This book took a while. Apart from me being a slow reader, there was a lot to read and take in. The author has a wonderful way with language. His descriptive passages really make you feel like you’re there and also get a clear impression of his thoughts. An interesting example is the discussion of the coastline of Greenland, which was once joined to Europe. He refers to it making a “torn-page match” with the gneiss of the Outer Hebrides, which is a beautiful analogy IMHO.
He went to places that I will never go to [and many that I wouldn’t want to go to] - it is a privilege to travel there vicariously via this author.
I enjoyed the many bits of random information, for example:
- Potawatomi, a Native American language of the Great Plains region, includes the word puhpowee, which might be translated as ‘the force which causes mushrooms to push up from the earth overnight’. Potawatomi is a language abundant with verbs: 70 per cent of its words are verbs, compared to 30 per cent in English.
- In Norway there is a tiny village called Å.
- A moulin is hole in a glacier into which meltwater pours. They make interesting sounds
I will be reading more works by this author.
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