Trees (Penguin, 2007). I give it my highest recommendation. Calling this book “nature writing” is like calling Bruce Chatwin's

work “travel writing”: accurate, but only superficially. Certainly, every chapter is full of keenly-observed accounts of trees, forests, rivers, birds, insects, etc. But Deakin is just as interested in observing people as he is the natural world. In fact the subject of the book, despite its title, isn't so much woods or trees; it's really a set of examples of people and trees coexisting in mutually beneficial ways. Deakin shows us people cultivating trees as sources of food, fuel, raw material, inspiration, or some combination of those. Some of his examples have continued since the dawn of humanity (harvesting apples and walnuts); some are almost-lost ancient skills being re-discovered (laying hedges); and some describe humans and trees adapting to each other in a fumbling attempt to establish a viable working relationship (the Australian outback). The people Deakin introduces us to are just as varied as the trees and habitats: teachers, artists, farmers, woodworkers, moth enthusiasts, linguists and foresters.

A standout section tells of his journey to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to see forests of fruit and nut trees in the setting where they first became domesticated. Decades ago, when I was newly interested in woodworking and fascinated by apple trees, reading about the central Asian terrain where wild apples were first domesticated, and still abound in myriad forms, intrigued me. The region remains sparsely populated and difficult to get to. Where I only fantasized about traveling someday, Deakin went; and his account both satisfies my imagination and fires it. After all, who wouldn't want to visit Eden? And he does make the Tian Shan Mountains sound Edenic.

My favorite books make me want more. They make me want to re-read them; they make me want to read everything their author has published; they make me want to put the book down and try for myself what they describe. They make me want to write books like them. This is one of those. I want to re-read Wildwood, and as I read I want an excellent atlas alongside the book, so I can see where Deakin is going. I want a notebook alongside me as I read, to make a list so I can read all the books he mentions. I want to see work by the artists he profiles. I want to sleep outdoors amid fields and forests and riverbanks. I want to try my hand at laying a hedge. I want to build a little mobile bedroom. Not so sure about flying to Kazakhstan!