In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.
In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through “deep time”―the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present―he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk “hiding place” where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come. Woven through Macfarlane’s own travels are the unforgettable stories of descents into the underland made across history by explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers, all of whom have been drawn for different reasons to seek what Cormac McCarthy calls “the awful darkness within the world.”
Reviews:
Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/08/underland-by-robert-macfarlane-review
NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/books/review-underland-robert-macfarlane.html
The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/robert-macfarlane-underland/590632/
Videos, Films and Interviews:
1. Interview with Politics and Prose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWsRPNFfpDY
2. Interview with Book Lust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd853p8cxos
3. Documentary Film: Kiss the Ground is about regenerative agriculture and the importance and role of soil in solving climate change. https://kisstheground.com/
Local Caves and Caverns:
1. Crystal Cave: https://crystalcavepa.com/home/
2. Broomall Caves and Lenape: https://www.visitpa.com/region/lehigh-valley/mystery-unearthed-extraordinary-story-two-lenape-rock-shelters
3. Lost River Caverns: https://www.lostcave.com/sitef/index.php
Discussion Questions: (John will lead our discussion and here are his questions.)
